This magazine's disagreements with Kerry are deep and touch on fundamental matters. We believed that the invasion of Iraq was "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time" (as he now describes it) before the war was ever launched; he has come to that conclusion only recently, having voted to authorize the war. We believe the United States should withdraw from Iraq; he wants to "win" the war there. We think the military budget should be cut; he plans to increase it, adding 40,000 troops. (For what, exactly? to fight another wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time?) We reject pre-emptive war; he embraces it. We oppose the wall that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is building on Palestinian lands; he supports it. We believe in the elimination of all nuclear weapons; he wants only to stop their spread. He calls for significant expansion of healthcare; we call for a single-payer system that would cover everyone. He opposes gay marriage; we back it. If he wins the election, The Nation will pursue each of these differences vigorously.
But while we have sharp differences with Kerry, we believe he has the qualities required for the presidency. He is more than "anybody but Bush." His instincts are decent. He is a man of high intelligence, deep knowledge and great resolve. At times in his life--notably, when he opposed the Vietnam War--he has shown exemplary courage. He respects the law. He believes in cooperation with other countries and has the inclination and ability to bring America out of its current isolation and back into the family of nations. As a senator, he demonstrated concern for social welfare and has backed this up with enlightened policy proposals. He has supported civil rights and labor rights and opposed racism. He has supported the rights of women, including the right to an abortion. He has been an advocate of nuclear arms control and opposed the almost incomprehensibly provocative nuclear policies of the Bush Administration. He would rescind the most unfair of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. He would be a friend of the environment and return the United States to the negotiations on global warming.
A Kerry presidency would seriously disrupt the concentration of power at the heart of the present danger. He might still try to "win" the Iraq war but would be less likely to wage future wars. His appointments to the Supreme Court would stop the Court's slide into unchecked, one-sided partisanship. His control of the bully pulpit would be a powerful counterforce to the right-wing propaganda that now all but drowns out other voices in the news media. His control of the agencies of the executive branch would halt, or at least retard, their merger with corporate America. More important, the simple structural fact that the Democrats are the other party would create a counterbalance to the right-wing power that predominates elsewhere in the system. The Democrats, including Kerry, have been disappointing champions of their namesake, democracy, yet the culture of their party is still an improvement over that of the Republicans.
The Democrats are reluctant imperialists; the Republicans are imperialists by avocation. The Democratic Party generally wants to defend civil liberties and does so when it dares; the Republicans, with honorable exceptions, apparently would sweep them aside. The Democrats prefer social justice, however weakly they fight for it; the Republicans would give every dollar they can find to the rich. The Democrats are inclined to limit corporate power; the Republicans are corporate power.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=editors
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