JOLLY DAYS

Let's Endorse

Bush has blown his chance and should be voted out. Kerry isn't a good choice, but he is the only choice.

Bush has the correct idea in one crucial area: a proactive approach in fighting terrorism. I still haven't heard Kerry describe the sociopaths we are fighting as “evil”. This description of our enemy as evil is more than rhetorical relish. Reagan labeled the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and although it at first sounded as though Reagan had slipped into a disturbingly familiar movie-as-reality cascade, Reagan actually clarified something that needed simple clarity.

Kerry doesn't get that, but a country that is weakened internally can't fight anything except itself. So Kerry is the choice by default. If we are going to win the war on terror, we need to affirm and strengthen the homeland. I doubt Kerry can pull off a victory — unseating a president in wartime is a daunting political feat — but it would be better for the country if Kerry did indeed win.

Bush may slam Kerry as a flip-flopper, a dumb slogan from the day it was born, but American newspapers, fwiw, are flip-flopping themselves:

And more setbacks for Bush: The Detroit News, which has never endorsed a Democrat, and which backed Bush in 2000, announced that it would sit out the 2004 election, not happy with either candidate. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, another Bush backer in 2000, said the same thing today in an editorial titled “No One to Champion.” A third Bush supporter in 2000, The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., also declared neutrality today.

The Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily News in Los Angeles, the Orlando Sentinel, and The Commercial-Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., were among the 24 papers that backed Bush in 2000 but today chose Kerry.

This is Xeni at BoingBoing:

For us, the choice for Kerry involves simple things. Justice, liberty, privacy, transparency. Freedom of speech, thought, and technological expression. A woman's right to choose. Equal access to health care, education, and economic opportunity for all. The rule of law, at home and abroad. Peace. The enduring value of the American Constitution.

I don't know how electing Kerry will achieve “peace”. You need others to agree to that one. But Xeni is correct about the rest of it.