A Question of Competence

1 November 2004



Kensington Review Endorses John Kerry

George W. Bush has been an incompetent president. He should have resigned in disgrace a year ago. However, the American system doesn’t really lend itself to politicians taking the high road. Moreover, John F. Kerry has served well in the Senate for two decades and represents a tradition in American politics that stands for an active government that works to uphold the common good. A vote for Mr. Kerry is not just a vote against Mr. Bush, although there should be a great many of those anyway.

The defenders of the president have said he is a strong leader who will do his utmost to make America safe and to protect America’s interests. The September 11th attacks happened on his watch, and despite all whining to the contrary, he is responsible. As his predecessor Mr. Truman knew, the buck cannot be passed from the Oval Office. Excuses can be made, but who was president when the greatest disaster to hit America in almost 200 years occurred?

To his credit, Mr. Bush redeemed himself to a degree in his waging a wise and well-executed war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. World sympathy was turned into support, and NATO troops did the job. Had he stayed to finish the job, the only grounds for voting against him would be domestic. But he didn’t. He went off on a Kiplingesque adventure in Mesopotamia, and fought an unnecessary war badly, with too few troops as this journal said a year and a half ago. “Mission Accomplished?” Hardly.

At home, he has pulled the social ladder up, forcing the middle class closer to the edge. His tax cuts, which theoretically were right in 2001 and 2002, have served not to create jobs but to boost the debt. He is not a fiscal conservative. Nor is he a social conservative except for his words. The Ten Commandments are thrown out of courtrooms (rightly) without a single action taken beyond a sympathetic “bah bah bah.” Gay marriage has become an issue on his watch, but no action has come from the White House to deal with it.

As for Mr. Kerry, he is not perfect. However, he is one of the few deficit fighters on the Democratic side of the aisle. And he knows that Iraq will be a problem for years, not for a few days while he takes the troops out, leaving a vacuum. The only problem in backing him is the certainty that he will take some of the blame for things Mr. Bush has done so badly. It almost would serve Mr. Bush right to have to fix the mess he’s made. But Mr. Bush is incapable of that. Mr. Kerry might not be.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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