Sunday, October 24, 2004
(8:20 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
The Weblog's Endorsement for President
In the spirit of Matthew Yglesias's surprise endorsement of John Kerry for president, we here at The Weblog would like to put forth our own counter-endorsement.The two candidates for president this election are both unappealling in many ways. On the one hand, President Bush has pursued a consistently irresponsible and disastrous fiscal policy, cutting taxes while expanding entitlements and crippling state budgets with unfunded mandates. On the foreign policy front, he has botched a mission in Afghanistan that much of the world viewed as necessary and just, then botched a mission in Iraq that much of the world viewed as unnecessary and unjust. He has diminished US prestige abroad to an incalculable degree and overextended our military in a dangerous way. On the other hand, while John Kerry has assembled an impressive record of public service, consistently furthering labor interests, environmental protection, fiscal responsibility, and action to stop nuclear proliferation, he has sometimes made public statements that were ambiguous, overly wordy, or arguably contrary to things he had previously said. We here at The Weblog regret to say it, but the fact that Senator Kerry is not an absolutely perfect person in every respect means that he is not a fit replacement for our current Brave Leader, no matter how utterly catastrophic President Bush's policies may have been and almost certainly will continue to be.
America deserves better than a non-choice between an incompetent figurehead whose only source of information is a circle of dangerous ideologues and a life-long public servant who has apparently sometimes changed his mind on certain issues. And so we wonder: what if some kind of third option could emerge, some young, bright leader who could capture the imagination of that 50% of eligible citizens who choose, perhaps understandably, not to vote? Someone funny, someone attractive, someone not afraid to let people know that they are hurting America?
We believe that such an option does exist and that a write-in campaign for this candidate among the seething masses of non-voters could fundamentally change the political landscape of the world's oldest democracy. For that reason, The Weblog endorses Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, for president. And although we here at The Weblog are uncertain how the vice-president is selected in write-in campaigns, we further endorse Belle Waring, of Crooked Timber and John and Belle Have a Blog, for vice-president.
