But really, I read on Laura Rozen's excellent blog that the New Yorker has actually endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its long history. So of course I had to check it out. The editors systematically take down Bush for his lack of "uniting," his ill-advised tax cuts, his environmental policy, his breaching of civil liberties through the Patriot Act, his hostility to science, and last, but not least, his incompetence in monitoring the terrorist threat prior to 9/11, and his complete botching of the Iraq War.
You can read all that bad stuff about Bush yourself. I'd like to tell you what they say about John Kerry:
But when his foes sought to destroy him rather than to debate him they found no scandals and no evidence of bad faith in his past. In the face of infuriating and scurrilous calumnies, he kept the sort of cool that the thin-skinned and painfully insecure incumbent cannot even feign during the unprogrammed give-and-take of an electoral debate. Kerry’s mettle has been tested under fire—the fire of real bullets and the political fire that will surely not abate but, rather, intensify if he is elected—and he has shown himself to be tough, resilient, and possessed of a properly Presidential dose of dignified authority. While Bush has pandered relentlessly to the narrowest urges of his base, Kerry has sought to appeal broadly to the American center. In a time of primitive partisanship, he has exhibited a fundamentally undogmatic temperament. In campaigning for America’s mainstream restoration, Kerry has insisted that this election ought to be decided on the urgent issues of our moment, the issues that will define American life for the coming half century. That insistence is a measure of his character. He is plainly the better choice. As observers, reporters, and commentators we will hold him to the highest standards of honesty and performance. For now, as citizens, we hope for his victory.
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