Posted on 09/23/2004 10:41:38 AM PDT by PajamaTruthMafia
TWO DISASTEROUS MOVES BY KERRY [09/23 01:06 PM]
Kerry just made two moves that I think are tremendously boneheaded mistakes. The left and the right agree that Iraq is Issue One, that you cannot be elected president unless the American people think you handle this difficult and important mission over there. Kerry came out as the anti-war candidate this week, and I thought that was a much stronger position than his "well, I support the troops, but not the mission, sort of, but, you see, this, but that", etc.
But if you want to be the next president, and the Prime Minister of Iraq comes to Washington to address a joint session of Congress, where should you be?
In the U.S. Capitol chamber!
Not in a Columbus, Ohio firehouse!
Senator, if you win, you're going to have to work with this guy - or his successor. Kerry should have tried to get a meeting with Allawi himself, to try to make the challenger look like Bush's equal (when foreign leaders come to the U.S., they often meet with leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill. It's just common courtesy and protocol).
Major mistake number two: Even if you can't be there, you don't take a jab at Allawi.
"The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story," Kerry said. Allawi told a joint meeting of Congress that democratic elections will take place in Iraq in January as scheduled, but Kerry said that was unrealistic.
"The United States and the Iraqis have retreated from whole areas of Iraq," Kerry told reporters outside a Columbus firehouse. "There are no-go zones in Iraq today. You can't hold an election in a no-go zone."
Smarter tone: You try to co-opt Allawi. "It was great to see the leader of Iraq come to America and thank this nation and our men in uniform for all that they have done for his nation. I understand that during this time, he feels a need to stand in solidarity with President Bush. But frankly, I think the Iraq people would be better off with a broader coalition, and assistance from around the world. Prime Minister Allawi probably couldn't say this in front of his hosts, but it's clear that this policy hasn't worked the way we hoped, and it's time to try a different strategy. We need all of our allies working at our sides in this..." Etcetera.
Instead, Kerry is essentially calling Allawi a liar, and continuing his gloom and doom rhetoric about Iraq. Major, major miscalculation, in my humble opinion.
Welcome, PTM.
I guess the matter is obvious to everyone.
Here's a related thread from 18 months ago on their strategy in dealing with Iraq.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/832593/posts
I agree. But I believe the word is "disastrous."
Great summary.
Kerry really is dangerous, naive and irresponsible. I don't think he's up to the task of being President.
Shsssssssss...........don't tell Kerry.
Good analysis and welcome to FR.
John Kerry: Working Hard to Defeat America
John Kerry is not up to the task of hauling my garbage away.
this is another flip-flop, and he really had to work at it to pull it off. what a maroon.
Kerry is a complete moron. He could have really thrown Bush off his game if he had shown up on the Senate floor for Allawi's speech today. The cameras and reporters would have flocked to cover his "dramatic" entrance. Allawi would have had to meet with him, at least briefly. Kerry could have upstaged the President and done some really "presidential" reassurances with Allawi that he would not cut and run if elected. A golden opportunity for him to look like a President, lost. Instead he looks like just another idiot politician, calling Allawi a liar from some obscure place in Ohio. This is Campaigning 101 and Kerry is flunking!!!
Kerry will lose ine large fashion this year. Mark my words.
At this point I would prefer Hillary to Kerry. I would clearly prefer Bill to Kerry. What happened to our country that one of the two major parties would choose this man to lead our country at this fragile time in our history? Is it collective insanity or collective ignorance?
I pray the country is not so insane or so ignorant as to elect this man. If so, then I fear our country is doomed.
Kerry would sell out Allawi faster than Carter sold out the Shah.
Just damn! alert
from RALPH PETERS in the Post today (in case you missed it):
"Kerry doesn't want to see those things. He's reverting to form. Just as he lied about our troops three decades ago, encouraging our enemies of the day and worsening the suffering of our POWs in North Vietnam, today he's pandering to a new enemy.
Imagine the encouragement the terrorists, insurgents and global extremists draw from Kerry's declarations of defeat, from his insistence that our efforts in Iraq and in the War on Terror have failed. "
"In an election year, our engagement in Iraq is a legitimate topic for sober debate. But Kerry isn't serious. All he does is to declare defeat. He certainly doesn't want to be al Qaeda's candidate, but he's made himself into their man through his irresponsibility"
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/19598.htm
I'm sitting here shaking my head in bewilderment.
John Kerry betrayed America in 1971.
