The next president of the United States will come into office in January at a time of desperate need.On employment, the next president must find ways to replace the manufacturing jobs flowing out of the country. On homeland security, he must tighten our borders and ports of entry. On the environment, he must be willing to think first about protecting people and the quality of air and water, instead of reflexively catering to industry.
And he must possess the ability to win allies, both at home and abroad, by keeping an open mind that is willing to set aside old rivalries and petty disputes in the cause of serving a higher mission, be that mission improving the health care of Americans or defeating international terrorists.
Because John Kerry is best suited to this job, The Anniston Star endorses him for president.
The Massachusetts senator offers the most able mind, the better set of diplomatic skills, the wiser plans for the economy and a calm but tough demeanor exhibited during his career and this campaign — particularly during the three debates with his rival, President George W. Bush.
Unfortunately, the next president’s job is made all the more difficult thanks to the current president’s disastrous folly in Iraq, where 120,000 of our troops sit on a powder keg threatening to further destabilize the Middle East.
LOST OPPORTUNITIES
President Bush was handed a precious gift following the awful tragedy of 9/11. We Americans were desperate for a leader. Most were willing to look beyond Bush’s obvious faults — his inarticulate speaking style, woeful lack of curiosity, deference to big polluters and closed and secretive operating style. With 3,000 of our countrymen dead, we craved a leader who would hunt down al-Qaida while rallying the nation to our new call. We should have attacked both terrorists and the root causes of terrorism — religious fundamentalism and poverty. Sadly, we didn’t. Instead, we’ve become bogged down in a war of Bush’s own choosing.
The president spent the last three years siphoning off that post-9/11 support in the name of partisan advantage, political payoffs and wild-eyed theories that are most decidedly against the American way.
The Patriot Act, while making needed corrections in protecting the nation from terrorists, went too far in stretching Constitutional protections.
Instead of using his energy policies to recognize that our oil dependency funds many Islamic terrorist groups, Bush pushed for more of the same, provided that his stateside campaign contributors got a cut. His tax policies have overwhelmingly rewarded the richest 1 percent of Americans while sticking the rest of the nation (and future generations) with record deficits.
The relentless chorus for more tax cuts in a time of war is the surest sign that this president aims to destroy government programs by weighting the nation down with huge deficits.
UNWISE RUSH TO WAR
In Iraq, Bush foolishly rushed to war, rejecting the wise counsel of all sorts of friends, including trusted advisers in his father’s administration and nations that joined with us to win the Cold War. In retrospect, it’s obvious that Bush misled the nation into a preemptive war with the flimsiest of evidence.
The easy-to-predict meltdown in Iraq has created more terrorists, as various Islamic factions direct their anger toward each other and the U.S. occupying forces. The toll is more than 1,000 GI lives. The toll of innocent Iraqis exceeds that by far. The bill from our national treasury is more than $100 billion and growing. And worst of all, this president who four years ago promised a humble foreign policy has never admitted one bit of fault or culpability.
DEGRADING THE OFFICE
Since 2000, Bush has been consistently underestimated. The close election, in which Bush lost the popular vote but won thanks to a Supreme Court decision, gave some citizens hope that the former governor of Texas would govern from the center.
Wrong.
This man who frequently mentions his Christian faith has surrounded himself with some of our time’s most cutthroat political operatives, who apparently know no limit to dirty tricks.
His wrong judgment on Iraq has not produced a contrite heart, but only more arrogance.
In a more mundane but equally serious way, Bush has done great harm to the office of the presidency. Accepted conventions of behavior are openly flaunted. All members of the administration, even those posts usually kept out of the political fray, have been employed in the 2004 campaign.
This week, Bush’s Cabinet secretaries are branching out to states where the race is tight, where they plan to make a lot of noise as they hand out goodies paid for by taxpayers.
From using an aircraft carrier for a photo-op to handing out ice to hurricane victims, this president has shown no restraint in using the office of the presidency in his bid to win reelection. Each instance lends credibility to the comment made recently by one Bush staffer to journalist Ron Suskind: "We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
America can no longer endure such imperial folly from a man who is driven by such wildly reckless instincts.
THE TOLL HERE AT HOME
Here in Alabama, it is exacting a cost greater than the average. Bush’s tax cuts gave the richest 1 percent of Alabamians an almost $60,000 tax break over four years, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. The bottom 60 percent, meanwhile, will get back an average $222 over the same four years.
The number of Alabama National Guard members in Iraq is enough to rank it among the top five nations contributing soldiers. Adding the strong representation of Alabamians in the other branches of service in Iraq would mean that the state would rival Great Britain as the coalition’s second-largest contributor. It’s almost certain that a second Bush term, with its giveaways to the wealthy and go-it-alone foreign policy, will exact an even greater toll here.
SOUND JUDGMENT
John Kerry, a 20-year veteran of the Senate, has continued to impress with deep thinking and sound judgment. Above everything else, this election should be about judgment.
Kerry’s program for health care shows great promise. We’re convinced that Kerry realizes the damage done to our economy by the vast numbers of Americans without health insurance — a figure that exceeds the combined population of 14 states.
His tax plans would, like those instituted by Bill Clinton early in his first term, help restart the nation’s economic engine. We know that Kerry will do more to enlist other nations in helping us in Iraq and elsewhere. His record on the environment is solid.
But beyond specific plans, we’re impressed with Kerry as someone who can fight for the right thing, as well as accomplish it. Should he win, he’ll face an enormous task — bringing the country back from the unreality of George W. Bush. For the sake of the United States and its secure future, we long to see Bush retire to his ranch in Crawford and Kerry take residence in the White House.
