Posted on 08/24/2004 8:10:38 AM PDT by kattracks
BOSTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) picked New York City, host to next week's Republican National Convention, to urge the GOP to abandon "fear and smear" negative attacks and debate solutions to problems facing voters.Kerry also was using the speech at New York's Cooper Union to contrast his plans for raising middle-class living standards with goals achieved in the last four years, just days before President Bush (news - web sites) heads to the city to lay out his agenda for the next four years.
"The world will listen to what the Republicans say when they come here, but words, slogans and personal attacks cannot disguise what they have done and left undone," Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday. "I will be a champion for the middle class and those struggling to join it. This administration has weakened our middle class."
"The Bush campaign and its allies have turned to the tactics of fear and smear because they can't talk about jobs, health care, energy independence and rebuilding our alliances — the real issues that matter to the American people," Kerry said.
The Democratic ticket's plan for making middle-income voters more prosperous would preserve middle-class tax cuts, reduce the cost of health care, education and energy, and increase the federal minimum wage.
The Democrats also promise to close the pay gap between men and women and help families balance competing demands at home and at work.
Steve Schmidt, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said the Kerry record displays support for tax hikes, not tax cuts.
"John Kerry says the blueprint for his economic agenda was his vote for the biggest tax increase in American history he supported in 1993," Schmidt said.
The 1993 vote was in favor of President Clinton (news - web sites)'s plan to cut the deficit by $469 billion over five years, including some tax increases. It passed by one vote without any GOP support.
The call for a renewed focus on voters comes after days of exchanges between Republicans and Democrats over five medals awarded Kerry during the Vietnam War.
The Kerry campaign says Bush used a newly formed veterans' group not subject to campaign spending limits to attack his character. Those veterans say Kerry distorted his war experiences to win the medals, but their accounts in a television ad have been disputed by Navy records and veterans who served on Kerry's boat.
Bush on Monday criticized television spots run by all independent political groups as "bad for the system." Asked specifically about the anti-Kerry ad aired by the veterans' group, the president said, "That means that ad, every other ad."
Schmidt said Kerry has stood by while similar independent groups aligned with Democrats spend millions on ads against the president.
"John Kerry has been relentlessly negative," he said. "John Kerry has refused to condemn those ads."
The charge and countercharge saw both sides produce veterans whose accounts of the incidents that led to Kerry's war commendations.
Officials with the Kerry campaign, who count his war service as one of his biggest assets, say they have posted everything in Kerry's Navy file on his campaign Web site. The campaign said when the Navy sent Kerry his military file, it did not include his medical records, but Kerry had copies in his personal files.
On April 23, the Kerry campaign allowed 19 reporters who were traveling with him, including one from The Associated Press, to view the 36-page medical file for about 30 minutes while simultaneously interviewing his personal physician on a conference call. The physician wrote a three-page summary of the file that was posted on the Web site.
The Kerry campaign would not allow the AP to have a medical reporter present during that review and denied a request this week for a more substantial review. Kerry also has refused to release a journal he kept during his time in Vietnam, although parts were excerpted in Douglas Brinkley's book "Tour of Duty."
Bush released hundreds of pages of military documents but did not post them on a Web site. Bush also gave reporters limited access to his wartime medical records.
In Oregon, several pro-Kerry veterans called on a Clackamas County district attorney's office employee to resign after he appeared in an ad sponsored by an anti-Kerry group. Alfred French said in the ad and swore in an affidavit, "I served with John Kerry ... He is lying about his record." French subsequently acknowledged he relied on the accounts of other veterans and did not witness Kerry in combat.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20040824/ap_on_el_pr/kerry
With whom? American hating France, Germany, et al?
WHAT A DORK
This is rich, coming from the man who smeared EVERY SINGLE ONE of our Vietnam veterans.
His lies are so well documented that it is inescapable that he is a serial liar.
Man, where do I get a job working for the AP? Easiest job in the world - just reprint John Kerry press releases verbatim, slap your byline on it, and collect a paycheck. Easy money.
They have? Strange, I must've missed it.
Kerry's reading straight from the Rat playbook, accusing his opponent of doing precisely what he's doing himself.
And you don't even have to be accurate since this speech hasn't been delivered yet.
And you don't even have to be accurate since this speech hasn't been delivered yet.
When is this speech going to be delivered? I don't remember any Kerry event recently at Cooper Union.
For a Yahoo news story, this is actually pretty balanced. Usually they have just one line in a long article from a President Bush spokesman. Here, they actually include stuff about how Kerry has not really disclosed everything. It's almost like the DNC saying something nice about Bush - totally unexpected in a Yahoo item.
"Smear"??
You know, when I was a kid (don't ask how long ago), there was always at least one kid on the block who would come along and throw rocks and taunt the rest of us. When someone would finally get enough of it and go after him/her, the little jerk would go hollering for Mamaaaaa, whining and crying about how everyone was picking on him/her.
I think this is exactly what the 'Rats are doing.
Wow, all that and his name isn't Santa Claus ? I wonder why no other government in the world has ever done all this ? Devil's in the details...
BTTT for later
In other words, SHUT UP! STOP WHINNING!
How is he going to PAY for these high flying promises, like a full college education to any one HS grad doing 2 years of community service...and who is going to pay them to do the service??????? US TAXSERFS and the $3 Trillion tax hike it will take to pay for it!
This should be a gimme state for F john kerry...
Just looking for some headlines other than the Swftees smacking him down.
A medical reporter would pick up on the fact that most or all of his injuries don't meet the smell test. For instance, really having shrapnel in his body would have prevented the MRI he had in February (an MRI turns metal objects in the room into projectiles, a messy proposition if the patient has shrapnel).
===
The New York Sun March 30, 2004...
"In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Mr. Kerry's surgeon, Bertram Zarins, said the senator has a partial tear of the subscapularis tendon in his rotator cuff. Dr. Zarins said the injury stemmed from a mishap in January on the Kerry campaign bus in Iowa."
""The senator was walking down the aisle and the bus suddenly lurched. Senator Kerry grabbed a railing and wrenched his shoulder," Dr. Zarins said. Mr. Kerry later complained of shoulder pain. In February, he underwent an MRI test that revealed the tear."
"Dr. Zarins said he and Mr. Kerry initially opted for a wait-and-see approach regarding the shoulder, hoping that the pain would abate. It did not."
...
From "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)" at http://www.spineuniverse.com/displayarticle.php/article248.html
"Patients need to tell their physician if their body contains any ferromagnetic objects such as shrapnel, a pacemaker, or aneurysm clips. These patients cannot undergo MRI study. Ferromagnetic objects are attracted by the MRI's magnet."
From a CNN article on the same speech, this appears in the lead paragraph:
"You can't lead America by misleading the American people," said Kerry, who has been struggling in recent days against charges -- denounced by Democrats as smear tactics -- that he lied about his actions in Vietnam that won five military medals.
http://cnn.allpolitics.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=CNN.com+-+Kerry+accuses+Bush+of+%27fear+and+smear%27+tactics+-+Aug+24%2C+2004&expire=09%2F23%2F2004&urlID=11429767&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2004%2FALLPOLITICS%2F08%2F24%2Fkerry.ap%2Findex.html&partnerID=2001
Hey Kerry. You know what? Viet Nam or not, medals or not, shooting a wounded teen in the back or not, saving a drowning gerbal or not.... I think you're an incredible pu$$y!
I'm real tired of this "I'm a victim" BS. "Bring it on!"... "call 'em off!" Whahhhh, I got sand in it and it hurts!!!!
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