Alphecca

Surprising Endorsement

Most newspaper endorsements coming out these days pretty much follow established editorial policy and contain few surprises. Did anyone really spill their coffee when they found out the New York Times was endorsing Kerry? Or that the NY Post was for Bush?

But it was a surprise to find out this weekend that the usually liberal NY Daily News had decided to back the President for re-election:

The News endorsed Clinton and Gore in the three races beginning with 1992, each time judging their domestic agendas in the best interests of the American people. But it is no longer Sept. 10th. The world has changed. And nowhere has it been more tragically altered than in New York. And nowhere are the stakes higher.

As the preeminent symbol of America, this city remains Ground Zero, primary target of Islamic radicals. How best to win the war against terror so the country and its leading city emerge from jeopardy is the overriding concern in the election. The News believes Bush offers the stronger hope in this urgent regard.

Tested severely by 9/11, Bush recognized it was not enough — it had never been enough — to treat Islamic terrorism as a criminal-justice matter, or just to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen. The President had two crucial insights: First, that rogue states were a grave threat in that they could provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists as a force multiplier. And, second, that the Mideast's backward, repressed societies were generating virulent, homicidal hatred of the U.S.

Actually, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by the endorsement; the writers and editors at the NY Daily News live and work just up the road, so to speak, from ground zero. They, like the New York Post denizens know first hand that awful day just over three years ago when their city, their co-workers, their friends and neighbors, their space was violated in the worst possible way by middle-east mutants.

They knew, or probably had interviewed many of the people who died in the World Trade Towers. Maybe some of their friends were firemen who were killed trying to rescue others. While "New Yorkers" -- meaning folks who live in the five boroughs of New York City traditionally vote "liberal" or Democratic, I would not be at all surprised if this year were different, at least in the presidential contest. It's possible that half of them might go for Bush, which would be twice the number who usually vote republican, Rudy not-withstanding.

New Yorkers know and remember that horrible day. They also remember how President Bush (along with Mayor Rudy Giuliani) helped them get through it all.

Actually, maybe the real surprise is that the editors of the New York Times are the ones who forgot 9/11 and who seem to think that it was "no big thing" and "why don't we just elect a guy who will sit around and do nothing and leave our foreign policy in the hands of France and the UN?" The editors of the New York Times would prefer someone who waits to react to an event, rather than have someone who goes after terrorism BEFORE it reaches Manhatten.

It's the New York Times that has let the people of New York City down with their choice for president. But that's not really a surprise, either.