Presidential election an empty choice

The Sept. 15 staff editorial in The Chronicle repeated the false meme that the upcoming presidential election “could be the most important election of our generation.” To see how preposterous this claim is, one need only take a quick and honest look at both of the main party candidates.

President George W. Bush, the War President, has sacrificed the country’s economic future by borrowing large sums of money, all to pay for two losing wars. His record of ineptitude should preclude Bush from winning a second term. It doesn’t, however, when you realize that his opponent, John Kerry, has the exact same policy as Bush concerning Iraq and Afghanistan. The argument by Kerry partisans is that he would run Bush’s foreign policy better than Bush has, which is not exactly a compelling reason to elect him. Moreover, this assumes Kerry’s absurd claim that he can talk other countries into participating in an occupation that is clearly a bloody and expensive failure.

You can vote for whomever you please, just as long as you vote for a candidate who will continue the occupation of Iraq, run up huge deficits to pay for a vast and growing military and continue the quixotic practice of forcing other nations to adopt a “democracy” amenable to U.S. interests.

If you object to any of these positions, then the choice between Bush and Kerry is little more than a Soviet election, a sham in which your party winning the election becomes more important than actually getting what you want.

Instead of publishing a weekly point/counterpoint in which the Bush and Kerry supporters adopt similar positions on vague topics like “foreign policy,” perhaps The Chronicle could solicit questions from Duke students and then publish the responses, responses which are not limited to supporters of the two main candidates.

In any case, The Chronicle needs to justify its claim that the election is of great importance to Duke students and that the outcome will have a profound effect on the average student’s life.

Craig Grabowski