Old News: The Iconoclast Endorsement

I really don't think it's important in and of itself that the newspaper of the teeny-tiny town of Crawford, TX endorses the Democratic challenger for president, despite the current incumbent calling that same teeny-tiny town "home". I mean it's funny, don't get me wrong, but not Significant.

That said, I think the endorsement article is well-written. There's lots of good little zings in there:

Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq.

And:

America is in service 365 days a year. We don’t need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant state of blameless denial when things don’t get done.

But one paragrah in particular summarizes very compactly why not to vote for Bush. These four items, the last two especially, are showstoppers. Political orientation aside, I'd vote against any President that had Bush's record. At the very least, I'd abstain rather than support him.

Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.

I don't mean to agree with and/or defend every statement and assertion in the article, and it ignores or gives short shrift to other key issues such as environmental protection (or lack thereof) - but these are some of the Big Points To Me.