Red State Weekly Speaks Up: Kerry

Nashville Scene argues its case for the next president.

LINK - George Bush's judgment is so tragically simple as to make us fearful for this nation. When an enemy in Afghanistan attacked us, he instead attacked Iraq. When the economy tanked, he gave money to the rich. And when he wasn't doing any of the above, he was putting on his cowboy hat, swaggering across America and projecting the image of America as Badass.

George Bush ran on a platform of compassionate conservatism. But when the world got dicey and his tiny viewfinder of a mind couldn't handle reality, he morphed into a schoolyard bully. If anything makes this newspaper regret this man's presidency, it is that the strongest nation in the world doesn't need to be a bully. Bullies are bullies because they're insecure and weak and dumb. This nation is none of the above. George Bush is all of above.

And so we endorse John Kerry. We do so without shouting his name from the mountaintops. But we do so knowing that he has a fully formed brain, that he fought honorably for this country and that he would work to regain the respect of nations around the world. We have no confidence he would figure out Iraq. We have no idea how anyone figures that out.

On the domestic front, we feel that John Kerry would respect ordinary working Americans, that he would work to reform entitlement programs for the sick and elderly, and that he would be more involved at an intellectual level with the policy discussions in which every president should be immersed. We also have more confidence in Democrats to get the debt under control. Republicans have totally lost their grip on proper fiscal stewardship.

Over time, John Kerry has grown on us. To a Southerner, his pedantic delivery and royal elocution can be a bit much, but in the debates we've slowly come around. We are confident John Kerry will at least engage with the complexity in today's world. It's not just that Bush won't do that. It's that he can't.

Thanks, Wayne...