home

New York Times Endorses Barack Obama

The New York Times has endorsed President Obama. It leads with the dangers of a Romney win:

  • The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold.
  • The United States is embroiled in unstable regions that could easily explode into full-blown disaster.
  • An ideological assault from the right has started to undermine the vital health reform law passed in 2010. Those forces are eroding women’s access to health care, and their right to control their lives.
  • Nearly 50 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, all Americans’ rights are cheapened by the right wing’s determination to deny marriage benefits to a selected group of us. Astonishingly, even the very right to vote is being challenged.

As to Mitt:

Mitt Romney has gotten to where he is by guile (read: deception.) He's embraced the failed ultra-right policies and ideologies of the past.

Obama's achievements:

  • carrying out the economic stimulus,
  • saving the auto industry,
  • improving fuel efficiency standards, and
  • making two very fine Supreme Court appointments.
  • most sweeping health care reforms since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The reform law takes a big step toward universal health coverage, a final piece in the social contract.
  • prevented another Great Depression.
  • attacked Al Qaeda’s leadership, including the killing of Osama bin Laden.
  • ended the war in Iraq.
  • “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule was finally legislated out of existence,

The Times forgot to include:

  • Crack cocaine penalties were reduced from 100:1 to 18:1
  • His executive order allowing a two year deferment of deportation for undocumented young people

Mitt:

Mr. Romney has no plan for covering the uninsured beyond his callous assumption that they will use emergency rooms. He wants to use voucher programs to shift more Medicare costs to beneficiaries and block grants to shift more Medicaid costs to the states.

Obama v. Romney:

If re-elected, Mr. Obama would be in position to shape the “grand bargain&