The Times Union (N.Y.) October 31, 2004
 

Kerry for president

The Times Union endorses him as the candidate who will take the country back to the center, where it should be.

George W. Bush was elected president four years ago, under circumstances that remain divisive and controversial to this day, vowing all the while to unite the country. He pledged to be a "compassionate conservative," which no less of a master of politics than Bill Clinton says ranks as one of the great political slogans of the ages. He said he'd use military might only as a last resort.

Such grand promises, such a spectacular failure.

This is the state of the nation where Mr. Bush now seeks re-election:

Its citizens are more polarized than at any other time in modern memory.

Civil liberties are exposed to graver danger than they've been in more than half a century. Mr. Bush has allowed this, and perhaps even caused it.

The country is at war -- a potentially unwinnable war, launched at Mr. Bush's command and under highly questionable circumstances

Its citizens, and its armed forces, have been shamed and disgraced by a prisoner abuse scandal that Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush's defense secretary, attempted to minimize.

The budget deficit is once again out of control because tax reductions have not been accompanied by appropriate cost-containment or spending cuts.

Policies crafted by the Bush administration have left us with an environment that is no longer adequately protected.

Nothing in the way of a comprehensive solution to the Social Security dilemma has been proposed.

The nearly universal good will that existed toward America following 9/11 attacks has been all but destroyed. In some cases, it has turned into ill will.

There is good reason to worry for a country led for four more years by Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Fortunately, there's a welcome and credible alternative.

We heartily endorse Sen. John Kerry for president. In almost every way, he'd be better at such a crucial job at such a critical time.

Mr. Kerry, we're confident, would govern from reasonably close to the political center, as Mr. Clinton did. Mr. Kerry's long career in public life, dating back to his days as a Navy officer and then an anti-war activist, reveals a pragmatic but principled man. It reveals an unusually sharp intellect, and a president capable of seeing not only the dangerous world that Mr. Bush sees, but the complicated world that Mr. Bush will never see.

Unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Kerry would be a president capable of learning from the mistakes that are inevitable in that job. Already Mr. Kerry has acknowledged that he'll have to scale back some of his spending plans because of a $422 billion deficit.

Mr. Bush, though, continues to govern as if deficits don't matter. He clings to a policy of tax cuts that will likely do more long-term harm than short-term benefit. And he's all too willing to spend the country's money. This President is no fiscal conservative.

Mr. Bush has helped to create an economy where median household income is lower now than it was when he took office, and where about five million more people are without health insurance. Yes, more jobs again are being created than are being eliminated. But they're not particularly good jobs. The majority of them pay less than the median wage. At one point, the Bush administration wanted to reclassify fast-food jobs as factory jobs, so the decline in the manufacturing sector wouldn't look so bad.

Then, of course, there's the Iraq war. Much has been made of Mr. Kerry's position by Mr. Bush and others, almost all of it in an attempt to disqualify him for the presidency. It's true that Mr. Kerry supported the option of invading Iraq, if that's what it took to disarm Saddam Hussein of the chemical and biological weapons that Mr. Bush insisted he possessed. Here is what Mr. Kerry actually said on the Senate floor in the fall of 2002:

"The vote that I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint conference with our allies."

Pursuit of the policy Mr. Kerry suggested two years ago might have very well prevented this disastrous war. There's no reason to think he wouldn't live up to his determination never to lead the country into an unnecessary war.

Mr. Bush is either unwilling or incapable of fully recognizing the folly of going to war under circumstances that didn't warrant it. Or of doing so without adequate support from our allies, or perhaps worst of all, without any notion of how to secure the peace.

Iraq today is more of a menace to the well-being of the United States, and to the lives of Americans, than it was in March of 2003. The war there undermines the legitimate war that began on Sept. 11, 2001. That's the one against terrorism, best fought at home by strengthening national security, and in the mountains of Afghanistan by hunting down Osama bin Laden. To confuse Iraq with Sept. 11, as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney do, is to make an incorrigible mess of foreign policy.

Nor is the Constitution safe from Mr. Bush. He foolishly supports amending the Constitution to more clearly define marriage, a matter that Mr. Kerry more sensibly would leave up to the states, and one we believe government ought not be expected to define at all.

The nature and future of the Supreme Court is at stake as well. No president should make support for abortion rights, or any other single issue, a condition for nomination to the court. Mr. Bush has stated that he will not make the matter of abortion a litmus test, but we believe there's reason to doubt his sincerity. Mr. Kerry has stated that he will appoint only those who support the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling.

Appointments to the Supreme Court must not be ideologues placed there to advocate for a particular position. We encourage our next president to search for and appoint the most reasonable and qualified justices.

It's something of a redundancy to talk of the seriousness of an election. To think of any election as unimportant is to begin to undermine democracy itself. But Tuesday's election does have an unusual urgency to it. Mr. Bush has neither been the kind of president he said he'd be, nor the kind of leader the country needs in a time that's neither peaceful nor especially prosperous.

We're convinced that a vote for Mr. Kerry and Sen. John Edwards is a vote to begin the long process of making the country more free, more secure and more respected.