Being from Detroit and knowing how Conservative the Detroit News is, and after having endorsed Bush in 2000, this is a pretty big non-endorsement.
Here's the link
I'm content! Even though I think that The Detroit News kinda "wussied" out of supporting Kerry, I still think it's big.
Here's some text from the non-endorsement.
Agonizing choice comes down to this: Neither Bush nor Kerry meets our endorsement test
As Election Day approaches, we find ourselves, like many Americans, agonizing over the presidential election.
Four years ago, the choice was clear. We endorsed George W. Bush based on his promises of fiscal conservatism, limited government and prudence in foreign affairs.
Today, we sadly acknowledge that the president has failed to deliver on those promises.
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This decision to remain silent will disappoint readers who expect The Detroit News to stand with the Republican presidential candidate come hell or high water. Their expectations are not unwarranted - we have never endorsed a Democrat for president, and only failed to endorse twice before, both times during the Franklin Roosevelt years.
For those readers, we restate the philosophy first printed on these pages in 1958: "The News is bound to no political party. In matters economic, it is and will continue to be conservative. On issues of civil rights and individual liberties, it is consistently liberal."
To that we add: We will never feel obliged to defend a president whose blunders and misjudgments have hurt the nation.
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There were too many poor calls, including disbanding the Iraqi army, leaving the borders undefended and trusting shady Iraqi nationals, all of which combined to turn what could have been a stunning liberation into a still uncertain, nation-building morass. Iraq has stretched America's military capabilities, strained friendships and will hamstring future strikes against rogue regimes.
Such bad management cannot be forgiven in a wartime president.
At home, Bush has shocked us with his free-spending ways. Non-defense, domestic spending increased more than 30 percent during his term. At the same time, the president cut taxes. Together, the two resulted in a massive federal budget deficit that could have been mitigated had Bush kept his promise of fiscal conservatism.
This was a failure of leadership. The American people will accept a call to sacrifice in times of crisis. But instead of asking for sacrifice, Bush delivered excess.
He plunged the federal government even deeper into the day-to-day operations of local school districts with the ill-advised No Child Left Behind Act; he failed to veto even one of Congress' pork-laden spending bills; he pushed ahead with his own spending agenda, including a confusing and deceptively expensive prescription drug plan, without regard to the budget demands of homeland security and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On trade, he exhibited protectionist tendencies that hurt American industry.
Finally, on the matter of civil liberties, Bush has turned away from the conservative doctrine that the Constitution must be strictly observed. His Patriot Act contained many important elements to break down the walls between law enforcement agencies and allow them to respond to advancements in technology.
But it also trashed personal privacy protections, suspended due process safeguards and upset the balance between the power of the government and the rights of the individual.
The president's record does not recommend him for re-election.
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