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Britain

Oi! It's official - al-Economist endorses Kerry

2004-10-30

The Economist has annoyed me for ages with its sneering coverage of the American scene. Now they've topped their Rumsfeld resign cover for editorial and journalistic incompetence. I've always thought that the Economist had asinine and incompetent American coverage. I used to think I'll continue to read them, because they continue to cover international business reasonably well. Now I'm starting to ignore their international coverage, on the assumption that they are probably equally incompetent at covering other issues as well.
The incompetent or the incoherent?
Oct 28th 2004
With a heavy heart, we think American readers should vote for John Kerry on November 2nd.

With a straight face, we think they shouldn't.

You might have thought that, three years after a devastating terrorist attack on American soil, a period which has featured two

...John Kerry, who often seems to have made up his mind conclusively about something only once, and that was 30 years ago.

wars, radical political and economic legislation, and an adjustment to one of the biggest stockmarket crashes in history, the campaign for the presidency would be an especially elevated and notable affair. If so, you would be wrong. This year's battle has been between two deeply flawed men: George Bush, who has been a radical, transforming president but who has never seemed truly up to the job, let alone his own ambitions for it; and John Kerry, who often seems to have made up his mind conclusively about something only once, and that was 30 years ago. But on November 2nd, Americans must make their choice, as must The Economist. It is far from an easy call, especially against the backdrop of a turbulent, dangerous world. But, on balance, our instinct is towards change rather than continuity: Mr Kerry, not Mr Bush.
Truly an editorial worthy of al-Jazeera. After some reflection, I can't think of any business stories they cover better than the American business magazines. I think I'll just let my subscription lapse.

Are you sure they didn't send you the Euro edition by mistake?

Posted by:Zhang Fei

#11 I let my subscription lapse 6 months ago...

Looks like I wasn't the only one. They were begging for almost a year for me to re-new. Too bad though.

Posted by: Rafael 2004-10-30 4:00:52 PM

#10 Classic, I don't know how I missed this during the week: 'Financial Times endorses Kerry, but with riders' Describing US President George W Bush, as "a polarize" who exploited the war on terror to "divide the world into Them and Us," which is precisely what Osama has already accomplished throughout the Islamic world in relation to the 'infidels' of the Great Satan economies of the world.

It's was really funny to watch Osama reading word for word Michael Moore's anti-American ranting. I expected the cave man to also state in his video "There is no terrorist threat!" "There is no terrorist threat" with Mayor Koch after the video threat saying, 'It's a lie, It's a lie!" Long live Mayor Koch!

The Financial Times has endorsed John F Kerry, but said the Democratic Presidential candidate has to show how differently he would deal with Iraq. Does that mean unless there is immediate Zapatero sytle appeasement regarding the jihadists operating in Iraq the Euroites will bad mouth John Forbes Kerry as they have President Bush?

The Economist is owned by The Economist Group, which is itself half owned by the Financial Times? All in the globalist promoting family. When the self proclaimed elite, being in many cases left over, leftwing, 1960's druggies, hippies & radicals currently neo-socialists, but all the while really longing for the protest-of-the-week they so enejoyed of their younger years.

Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-10-30 3:14:01 PM

#9 I'm gonna drag my laboured stellar analogy in here again. Add The Economist to the FT, Lancet, and AI as organisations firmly in the Red Giant phase of their existences. Actually, maybe that ought to be Red Dwarf.

Posted by: Bulldog 2004-10-30 12:25:32 PM

#8 This thread could really use that Joachim Phoenix "thumbs down" image, if anyone has it handy.

Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-10-30 10:01:15 AM

#7 My wife and I were recently considering a subscription, but after their attacks on Rumsfeld and Bush there is no way they'll get our money.

