NYT endorses Kerry for President

In an editorial today, the NY Times endorses John Kerry for President.

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.

The editorial starts and ends with a few paragraphs on the qualities that will make Kerry an excellent President. But the rest of the editorial is a sad litany of the incredible number of things the Bush administration has done wrong, from the war in Iraq to the eroding of environmental standards, to the assault on civil liberties and the racking up of huge deficits...and more.

We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

Indeed.

Such failures are what makes it difficult for me to understand how anyone but the most partisan of Republicans can possibly conscience voting for Bush again. Differences in ideology are one thing, but the fact that we have huge deficits, the fact that the war in Iraq has gone so terribly wrong, the fact that our country is still not safe at home from terrorists, the fact that North Korea is producing nuclear weapons and the missiles to launch them at us...these are inarguable realities of the failure of this President to guide and protect our nation. It's past time for a change, and it seems clear not only to myself and partisan Democrats, but millions of Americans all over the country, that Kerry is the man for the job.