The Philadelphia Inquirer exudes bias and blatant liberalism in its endorsement of John Kerry.

A hooded prisoner on a box has replaced a soaring lady with a lamp as the global icon of America's intentions.

Adam's Comment: The Inquirer column lunges to ridiculousness in this sentence, and continues to get worse throughout. To believe that a few soldiers' idiocy represents America's intentions globally is a gross misrepresentation.

The case for Kerry has two parts. The first is the record of George W. Bush. The evidence is compelling, though tallied in sorrow: His was a presidency of high promise that lapsed into multiple disasters.

Adam's Comment: On the contrary, his presidency thus far has been one marked with great successes. He has freed more than 50 million people from tyranny and dictatorship. Afghanistan had elections for the first time since the Taliban's removal, where women were allowed to vote. Schools and hospitals are opening in Afghanistan daily. Elections are set for January in Iraq, where a 250,000-soldier Army is being trained. The Inquirer's claims on foreign progress is baseless. There are no "disasters" anywhere in the world. Without question, there have been more freed and liberated people in the past four years thanks to the administration's policies.

Most worrisome, his response to the stunning blows of 9/11 has gone fatefully awry. He has left Americans less safe than they could be and America less admired than it should be.

Adam's comment: The President's response to 9/11 was a global assault upon terrorists and the states who harbor them. Without a doubt, Afghanistan was infiltrated with a terrorist regime, and they harbored al Qaeda. Bush rightfully attacked. And without a doubt, Saddam Hussein harbored terrorists and financed terrorist operations by funding suicide bombers. If Europe fails to recognize the lengths that America will pursue to hunt down terrorists on a global scale, that is their miscue, not ours. It is fundamentally inaccurate for the Inquirer to say that because some European countries have not joined our coalition, then that means our efforts are misguided.

This, very few of you have gotten during a petty, dispiriting campaign. Some blame rests with the Democrat. He has not framed the debate with the force and clarity he must master to be an outstanding president.
More blame, though, rests with Bush. Awash in millions from the corporate donors to whom his White House caters so avidly, the President has spent more time ridiculing Kerry through distortions than presenting his own plans.

Adam's Comment: Although I agree both sides have distorted records, it is clear Kerry fails to attack terrorism head on. A quote from the NY Times: "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." John Kerry still fails to recognize that terrorism is a global threat, a global problem, and one that needs to be confronted with the will and might of America and its allies. Bush's own plans are not perfect. His strategy in Iraq is not foolproof. It is a complicated society, very unlike ours in many ways, and one that cannot be settled overnight. John Kerry is playing on those fears, and trying to win an election by settling on the answer that our President must win the peace. He is simply playing on voters' fears taking that stand. The country is 90% in peace and relative harmony after ousting a brutal killer who reigned for three decades. It is not a simple procedure to provide violence-free, control-free leadership in a few months.

If you're an undecided voter, consider this: As president, Kerry will have to work with a Congress where at least one chamber is Republican. Checks and balances, a prescription for moderation. A vote for Bush risks one-party rule, with Congress under the control of aggressive conservatives and reelection concerns no longer checking Bush's impulses.

Adam' comment: Forget that the voters voted in these people to represent them, or at least, that's what the Inquirer would like. The Inquirer also tries to invoke the idea that aggressive conservative ideals are wrong for the country. A vote for Bush does not "risk" one-party rule, it invites one-party rule. The paper also is hesitant to trust Bush's impulses, dissuading its readers, and pressing its circulation to believe he acts on impulse and that those decisions are misguided and un-tested.

You've heard - eight gazillion times - that John Kerry is a flip-flopper. No doubt, he's a man who relishes nuance. His penchant for thinking out loud is ill-suited to a sound-bite culture. He'll have to curb that, seeking a more disciplined clarity. But the flip-flop label rests mainly on one sound bite. All together now: "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

Adam's Comment: Kerry is not a man who relishes nuance, however the Inquirer wants to dictate that word. He is a New England millionaire liberal who will take the popular side of every vote each time. It is documented: when he shows up to vote, the popular vote wins with John Kerry. There is nothing nuanced or uniquely detailed about his votes at all.

Kerry served, showed courage, won medals, then raised an honorable, if hyperbolic, alarm about a misguided war. Case closed. Perhaps the Boston convention overdid the allusions to those facts, but that doesn't justify the baseless Swift-boat assaults of August.
Kerry doesn't talk much about his Senate record, a curious omission. That record isn't spectacular, but it is solid and qualifying. Names on bills are just one road to effectiveness. Kerry took the less glamorous path of investigation. He had major successes.

Adam's Comment: Kerry did serve in Vietnam, but the Swift Boat veterans deserve just as much say as Kerry does on this issue. They served just as honorably, and their stories about the truthfulness to John Kerry's claims should be advanced by the mainstream media.

Thwarting terrorism is a president's core job in these haunted times. Kerry's approach is more thorough than that of Bush, whose two main tools seem to be bombs and bombast. Bush's reckless missteps in Iraq have cost a painful toll in lives, credibility, alliances, Islamic anger and lost opportunities.

Adam's comment: The idea that Bush's main goals are bombs and bombast are typically old, liberal ideas. His missteps in Iraq are not reckless; they are nothing more than minor miscalculations in assessment. Our credibility is not at question, our tally of loss in Iraq is miniscule compared to the benefits of the Iraqi people without Saddam Hussein. And Islamic anger? Exactly how is that calculated from the editorial desk in Philadelphia? This is clearly a ploy to get Kerry elected, nothing more, nothing less.

It is absurd to claim that, had Kerry been president on that awful day in 2001, he would merely have shrugged and sent a strongly worded memo to the World Court. Any president would have done much of what Bush did in late 2001 - with less soaring eloquence perhaps. But few would have raced as he did into the deadly detour of Iraq.

Adam's Comment: It is far from a deadly detour in Iraq if one will take into scope the progress that has been made. We have deposed an evil tyrant, secured more than 80% of the country and are on the way to an election, just like Afghanistan this weekend. Those praying for problems will find them. This exercise is far from perfect, but we are continually making headway in the war on terror because we have a determined and dedicated leader backed by a brilliant team, empowered by the best trained military in the world.