Just sent a letter to the editor. here's the heart of it:

If Kerry's desires had been enacted, Saddam Hussein would still occupy Kuwait, would have nuclear weapons to threaten the rest of the Middle East already, and would still be torturing and murdering tens of thousands of Iraqis every year. And, looking further back in time, Kerry's opposition to Reagan's challenge to the Soviet Empire would have meant that Eastern Europe would still be under Communist Dictatorship -- and the Red Army would still be aiming an increasing number of nuclear weapons at the USA and Western Europe.

Shame on you. Your judgment cannot be trusted anymore.

Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) 2004-10-30 9:44:55 AM

#6 Mark,

It's not a blunder. It's a betrayal. Supporting Kerry part per se is not the problem. That would be ok and consistent with their heritage if they had a coherent, principled argument for supporting him. It's the departure from the land of reason to head off to the fragrant shores of "emotive journalism" that is the problem, something they specifically decry on their "About Us" page:

Founded in 1843 to support the cause of free trade, The Economist has remained a radical publication of opinion with a reverence for facts. It has become firmly established as one of the world's most authoritative and influential publications. The Economist is famous for its objective, factual writing, rather than for emotive journalism.

Sorry chappies, the value of Economist shares has plummeted in these parts. Get back to facts for a decade or so and you might see a bit of a recovery.

Regarding the FT: I'm sure they will take a position. They took all the position they needed for me to cancel my subscription when they published an op-ed piece by Charles Clover their Iraq editor for 2003-2004 entitled "Natural Born Killers Will Not Win Hearts And Minds". This was subtitled, "The behaviour of the US military has become the most acute source of anti-American rage". Clover is one of those pricks who drank himself silly in the bar of his Baghdad hotel "covering the war". Anyone who knows actual American service men and women would immediately recognize the outright slander in this piece. I'm am glad the FT brought this douchebag out onto the editorial section because it explained in an instant the slant of all of their Iraqi coverage and provided me with an iron clad case not to spend another nickel on the FT.

Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2004-10-30 6:07:11 AM

#5 This huge blunder

& real shame coming from a such highly respected economics publication which I always review. What position, if any, the Financial Times has issued, or will?

Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-10-30 5:16:39 AM

#4 Funny. It's been twenty years for me too. Makes you wonder what the recent attrition rate is on long term subscribers. It has to be awfully high. It would probably take Marjorie Scardino hiring Mark Steyn as editor to turn things around for The Economist at this point.

Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2004-10-30 4:32:11 AM

#3 Wow. I cancelled The Economist (after many years of being a subscriber on three continents) a few months ago. This leader confirms to me that this bunch of silly prats in London have become completely detached from the The Economist's glorious tradition of classical liberalism. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Check this out:

The Economist's weekly sales in the United States are about 450,000 copies, which is three times our British sale and roughly 45% of our worldwide total. All those American readers will now be pondering how to vote, or indeed whether to.

Yeah, you think? Principled people in America know damn well who they are going to vote for: the candidate and the party that have some principles. If your readership in America is now the mult-culti soft socialist left, well best of luck to you. That ain't me.

I stopped subscribing to the Financial Times for similar reasons. That's several hundred dollars a year the Pearson Group doesn't see from he. I spent the first year's savings on the Cato University home study program.

Farewell Economist. It was a good run of 160 or so years. But what I'm seeing now doesn't look any better than Newseek edited in London. The great minds that would have in the past been anonymous contributors behind your banner are now out in the open with their own blogs and we are the better for it.

Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2004-10-30 4:24:53 AM

#2 I let my subscription lapse 6 months ago after 20 years. More or less the same reasons as ZF, except for me the last straw was when they decided Kyoto made sense.

Posted by: phil_b 2004-10-30 3:49:17 AM

#1 Are you sure they didn't send you the Euro edition by mistake?

No such luck. But the Economist has been trending more and more towards socialist schemes. I think it is time for al-Economist to change its name to "the Socialist". The problem is that it might be a little more difficult to get businesses to subscribe to a business magazine with that kind of title.

Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-10-30 2:04:28 AM

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