The New York Times endorses Kerry for President. Not a surprise, of course, but I enjoy reading the Times’s endorsement every four years because it’s a nice summing-up of things.

Three-fourths of the editorial is actually an indictment of the Bush presidency — only a fourth of it is about Kerry. Ordinarily, that might be damning. But in 2004, I really don’t care.

We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It’s on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.

This year, that’s good enough for me.

[Related: The Times’s endorsement of Al Gore, four years ago.]