Our steadfast leader just lost the hearland :

A tiny weekly newspaper that bills itself as President Bush’s hometown paper has endorsed John Kerry for president, saying the Massachusetts senator will restore American dignity.

The Lone Star Iconoclast, which has a weekly circulation of 425, said in an editorial dated Sept. 29 that Texans should rate the candidates not by hometown or political party, but by where they intend to take the country.

“Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding Iraq,” the editorial said.

The Iconoclast, established in 2000, said it editorialized in support of the invasion of Iraq and publisher W. Leon Smith promoted Bush and the invasion in a BBC interview, believing Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda,” the editorial said.

The newspaper praised Kerry for “30 years of experience looking out for the American people” and lauded his background as “a highly decorated Vietnam veteran.”

My hope is that this tiny newspaper is the media equivalent of this brave little boy :

The emperor marched in the procession under the beautiful canopy, and all who saw him in the street and out of the windows exclaimed: ?Indeed, the emperor?s new suit is incomparable! What a long train he has! How well it fits him!? Nobody wished to let others know he saw nothing, for then he would have been unfit for his office or too stupid. Never emperor?s clothes were more admired.

?But he has nothing on at all,? said a little child at last. ?Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child,? said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. ?But he has nothing on at all,? cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, ?Now I must bear up to the end.?

And Emperor Bush, realizing that the crowd was right, continued saying to himself “Things are getting better in Iraq…”