New York Times Endorses Kerry

Last Sunday, The New York Times Magazine stated that "we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president."

First, they ran Ron Suskind's commentary entitled "Without a Doubt," which details to the public "what Bush's top deputies -- from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq -- have been told for years when they requested explanations for many of the president's decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts. The president would say that he relied on his 'gut' or his 'instinct' to guide the ship of state, and then he 'prayed over it'..."

On the one hand there is an inherent conflict. Suskind continues, "This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue, based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the decision-maker... The circle around Bush is the tightest around any president in the modern era, and 'it's both exclusive and exclusionary,' Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative policy group, told me. 'It's a too tightly managed decision-making process. When they make decisions, a very small number of people are in the room, and it has a certain effect of constricting the range of alternatives being offered.'

Suskind delved even deeper into the heart of the matter and heard from a White House Communications officer about the Bush White House calls "the reality-based community'' who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality... That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Jim Wallis of the Sojourners told Suskind that when faith is used to "certify our righteousness -- that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection... Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want. Easy certainty."

Where even Suskind will not go is the further degree that loyal subject will go: to cheat on their analytical homework by finding facts to support desired, predetermined conclusions -- such as the special information closed pipeline of information around the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). He does not delve into the advantages Bush loyalists are taking. He does not delve into Iraq reconstruction contracts, lack of adequate protection or services for regular and reservist soldiers, or tax cuts for the rich. Nor does he enter the realm where PBS went in The Choice 2004. (Click here to videostream.) In particular, New Yorker political columnist Nicholas Lehman address the "dirty campaigning", also discussed in Part IV and V of the show.

Second, in an Editorial endorsing John Kerry, the Times said, "There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure" despite the fact that lately, particularly during the presidential debates, "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." They praise him for his bi-partisan abilities, his strong defense of human rights, his support for stem cell research, his upholding of the separation of church and state, and his national health coverage plan. They applaud his ideas on energy, global warming, and oil dependency.

Although the phrase is still absent in these as so many other supporters, they praise him for his "good neighbor" policy.