Tampa Tribune Withholds Bush Endorsement

The Tampa Tribune, a newspaper that endorsed every Republican nominee for President of the United States starting with Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, with one exception (Barry Goldwater), states:

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.



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.



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.

They also go on to criticize the Bush administration's secretive tactitcs:

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.

The also refuse to back Kerry, mostly due to faulty information: that Kerry supports a "Global Test" (not true); that "He supported the war in Iraq, then opposed adequately funding the troops." (Kerry supported giving Bush the authority to enter Iraq for more aggressive weapons inspections as a bid for peace (not war), Kerry later voted against a bill featuring an increase in troop funds because the bill also featured a huge tax cut for those earning over $200,000 a year (tax cuts are normally unheard of in times of war), etc., etc.....



Anywho, they conclude their non-endorsement by saying with certainty that "America is the greatest country on earth and will survive, no matter the outcome on Nov. 2."



Well, I can't argue with that.