Post by Emerald City on Oct 25, 2004 17:53:23 GMT -5
NEW YORK (AFP) - For the first time in its 80-year history, the venerable New Yorker magazine endorsed a presidential candidate, urging readers Monday to vote for Democrat John Kerry in next week's election.
"He is plainly the better choice," the weekly said in a lengthy editorial that excoriated the record of President George W. Bush (news - web sites) on everything from health and the environment to his handling of the war in Iraq.
"As observers, reporters, and commentators we will hold (Kerry) to the highest standards of honesty and performance," the editorial said. "For now, as citizens, we hope for his victory."
Despite taking such an unprecedented move -- the New Yorker has never endorsed a candidate before -- the magazine argued that it was not sacrificing partisan independence.
"We just felt this was an important election to take a stand on," said spokeswoman Perri Dorset.
"I think that we'll probably have to regroup in four years," Dorset said. "But since the last election, we've done a pretty good job of reporting from both sides of the aisle, and we'll continue to do that."
New Yorker Editor David Remnick told the Washington Post that he had no problem in breaking with tradition.
"The magazine's not a museum; it's a living thing that evolves," Remnick said.
While endorsing Kerry, the magazine devoted the lion's share of its editorial to slamming the Bush administration's four years in power.
"Its record has been one of failure, arrogance, and -- strikingly for a team that prided itself on crisp professionalism -- incompetence," it said.
The commentary portrayed a president living within "a self-created bubble of faith-based affirmation" -- unable to brook dissent and isolated from genuine debate.
It also laid down a litany of issues on which the magazine said Bush had short-changed the American public -- the economy, health care, the environment, social security, the judiciary, national security, foreign policy, the war in Iraq, the fight against terrorism.
"In every crucial area of concern to Americans, Kerry offers a clear, corrective alternative to Bush's curious blend of smugness, radicalism, and demagoguery," it said.
"Pollsters like to ask voters which candidate they'd most like to have a beer with, and on that metric Bush always wins. We prefer to ask which candidate is better suited to the governance of our nation."
The New Yorker editors were not wholly uncritical of Kerry, acknowledging that he could be "cautious to a fault" and remarking that his failure to aggressively attack Bush's record until late in the campaign had been a missed opportunity.
At the same time, it noted the "physical courage" he displayed during active service in the Vietnam War, and the "moral courage" that led him to denounce the war on his return.
