Posted on 10/03/2004 11:44:28 AM PDT by Perdogg
edinan@seacoastonline.com
"Keeping Our Families Safe" was the name of Elizabeth Edwards’ town hall discussion Saturday in Manchester. Her message was be afraid. Addressing an audience of about 100 in the Green Acres School gymnasium, Edwards, wife of vice presidential hopeful John Edwards, told the group that America is not safe and that President Bush is to blame.
Elaborating, Edwards said there is a one in 10 chance of a terrorist successfully smuggling a nuclear bomb into this country, as President Bush spends 90 percent of the homeland security budget on airports, where cargo is not checked. She said two-thirds of American borders do not have the necessary resources to be adequately protected, that the president is "not doing anything to protect our rail system" and that he "has refused" to protect chemical and nuclear plants.
Edwards also stated the country’s ports are at risk because cargo containers are largely unchecked and mentioned Portsmouth by name. According to Geno Marconi, director of the Pease Development Authority, cargo containers have not come to Portsmouth Harbor since 1990.
Edwards’ said the president has underfunded firefighters and the military and is looking to cut soldiers’ and veterans’ benefits. She said Bush has cut local and state first responder training and that Americans are "at greater risk today than we were before September 11."
"John Kerry and John Edwards are as fearful as we are," she said, referring to her co-hosts, Rochester firefighter Beth Blake, Karen Cox, the Concord wife of a soldier stationed in Iraq, Monica Gabrielle, a New York widow of a victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Manchester mother of six Wendy Thomas.
Elizabeth Edwards
Thomas, who received a standing ovation for saying she is not a soccer mom-turned-security mom, but rather an "intelligent mom" for Kerry and Edwards, said she does not go to shopping malls out of fear for the safety of her family. During Edwards’ Manchester appearance, earpiece-wearing security personnel were posted at each of the four corners of the school gymnasium.
"I think about this, not as a politician’s wife, but as a mom," Edwards said. "The president says how important homeland security is to him. They’re the right words, but he’s not doing it. The consequences are not whether you win or lose an election, it’s whether our families are safe."
Responding to Edwards’ message, Maria Comella, N.H. communications director for the Bush-Cheney campaign said, "Instead of playing on Americans’ worst fears, President Bush has put forward an aggressive strategy that is defeating terrorists, denying them support and sanctuary and working to eliminate the underlying economic and social conditions that terrorists seek to exploit.
"At home, the Bush administration is developing and deploying cutting-edge technologies to secure our borders, ports, critical infrastructure and other potential vulnerabilities of our homeland."
In an e-mail, Comella said President Bush’s fiscal year 2005 budget includes $401.7 billion for the Department of Defense, a 35 percent increase over fiscal year 2001 levels and a 7 percent increase over the fiscal year 2004 enacted level.
"Since (fiscal year) 2001, President Bush has provided pay raises of more than 21 percent to the armed services and increased the quality of housing and covering housing costs for personnel who choose to live off-base," the e-mail stated. "His budget also includes $10.3 billion to develop missile defenses for our homeland, U.S. forces deployed abroad, and our allies."
The e-mail said the president’s budget for fiscal year 2005 proposes a 9.7 percent increase in government-wide homeland security funding, nearly tripling the fiscal year 2001 levels - even when homeland security funding for the Department of Defense and Project BioShield are excluded.
"Senator Kerry’s scare tactics, however, are a desperate attempt to mask a 20-year history of slashing intelligence funding by $7.5 billion, a poor attendance record in which he missed 76 percent of public Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, and a view of how to fight the war on terror that misses the mark," Comella said in the e-mail. "His rhetoric seeking to instill panic sends the wrong message to Americans, the Iraqi people and, most importantly, the terrorists."
HEY LIZ..YOU WONDERFUL CARING CITIZEN..ASK BABY FACE LAWYER BOY IF HE CARES SO MUCH FOR THE HEALTH OF THE AVERAGE CITIZEN WHY DIDN'T HE WORK ON THEIR CASES PRO-BONO...OR AT LEAST AT A REDUCED FEE......YOU MAY HAVE MONEY BUT YOU'RE NOT WORTH 1 CENT
We have to give them this: Edwards published an article a month before 9/11 warning of terrorists threats against the USA.
Can you site the source? I believe you, I just want to see it in the full context.
Opie's beloved Fat@ss is just upset that the maker of Twinkies declared bankruptcy.
LOL...mike strikes again !!
It's on Sen John Edwards website - look under columns. It was published here in NC.
I hope Cheney makes little Senator meatballs out of Edwards...
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