Posted on 10/26/2004 7:47:08 PM PDT by Dr. Scarpetta
Four more years Though not without faults, George W. Bush has shown leadership in difficult times. Now is not the time to back away.
Three years after terrorist hijackers erased a piece of the New York City skyline and murdered nearly 3,000 innocents, Sept. 11 remains an open wound. Or is it?
Remember the days in the aftermath of Sept. 11? Remember how we grieved, together? Remember how we united to console friends and neighbors -- even strangers? Remember the respect we paid to one another?
What happened?
Three years later, our nation is consumed in partisan sniping that has diminished discourse and devalued so many sacrifices.
Above the painful cacophony, George W. Bush wins our endorsement for president.
Bush's first four years have been, kindly put, less than perfect. That said, he's faced unprecedented challenges, and more so than his opponent, he has a consistent approach to the future.
His tax cuts served to stimulate a moribund economy that suffered potential death blows caused by a faceless enemy. He's reduced the federal tax burden on all income groups.
His proposed reforms aimed at privatizing a portion of Social Security would allow younger Americans some control over a program that won't live up to the promises made to the millions who have paid into it.
No Child Left Behind has school administrators scurrying under the bright light of accountability -- a word heretofore missing from the public school vernacular.
John Kerry has elevated the debate and we credit him for that. But he is not the answer.
In fact, Kerry is a question. His record and convictions are as indecisive as his own words. Kerry's performances on the stump smack of a political opportunist who will do and say anything to get elected. Remember him looking "right into the camera" and promising not to raise taxes? Puh-leeze.
Kerry would reverse Bush's tax cuts for those making more than $200,000 per year and says he'd target additional cuts at the middle class.
On Iraq, he'd rely too heavily on the United Nations with a plan that arouses more suspicion than confidence.
Kerry's claims that the president under-funded No Child Left Behind ring hollow in the face of a 60 percent increase in federal education funding during Bush's first three years.
Try as he might, Kerry can't portray himself as an outsider reformist in this campaign. In two decades in the U.S. Senate, he has done nothing to distinguish himself from the pack.
A word to describe his record? Sparse comes to mind.
Our endorsement for the president isn't a recommendation for four more years of the same. Bush hardly deserves a free pass. There should be hell to pay for the failures in intelligence that prompted our invasion of Iraq.
The administration's weakening of environmental rules and secret meetings with fatcat energy execs are an embarrassment.
The Patriot Act's darkening of public records in the name of national security is at best dubious, at worst a chilling reminder of the way things shouldn't be.
Yet through it all, Bush has demonstrated the leadership that Kerry hasn't, and in our view, can't.
Bush weathered an incredible storm in Sept. 11 and has stuck to his guns in taking the fight to the terrorists' spider holes.
In a new American experience in which our vulnerabilities are on constant display, our nation's security is paramount. Kerry's strategy just doesn't measure up.
Now is not the time to back away from the fight. Or the president.
GO EASTON!!!
The (insert paper's name) endorses President Geerge W. Bush because the idea of Theresa Heinz-Kerry as First lady maks us violently ill.
[Since the Express-Times has now endorsed Bush, the Bush-haters have already started writing their letters of complaint. Here is a letter to the editor that was in today's paper.]
***
"Vote for the future by voting for Kerry"
I am extremely disappointed that The Express-Times did not examine Bush's true record before the paper endorsed him.
As a woman, I care about the environment and education for our nation's children. Bush has the worst environmental record since the conservation movement was started by Teddy Roosevelt. Bush failed to fully fund his "No Child Left Behind" initiative, preferring instead to give his rich friends and corporations huge tax cuts.
He is not fiscally responsible. He has single-handedly created the largest deficit in American history. If I ran my household finances like Bush handles the budget, I'd have to declare bankruptcy.
As a woman, I care about protecting people. Bush's war, which has now cost us well over 1,000 lives and 5,000 wounded soldiers, was based on a lie.
Bush has let the assault weapons ban expire. Now people all over this country can be killed with similar weapons used to kill our soldiers in Iraq. I guess Bush is an equal opportunity killer.
People in this country are losing their jobs to outsourcing. Bush is so out of touch, that one of his advisors said that outsourcing American jobs is actually good for America.
Bush is exploiting Sept. 11 to get reappointed, oops re-elected, but don't forget it happened on his watch. Maybe if Bush hadn't been on vacation for nearly the entire month of August 2001, he could have prevented it. I don't get a whole month off, do you?
Worst of all, we women will no longer be in control of our own bodies if Bush gets back in. He will relegate women to the back alleys for illegal abortions, if he gets to appoint only one new Supreme Court justice.
We cannot afford to let this happen! Vote for the future! Vote for John Kerry!
JANET MURASKIN
Washington
Bush investments have been targeted to the construction of Halliburton Rusty Hanger Manufactories...
ping
The Express-Times always printed my letters to the editor, while the Morning Call would not. BTW, we lived in Palmer Twp. until 9 yrs ago when we moved to Moore Twp outside of Bath. Do you miss our area? The leaves are beautiful right now.
Route 33 is now connected to Route 78 by a bridge that was built across the Lehigh River. There's a new shopping center on Freemansburg Highway at that point in Bethlehem Twp. So many new developments have sprung up with people commuting far down into NJ. Forks Twp. is built up with developments, and Easton HS is having trouble keeping up with all the growth.
We escaped from Palmer and are out here in the country. But now people have discovered Moore Twp. and developments are springing up out here.
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