NY Times for Kerry

Nick Gillespie | October 17, 2004

The NY Times has endorsed John Kerry for prez (surprise!), writing:

We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry's wide knowledge and clear thinking - something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. And while Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.

More important, sez the Gray Lady, Bush has really stunk up the joint by appointing John Ashcroft attorney general, pushing a series of right-wing nutbags into the federal judiciary, starting an unncessary war, etc. I won't be voting for Bush anyway, but I'm not convinced by the Times' bill of particulars against Bush (for instance, they pillory him for cutting taxes during a recession and assert without evidence that a Kerry win would be better for financial markets). Still, the paper does lay out a comprehensive case.

Where they go haywire is in their praise of Kerry: "Mr. Kerry has an aggressive and in some cases innovative package of ideas about energy, aimed at addressing global warming and oil dependency." And, needless to say, they're quiet on their contribution to the whole WMD story that helped create support for the war in Iraq, pretending that 'twas simply the Bushies who snookered the American people.

Whole thing here.

Reason endorsed a dreamboat candidate for president back in April, knowing full well we'll end up with a dud. Huggable posters of both are online here.

Comments

|10.17.04 @ 11:26AM|#

Quelle surprise!

|10.17.04 @ 4:08PM|#

The Susking article in the magazine is the far more interesting peice. I'm sure Reason approves of Bush's faith-based policies and his disdain for the "reality-based community". That sounds like Reason to me!

The Lonewacko Blog|10.17.04 @ 4:10PM|#

The NYT endorsement is dismissed here. The Chicago Tribune's endorsement of Bush is discussed here. See my comments at both.

|10.17.04 @ 4:13PM|#

Is Kerry so bad that the Reason writers would rather have four more years of Bush? Like it or not, those are the only real choices we have. Maybe I'll vote Libertarian in 2008, when the stakes will hopefully be less high and I can afford to waste a vote. Right now, the choice is between a guy who kind of sucks versus a guy who absolutely does.

The Lonewacko Blog|10.17.04 @ 4:14PM|#

The Suskind article referenced above is "Without a Doubt". I provide excerpts here, but reading the whole 10 pages is recommended.

|10.17.04 @ 5:11PM|#

I wonder if the NYT actually believes the country cares just who it endorses. It shouldn't.

|10.17.04 @ 8:35PM|#

Lonewacko, I linked to what you suggested and have quickly returned here for refuge, rattled.
I'm an old fart who never ventures beyond the circumferential highway surrounding Sinincincinnati.
Who was that Max Darkheart fellow? Anything like Max Headroom?
With you, there is some kind of troika, nicht wahr?

Jennifer, you are right as usual. Dubya deserves to be fired.
I'm trying to do my part by not voting.

|10.17.04 @ 8:51PM|#

The tag line from the Suskind article:

''Faith can cut in so many ways,'' he said. ''If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness -- that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection.

''Where people often get lost is on this very point,'' he said after a moment of thought. ''Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want.''

And what is that?

''Easy certainty.''

|10.17.04 @ 10:42PM|#

"He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change."

Now if that isn't making lemonade out of lemons, I don't know what is.

Aslan
(please visit www.logictimes.com)

|10.18.04 @ 1:23AM|#

Jennifer

had you been paying attention, the smart folks here put the idea that this election matters in its graveyard plot a few days ago. Why do you think this election matters even one whit? If anything, I can count on the move to socialized health care and the continuation of rampant homophobia from the Democrats, so why the big nod to Kerry?

|10.18.04 @ 3:49AM|#

"Right now, the choice is between a guy who kind of sucks versus a guy who absolutely does."

Well, she's right, Kerry absolutely sucks.

|10.18.04 @ 6:02AM|#

A Kerry-nominated Supreme Court justice would be far less frightening than one picked by Bush. Kerry hasn't been requiring people to sign the equivalent of loyalty oaths to get into his rallies. Also, I notice that "Fark" today is carrying yet another story of people being ejected from a Bush rally. This time, it was three teachers wearing T-shirts with the presumably partisan slogan "Protect our Civil Liberties." Yikes! No wonder the Secret Service didn't want the president to have to see that!

Yet posters here think that none of this matters so much as being allowed to keep an extra few bucks' worth of taxes each month.

In another story, Congress is thinking of raising the nation's credit limit, so we can go even further into debt. We can pay more taxes now to help reduce the deficit, or pay a LOT more taxes later to pay it off. I'd rather get cracking on it sooner than later.

|10.18.04 @ 7:32AM|#

Jennifer

As if a President Kerry has given you any reason to think that the deficit will disappear other than his lip service and falsified mathematics. Furthermore, political rallies are private and, given the intense, irrational Bush hatred this year and the fact that some protestors still came in, wouldn't you put out some Terms of Agreement? Furthermore, reference "John Kerry's Rotten Record on Civil Liberties" which, I think, just may have been published here first!

Finally, I can characterize your side just as unfairly as you did mine. "Those lefty libertarians, they only want to smoke pot and swear in school. What do they care of money?"

