NY Times endorses Kerry

2004-10-17 09:19

New York - The New York Times endorsed John Kerry for president on Sunday, becoming the first major US daily to announce its presidential preference, and was joined by small papers in the swing states of Ohio and Minnesota in backing the Democratic senator.

Kerry's "wide knowledge and clear thinking" are the makings of "a great chief executive," the Times said in a lengthy editorial published 16 days before Americans head to the polls on November 2.

The Times said that while Kerry's candidacy initially seemed mostly to tap into public dissatisfaction with US President George W Bush, over time "we have come to know Mr Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo.

"We like what we've seen," the editorial said.

"He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent" the Times said, including a willingness to "re-evaluate decisions when conditions change" and a "strong moral core."

The Times' backing is one of the most coveted and influential of any endorsement during the US presidential campaign, although given the newspaper's somewhat left-of-centre tendency, not entirely unexpected.

As for Bush, the Times had few kind words in calling for the end of his presidency, which the paper's editors referred to as "disastrous."

The daily enumerated a litany of complaints - from the war in Iraq to tax cuts for the well-to-do, to his "disrespect for civil liberties and inept management" - in calling for his dismissal.

'Has squandered trust of the people'

"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," the Times said.

The US justice department has not produced any successful terrorism prosecution and has "squandered much of the trust and patience the American people gave so freely in 2001."

Bush's rationale for the war on Iraq has been "debunked," but "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," the Times charged.

International outrage over the war has turned into "disdain for the incompetence of the effort," and the administration is now "radioactive in the Muslim world," it said.

"Heads of rogue states, including Iran and North Korea, have been taught decisively that the best protection against a pre-emptive American strike is to acquire nuclear weapons themselves."

The Dayton Daily News of Dayton, Ohio, the Star-Tribune of Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Boston Globe joined the Times in backing Kerry on Sunday.

- AFP