Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - New Yorker endorses Kerry

Quote:

New Yorker magazine endorses Kerry
October 26, 2004 - 1:15AM

For the first time in its 80-year history, the venerable New Yorker magazine has endorsed a presidential candidate, urging readers to vote for Democrat John Kerry in next week's election.

"He is plainly the better choice," the weekly said in a lengthy editorial that excoriated the record of US President George Bush on everything from health and the environment to his handling of the war in Iraq.

"As observers, reporters, and commentators we will hold [Kerry] to the highest standards of honesty and performance," the editorial said. "For now, as citizens, we hope for his victory."

New Yorker editor David Remnick told The Washington Post he had no problem in breaking with tradition to endorse a candidate.

"The magazine's not a museum; it's a living thing that evolves," Remnick said, adding that he and his editors reached a consensus without consulting the magazine's owner, Si Newhouse.

While endorsing Kerry, the magazine devoted the lion's share of its editorial to slamming the Bush Administration's four years in power.

"Its record has been one of failure, arrogance, and - strikingly for a team that prided itself on crisp professionalism - incompetence," it said.

The commentary portrayed a President living within "a self-created bubble of faith-based affirmation" - unable to brook dissent and isolated from genuine debate.

It also laid down a litany of issues on which the magazine said Bush had short-changed the American public - the economy, health care, the environment, social security, the judiciary, national security, foreign policy, the war in Iraq, the fight against terrorism.

"In every crucial area of concern to Americans, Kerry offers a clear, corrective alternative to Bush's curious blend of smugness, radicalism, and demagoguery," it said.

"Pollsters like to ask voters which candidate they'd most like to have a beer with, and on that metric Bush always wins. We prefer to ask which candidate is better suited to the governance of our nation."

The magazine's editors were not wholly uncritical of Kerry, acknowledging that he could be "cautious to a fault" and remarking that his failure to aggressively attack Bush's record until late in the campaign had been a missed opportunity.

At the same time, it noted the "physical courage" he displayed during active service in the Vietnam War, and the "moral courage" that led him to denounce the war on his return.

AFP

REF:http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...667701577.html

I'll be honest and say I don't know if the New Yorker is considered a liberal or conservative magazine. One would presume that the majority of media in New York would support Bush, due to the 9/11 attacks etc. Maybe I'm wrong in that presumption?

Either way, I just love this quote.

"Pollsters like to ask voters which candidate they'd most like to have a beer with, and on that metric Bush always wins. We prefer to ask which candidate is better suited to the governance of our nation."

""Its record has been one of failure, arrogance, and - strikingly for a team that prided itself on crisp professionalism - incompetence," isn't bad either. :)

Mr Mephisto