Sounds pretty crappy either way, doesn't it? I don't trash your priorities, because freedoms shouldn't be ranked. Either you have freedom or you don't, and having you unfairly caricature the righty-libertarians as just wanting a few dollars more was pretty shitty.

|10.18.04 @ 7:42AM|#

President Kerry, I think would advise young people to marry well and have a great tax attorney.

|10.18.04 @ 9:26AM|#

"Bush isn't really going to force you to go to church."

...At least not in his first 100 days.

In the meantime he'll get the FDA to stop over-the-counter contraceptives, put bible-beaters on the bench, prosecuting adult film makers, fund faulty "abstinence only" sex ed, wink and nod at "intelligent design" in public schools, further curtail stem-cell research, and shift the welfare state (the same "Welfare State" the GOP bitched about for years) from social workers to holy rollers through "faith-based initiatives."

Yeah, I'd like to keep a few more bucks in my wallet too. However, the economic benefit of tax breaks are going to be pointless when our lives are being run by the American Taliban and the Mullahs Bush, Ashcroft, Robertson, Reed, and Fawell.

|10.18.04 @ 9:31AM|#

This struck me, Ayn Randian predeicting "...the continuation of rampant homophobia from the Democrats."

As recently as the late 90s, supporting civil unions that gave all the rights of marriage to gay couples was such a radically pro-gay position that Howard Dean very nearly lost his re-election campaign because of it - IN VERMONT.

Today, John Kerry, the first presidential candidate ever to endorse civil unions but who does not support gay marriage, is accused of "rampant homophobia."

The world really is moving under our feet these days, isn't it?

|10.18.04 @ 9:57AM|#

Regarding the "selection of audience" canard:

Bill (and Hillary) did (and still do) the exact same thing when in power. It's not unusual. The only right-out instance of this not happening that I remember during the Clinton years was his "town-hall" meeting at Ohio State to explain with Albright and Berger their reasons for joining the NATO campaign in the Balkans.

Then again, most of the hecklers were those who would tend to agree with most of Clinton's policies under ordinary circumstances, so...

|10.18.04 @ 10:11AM|#

Wasn't there a guy in a chicken suit who followed Bill around at his rallies?

Wasn't there a guy dressed up as a cigarette who followed Dole around?

You're full of it, Timon.

|10.18.04 @ 11:31AM|#

v

|10.18.04 @ 11:51AM|#

v?

|10.18.04 @ 11:55AM|#

Good point Joe. However, if you read the polls around 70% of Americans oppose the notion of gay unions, period. Statistically speaking, a significant portion of those folks have got to be one stripe of Democrat or another.

On the other hand, I'll give the Dems as a party points for at least paying some attention to the issue. Not enough for me to want to acually VOTE for them, but it keeps the debate in circulation.

|10.18.04 @ 11:59AM|#

"v"

Somebody call Marc Singer and Michael Ironside!!!

|10.18.04 @ 2:50PM|#

Jen

I went to a Bush rally in Reno NV a few days ago, and I didn't have to sign any loyalty oath. I dont think anyone did.

I did have to go through metal detectors, where they cought 6 people trying to get in with guns.

I heard on a libertarian non-Bush supporting radio station that they were pleasantly suprised because the judges that Bush was nominating were strict constructionalists, constitutionalists.

Maybe Reason can do a thing on the judges that each candidate are trying to get it to see which would be more likely to follow the constitution.

|10.18.04 @ 4:59PM|#

Is there something wrong with carrying a concealed firearm? Lost of people in the southwest do it.

Does it pose a threat, or not?

|10.18.04 @ 6:07PM|#

Joe,
I carry a firearm all the time. Sometimes concealed sometimes not. (I did not take mine to the rally, I left it in my car, just as I do when I enter federal and state buildings when not on the job).

It is probably a good idea not allow people to carry them into political rallies.

Before your post I thought that it is well known that you are not supposed to bring firearms when you go to see the president speak. Under that assumption I believed that the ones who tried to sneak weapons into that rally intended to harm the man.

I am guessing the secret service were under the same assumption, that is why they had the fellows arrested.

|10.19.04 @ 12:49PM|#

"It is probably a good idea not allow people to carry them into political rallies."

But it's a good idea to allow people to bring them into a liquor store while I'm buying beer?

Either ordinary people walking around with guns under their jackets poses a threat, or it does not. Conservatives like to argue that it does not, right up until the point that their godhead might be in the presence of a concealed weapon, at which point ordinary citizens with hidden firearms become serious threats. I'm just pointing out the hypocricy.

|10.19.04 @ 2:58PM|#

joe,

Your counterargument consists of asking me (rhetorically) if there was a guy who followed Bill around in a chicken suit to rallies and if there was a guy dressed as a cigarette following DOLE around?

Quality.

My point was that this was not unusual and in particular happened at least when Hillary was speaking and many times when Bill was. Audience selection ain't unheard of.