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Lightning strikes twice? Tribune fails to endorse Bush

The Tribune enjoyed a moment of infamy earlier this year when it mistakenly published an editorial bemoaning the home team’s loss of the Stanley Cup when, in fact, the Lightning had actually just won the cup. Oops.

The lightning snafu came to mind on Sunday as I read the Tribune’s scathing non-endorsement of their man Bush. This is a paper which has proudly backed Republicans forever, and their editorial at times reads like, well, this blog, and many other left leaning publications. This time, though, it’s no mistake: the Tribune is actually showing signs of a smattering of intellectual honesty.

W e find ourselves in a position unimaginable four years ago when we strongly endorsed for president a fiscal conservative and ``moderate man of mainstream convictions'' who promised to wield military muscle only as a last resort and to resist the lure of ``nation building.'' ......

As stewards of the Tribune's editorial voice, we find it unimaginable to not be lending our voice to the chorus of conservative-leaning newspapers endorsing the president's re- election. We had fully expected to stand with Bush, whom we endorsed in 2000 because his politics generally reflected ours: a strong military, fiscal conservatism, personal responsibility and small government. We knew him to be a popular governor of Texas who fought for lower taxes, less government and a pro-business constitution.

But we are unable to endorse President Bush for re- election because of his mishandling of the war in Iraq, his record deficit spending, his assault on open government and his failed promise to be a ``uniter not a divider'' within the United States and the world.

Neither can we endorse Sen. Kerry, whose undistinguished Senate record stands at odds with our conservative principles and whose positions on the Iraq war - the central issue in this campaign - have been difficult to distinguish or differentiate.

It is an achingly difficult decision to not endorse a candidate in the presidential contest, and we do not reach this decision lightly.

The Tribune has endorsed a Republican for president ever since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, with one exception. We did not endorse in the 1964 presidential race because, as we said at the time, ``it is our feeling that unless a newspaper can recommend a candidate with complete conviction that he be the better choice for the office, it should make no endorsement.''

Like the country, this editorial board finds itself deeply divided about the president's prosecution of the war and his indifference to federal spending.

Bush Overstated The Evidence

Although Bush came to office having lost the popular vote, the nation rallied behind him after the terrorist strikes of 9/11. He transcended the political divide and became everyone's president the moment he picked up that bullhorn on the ashes of ground zero and promised the terrorists that they would hear from us. Aside from a few dancing extremists, the world stood with us.

Bush told us to wait, and we confidently stood with him. With surety and resolve, he struck Afghanistan and the hillside holes of al-Qaida extremists. For taking out the Taliban and bringing about national elections in Afghanistan this month, the president deserves much credit. While we still haven't caught Osama bin Laden, the ace of spades, our troops have successfully caught and imprisoned many other al-Qaida leaders.

But before securing Afghanistan, Bush grew convinced that Iraq posed an imminent threat to America and so directed soldiers and supplies there.

His administration terrified us into believing that we had to quickly wage war with Baghdad to ensure our safety. Vice President Dick Cheney said he had ``irrefutable evidence'' that Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear program. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice wrongly asserted that aluminum tubes found in Iraq could be used only for nuclear weapons. And the president himself said he couldn't wait for a smoking gun in the form of a ``mushroom cloud.''
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When Gen. Eric Shinseki, then Army chief of staff, said that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure a postwar Iraq, his argument was dismissed and the general summarily pushed aside.

But after Baghdad fell, we saw how insufficient troop numbers led to the looting of hospitals, businesses and schools - everything but the Oil Ministry, which our forces secured.

At the time, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said with great hubris that the uprising was ``untidy'' but not unexpected. And the president himself challenged the enemy to ``bring it on.''
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Still, despite deliberate steps to rebuild Iraq, we find ourselves today in an open-ended war that has taken the lives of 1,081 American servicemen and women, and wounded or maimed 7,862 more. Financially, the war has cost us $126 billion - money that could have been better spent securing the homeland - and is a major reason for the largest federal deficit in history.

More Fear Ahead

What bothers us is that the president says that even knowing what he knows now, he still would have invaded Iraq because Saddam had the ``intent'' to make nuclear weapons and was a ruthless dictator who killed his own people. If this nation-building succeeds, the president says, we will have built a friend in the Middle East.

Because of the invasion, one other renegade country - Libya - decided to disarm its nuclear program, a real success for the president.

Still, we are troubled by Bush's talk about a broad ``forward strategy of freedom'' to ``transform'' the Middle East. We believe it unwise to use our military to impose democracy on Arab countries, which would rather determine their own future. We fear this model of forced democracy will only fuel recruiting campaigns for terrorism.

