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The New York Times | Endorsement
Sunday 17 October 2004
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Senator John Kerry goes toward the election with a base that is built more on opposition to George W. Bush than loyalty
to his own candidacy. But over the last year we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the
status quo. We like what we've seen. He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a
modest improvement on the incumbent.
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There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure. Nearly four years ago, after the
Supreme Court awarded him the presidency, Mr. Bush came into office amid popular expectation that he would acknowledge
his lack of a mandate by sticking close to the center. Instead, he turned the government over to the radical right.
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The president who lost the popular vote got a real mandate on Sept. 11, 2001. With the grieving country united behind
him, Mr. Bush had an unparalleled opportunity to ask for almost any shared sacrifice. The only limit was his
imagination.
He asked for another tax cut and the war against Iraq.
The president's refusal to drop his tax-cutting agenda when the nation was gearing up for war is perhaps the most
shocking example of his inability to change his priorities in the face of drastically altered circumstances. Mr. Bush
did not just starve the government of the money it needed for his own education initiative or the Medicare drug bill. He
also made tax cuts a higher priority than doing what was needed for America's security; 90 percent of the cargo unloaded
every day in the nation's ports still goes uninspected.
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Like the tax cuts, Mr. Bush's obsession with Saddam Hussein seemed closer to zealotry than mere policy. He sold the war
to the American people, and to Congress, as an antiterrorist campaign even though Iraq had no known working relationship
with Al Qaeda. His most frightening allegation was that Saddam Hussein was close to getting nuclear weapons. It was
based on two pieces of evidence. One was a story about attempts to purchase critical materials from Niger, and it was
the product of rumor and forgery. The other evidence, the purchase of aluminum tubes that the administration said were
meant for a nuclear centrifuge, was concocted by one low-level analyst and had been thoroughly debunked by
administration investigators and international vetting. Top members of the administration knew this, but the selling
went on anyway. None of the president's chief advisers have ever been held accountable for their misrepresentations to
the American people or for their mismanagement of the war that followed.
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We have specific fears about what would happen in a second Bush term, particularly regarding the Supreme Court. The
record so far gives us plenty of cause for worry. Thanks to Mr. Bush, Jay Bybee, the author of an infamous Justice
Department memo justifying the use of torture as an interrogation technique, is now a federal appeals court judge.
Another Bush selection, J. Leon Holmes, a federal judge in Arkansas, has written that wives must be subordinate to their
husbands and compared abortion rights activists to Nazis.
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Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing
with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do
is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their
general character. It's on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.
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