Another major city daily that endorsed George W. Bush in 2000 has endorsed John Kerry.
To reiterate what's been said here before, it's been many years since the Sun-Times was Chicago's Liberal/Dem answer to the Tribune. After being purchased by the felonious Conrad Black, the paper took a sharp rightward turn, occasionally being even further to the right than the Trib.
Tomorrow's Chicago Sun-Times (10/24/04) editorial, titled "Time to shift command to Kerry," isn't on their website yet, so I can't post a link. But here are a few excerpts:
Four years ago, this newspaper endorsed George W. Bush. We thought his administration would be about trimming big government and spending a surplus projected at $4.5 trillion. We liked Bush's vision for cutting taxes. And, most of all, we saw Bush as a leader who could unite the nation.
Having thus established their ability to be duped four years ago, the editorial board goes on to show that, unlike Bush, they learn from their mistakes.
But he also missed a historic opportunity to ask Americans, unified by the attack, to sacrifice and build a greater, stronger, better nation. Instead he told the country we were at war, but a war that would demand nothing of us except that we keep shopping.
And he took us into Iraq.
The president's handling of the past year in Iraq-his dismissal of those who warned him about the difficulty of reorganizing the country, his neglect of deep problems that are costing American lives there-made us doubt his ability to bring our involvement there to a succesful conclusion. And we became concerned by the secrecy of his subordinates such as Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft, coupled with an unnecessary disregard for some of our most cherished civil liberties.
But this editorial is no mere acceptance of Kerry as the lesser of two evils. It is a ringing endorsement of the man. Any emphasis is mine.
Kerry offers a different leadership style that would give us a new start internationally.....an acknowledgement that the United States is a world leader, not a rogue state....Bush has mocked this as kowtowing to France. We see it as diplomacy.
We also like how Kerry thinks-his thirst for information, his ability to judge situations on their merits. Yes, he sometimes changes his mind, but what the Republicans tar as waffling strikes us as flexibility. We want leaders to stay the course only when the course is a good one.