US Washington Post backs Kerry

[Talon]

US Washington Post backs Kerry

US presidential candidate John Kerry has received the official backing of the influential Washington Post.

The paper said the choice was difficult, but that Mr Kerry had the "better approach" on many policies.

The New York Times has already backed the Democrat while papers in Texas and Chicago have endorsed George W Bush.

On Sunday, President George W Bush is campaigning in New Mexico and Texas, while Mr Kerry moves from Florida to New Hampshire.

'Election amnesia'

The Washington Post said: "We believe Mr Kerry, with his promise of resoluteness tempered by wisdom and open-mindedness, has staked a stronger claim on the nation's trust to lead for the next four years."

It accused Mr Bush of "wilful indifference" towards pre-Iraq war intelligence and called his financial policies "reckless".

However, it also questioned whether Mr Kerry would be decisive enough in power, given his "zigzags" over Iraq policies.

In the latest campaigning, Mr Bush sought to highlight that issue in Jacksonville, Florida, where he mocked Mr Kerry for first voting for the Iraq conflict and then calling it the "wrong war".

"Senator Kerry seems to have forgotten all that, as his position has evolved during the course of the campaign. You might call it election amnesia," Mr Bush said.

Vice-President Dick Cheney, in New Mexico, said the Soviet Union might still exist and Saddam Hussein might be dominating the Gulf if Mr Kerry had been president in recent years.

Mr Kerry was in Colorado on Saturday, telling voters: "Vote your hopes, not the fears that George Bush wants you to feel." He later campaigned in New Mexico.

New campaign ads

In addition to the Washington Post endorsement, Mr Kerry has also won the backing of leaders of America's seven million strong Muslim community.

However, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections said the vote for Mr Kerry should be a "protest vote" against the Bush administration.

It said it had "disagreements with Senator Kerry on some domestic and international issues" and criticised him for failing to commit to a broad civil rights agenda.

Both parties have unveiled new ads to attack their opponents.

Mr Bush's shows a pack of wolves prowling menacingly on screen as a female narrator accuses Mr Kerry of being dangerously weak on national security.

Democrat vice-presidential candidate John Edwards described it as a despicable and contemptible attempt to scare Americans.

For their part, the Democrats liken George Bush to an ostrich, with his head in the sand, while comparing Mr Kerry to a soaring eagle.

Election day is 2 November, although millions of voters have already cast their ballots.

About 30 states allow early or absentee votes.

A total of 1.3m Americans had voted in eight battleground states as of Friday, the Washington Post reported.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/worl...cas/3948645.stm

[DC09]

Big surprise there.

The Post is as liberal as they come.

[twpdyp]

The Washington Post is as liberal as an ape is ugly, so this is not a huge surprize.

[Talon]

Why does everyone hate liberalism? You know thats the ideology which during the 19th century expended the voting rights to people, right?.... the same voting rights you now plan to use.

[Celumnaz]

From my point of view, Liberal and Conservative taken to the extremes are both as bad.

From my point of view, Liberalism has been taken over, over here, by the Extreme Left. And the moderate left (mainstream media, liberal democrats/repbulicans, hollywood) has let it happen and don't speak out against the lies. It's been happening for decades, and finally we've got some hindsight to recognize the pattern, that the extreme has co-opted the ideal. The ends justify the means, and the means justify the end, so called ethics be darned.

Just my opinion based on what I've witnessed over the last decade and a half, what I've read of history in newspaper articles of the time and how they're interpreted by mainstream and world media, based on values I believe to be positive against values carried by those on the extreme left. Extreme left. There is definately a need to make sure the right doesn't go to the extreme, but there has to be a recognition that there are people 'out to get us' and that they often live here in this country and they live on the extreme left. It's where they come out of. in my opinion.

There's more reasons too, but that's the first one that came to mind and it took me long enough to type that out with all these people bugging me here so that's all I'm gonna put for now.

[Talon]

Liberalism is a centre-left ideology, not an extreme left one. Plus the left / right divide is economic, the liberal / authoritarian divide is different, its only merged because of lot of the time Left-wing ideologies fall on the liberal divide too, there are some exceptions like Stalinism though. Right-wing ideologies tend to fall on Authoritarianism.

Then we have new ideology ‘TaLottism’, which is left in economic beliefs, liberal in personal freedoms, but authoritarian when it comes to crime.

[Celumnaz]

hehe, I can see that. But like I said, over here the moderate part has been umm

overpowered by the Extreme left. Liberalism has come to mean political correctness, environmental wackos, hedonists, human shields, and the like.

Social I'm left, Economic I'm right, or that's how I saw myself in the past. Figure I'm still pretty much that way.

I smoke pot, love gays, don't litter, recycle, conserve energy/water, donate to local charity time/clothes/food/money, take care of animals, teach my kids sign language and braille...

I hate income taxes and social programs, welfare, minimum wage, medicare, social security, faith based initiative, subsidies... subsidies of all kinds...

I'm tolerant if the extremes are there to remind us what the extremes can do, but when they start taking control, legislating from the bench... liberals need to take their label back then, because the extremeists wear that label with pride.

[Talon]

You don;t know what extreme-left is Cause you don't have it If the Democracts were Extreme left, then when Clinton was in charge they would have nationalised everything under the sun. There would be no private property, no private industry, no milti-millionaires.

The US, has no extreme Left.

income taxes and social programs, welfare, minimum wage, medicare, social security, faith based initiative, subsidies etc are all moderate left.

[Talon]

Meanwhile smoke pot, love gays, don't litter, recycle, conserve energy/water, donate to local charity time/clothes/food/money, take care of animals, etc sounds like Liberal ideology