EDITORIAL- The Pitt News endorses John Kerry for president

It’s time for a change. Presidential election madness has been building for a year, and like… It’s time for a change. Presidential election madness has been building for a year, and like the beast slouching toward Bethlehem, it has arrived. Most people will punch tickets, pull levers or hit touchscreens tomorrow, voting for whom they want as the chief executive officer of the United States.

And that should be Sen. John Kerry.

President George W. Bush has had four years to prove himself, four years as the most powerful person in the United States, if not the world. He has failed.

We are not better off than we were four years ago. In this, our great experiment, Bush’s job was to protect and serve the American people. He has done neither; he is not deserving of a raise or an extension. In any other job, he’d be fired. He has not earned four more years.

Now we have a limp economy, an abysmal deficit and two un-winnable occupations. Bush left children behind by woefully under-funding the No Child Left Behind Act. He stocked the cabinet with reactionaries and fired or silenced those who disagreed with him. He put our civil liberties in a noose and our jobs on the chopping block. He squandered international relations and stormed Iraq, the only country in his Axis of Evil that didn’t have nuclear capabilities. He took down a horrible dictator, only to institute chaos.

But this is not an election of Bush versus Not Bush. There’s so little time and so much to do. In this tight race — one where third-party candidates have been evicted rudely — we have to choose. So choose Kerry.

Kerry has a plan, many plans in fact. One of these includes making college more affordable through a $4,000 tax credit per year — unlike Bush whose major accomplishment for higher education was despoiling the Pell Grant system.

Kerry has been accused of weakness and flip-flopping, but it’s time for a president who can think on his feet, who can reassess a situation, who doesn’t surround himself with yes-men and sycophants, who can admit his own shortcomings and consult someone smarter than he.

The next president will appoint at least one Supreme Court justice. What they do will affect not only the next four years, but also the next 30 to 40. Kerry would choose wisely, and not load the Court with those who’d let personal opinions outweigh Constitutional rights.

This election may be won on college campuses. It may be won in Pennsylvania and Ohio, in the rusting Steel Belt and the Mon Valley. It may be won by one vote or a thousand, and each and every vote counts.

Both sides think that, if the other wins, Armageddon will be upon us. It won’t. We’ve had worse presidents than Bush, but we can do better.

It’s time for a change, America. There’s work to be done.