And how about Iran and North Korea, who have considerably more advanced nuclear capabilities than Iraq ever had? Are we going to brashly send our overstretched military to war there too?

An American president should take the country to war only as a last resort, only after exhausting every diplomatic channel and only after asking demanding questions and weighing concrete evidence. On the Iraq war, President Bush failed on all counts.

The Iraq war came about because of a profound failure of intelligence that went unchecked and unquestioned by the president, who shows no sign of having second doubts. He admits to making no mistakes except for a few presidential appointments - presumably disloyal people who dared to speak up.

Bush's re-election campaign continues to stoke fear. ``You better have a president who faces these terrorists down before they hurt us again,'' he said in the first debate.

Cheney, who continues to maintain that Iraq was in league with al-Qaida despite evidence to the contrary, went so far as to say that electing Kerry would invite another terrorist strike.
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However, although the numbers from recent months are more promising, the tax cuts did not spur the expected job growth. The nation has lost jobs during the Bush presidency, the first administration since Herbert Hoover's to oversee a net loss of jobs.

But while the recession, 9/11 and profligate spending by Congress have grown the deficit, two-thirds can be traced back to the president's tax cuts, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
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Bush has yet to veto a single spending bill. Even Franklin Roosevelt scaled back New Deal programs after Pearl Harbor.

The result: Bush has turned the $150 billion surplus he inherited into a $450 billion deficit.

At one point, Congress tried to impose some fiscal discipline. Lawmakers said they would not pass the Medicare prescription drug benefit if the cost exceeded $400 billion over 10 years.

So what did the administration do? It fudged the numbers.

Thomas Scully, former head of the Medicare agency, threatened to fire chief actuary Richard Foster if he dared to tell lawmakers that the true cost stood between $500 billion and $600 billion.

To make matters worse, the president's law prohibits Medicare from negotiating the best prices from pharmaceutical companies.

Against this backdrop of spending, Bush announced a mission to Mars and support for a missile shield defense system, a Cold War throwback that would be nice to have but wouldn't stop the car bombs and speedboats that are today's terrorists' weapons of choice.
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Yet, while throwing money at programs of questionable urgency, Bush has failed to adequately fund the Department of Homeland Security. Penny- pinching there means firefighters and police still lack radios that can talk to one another, cargo shipments at airports and seaports are not screened, and hospitals and biohazard labs feel underfunded and underequipped.

Government Behind Closed Doors

At the birth of the 9/11 millennium, President Bush rallied us around a new world order that required some loss of freedoms so that the government could do a better job of protecting us.

He passed the Patriot Act, which, while not perfect, gives law enforcement agencies the much-needed ability to talk with one another.

While we supported the Patriot Act, we are concerned by the president's relentless attack on open government.

According to the libertarian Reason Foundation, Bush has nearly doubled the number of classified documents, urged agencies to refuse Freedom of Information Act requests and invoked executive privilege wherever possible.

His administration doesn't want citizens to know when hazardous chemicals are routed through their towns, how the repair of tenuous electric grids is going or who was at the table to form the nation's energy policy.

Typical of this administration, only industry lobbyists and like-minded people were allowed at the table to craft the energy plan. People who might dissent - consumer groups and conservationists - were not invited.

Within a year of Cheney's energy task force, the administration had given billions in subsidies to energy firms and begun weakening pollution laws while opening up wilderness areas to exploitation. The administration misled people by calling a plan to weaken pollution controls the Clear Skies initiative. As one example, the new law allows coal- burning power plants to avoid installing pollution-control equipment during renovations.

The Failed Compassionate Conservative

President Bush told us that he was ``uniter, not a divider,'' but shortly after taking office, his administration took a sharp right turn that has divided this country.
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Probably most disappointing, however, is his leadership in Washington.

Besides the White House, Republicans control the House and the Senate and all committee chairs. But rather than reach across the aisle, this president has deepened the divide in Congress, where Republican leaders have uninvited Democrats from conference committees where differences are reconciled. We would not condone such behavior from Democrats and shouldn't accept it from Republicans.
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People view Bush as a man with strong convictions. And while he's clearly convinced of the rightness of his ways, that doesn't mean he's always right.

This president doesn't try to hear from people who disagree, choosing instead to keep the counsel of staunch supporters. He disdains news conferences and brags that he doesn't read the newspapers. He counts on his core group of insiders to tell him what he needs to know.

When asked if he consulted his father, the only other president to have waged war against Iraq, Bush unabashedly said that he spoke to a ``higher father.'' Presidential decisions about sending men and women to war should be based on fact, not prayer.