John Kerry is betraying America again, right now. right this very minute. In the midst of a war. With soldiers lives on the line. With American national security on the line. And dissing Allawi for not understanding conditions *in his own country*.
I feel like I'm in a time warp. This is the same seditious and treasonous John Kerry I saw and heard 30 years ago. He's no different then, than now.
And he's running for President? A traitor?
Unbelieveable.
Anyone get the feeling that Hillary told Carville to make sure that Kerry is away from Washington? And to tell Kerry that the best way to rev up the American people is to call the Iraqi leader a liar?
NO ONE can be this stupid!
Hillary to the green room please!
""In an election year, our engagement in Iraq is a legitimate topic for sober debate. But Kerry isn't serious. All he does is to declare defeat. He certainly doesn't want to be al Qaeda's candidate, but he's made himself into their man through his irresponsibility" "
Kerry does not want to be Commander in Chief. Kerry wants to be President.
Problem is the MSM will once again bury this.
Kerry: Allawi's Take on Iraq Unrealistic
Thursday September 23, 2004 4:46 PM
By NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that Iraq's Ayad Allawi was sent before Congress to put the ``best face'' on Bush administration policy.
Shortly after Allawi, the interim government's prime minister, gave a rosy portrayal of progress toward peace in Iraq, Kerry said the assessment contradicted reality on the ground.
``The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story,'' Kerry said.
Allawi told a joint meeting of Congress that democratic elections will take place in Iraq in January as scheduled, but Kerry said that was unrealistic.
``The United States and the Iraqis have retreated from whole areas of Iraq,'' Kerry told reporters outside a Columbus firehouse. ``There are no-go zones in Iraq today. You can't hold an election in a no-go zone.''
Kerry's remarks come one day after he told The Associated Press that President Bush's statement that a ``handful'' of people are willing to kill to stop progress in Iraq was a blunder that showed he was avoiding reality.
``George Bush let Osama bin Laden escape at Tora Bora,'' Kerry said in a brief interview Wednesday. ``George Bush retreated from Fallujah and other communities in Iraq which are now overrun with terrorists and threaten our troops. And George Bush said on the record we can't win the war on terror.
``And even today, he blundered again saying there are only a handful of terrorists in Iraq,'' Kerry said. ``I think he's living in a make believe world.''
Bush, campaigning in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, said: ``It's hard to help a country go from tyranny to elections to peace when there are a handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop the process. And that's what you're seeing on the TV screens. You know, these people cannot beat us militarily.''
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday, ``It only took 19 people to take down the World Trade Center towers and kill 3,000 people.'' He said that in Iraq, ``you've seen how a small number of suicide bombers can have a dramatic effect.''
Bush said Wednesday the insurgents ``use the only tool at their disposal, which is beheadings and death, to try to shake our will. They understand the nature of America. ... We weep when we think about the families affected by those who have been brutalized by these terrorists.''
Kerry's voice was scratchy and breaking from a cold on Wednesday. He canceled most public events for Thursday in Columbus and in Iowa to rest his voice, though his words were clear at the firehouse. The campaign said running mate John Edwards would take Kerry's place in Iowa.
Kerry spoke to the AP in West Palm Beach, Fla., shortly before boarding a flight to Columbus and after Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a scathing attack on the Democrat. Speaking to reporters after meeting with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, Cheney argued that Kerry has a penchant for wavering that makes him a weak alternative to a ``steadfast leader, which is exactly what we have in President George W. Bush.''
``John Kerry gives every indication that his repeated efforts to cast and recast and redefine the war on terror and our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, of someone who lacks the resolve, the determination and the conviction to prevail in this conflict,'' Cheney said. ``He has demonstrated throughout the course of this campaign that he lacks the clarity of vision and purpose necessary to lead our country during extraordinary times.''
Kerry said he has laid out ``steps to win the war, not to change, not to retreat, steps to win. George Bush is trying to fight a phantom here because he won't tell the American people the truth, so he sets up something that's not a real issue and attacks it.''
Bush ``missed a huge opportunity'' at the United Nations this week to try to persuade leaders of other nations to join the United States in Iraq and the broader anti-terror war, Kerry said.
``I don't think he's providing the leadership we need,'' Kerry said. ``I will do a better job of dealing with Iraq and winning the war and fighting the war on terror, period.''
In a day filled with rhetorical charges and countercharges - at campaign stops and in advertising - all four candidates found fault. Responding to Cheney, Edwards said in a statement that Bush and Cheney ``are the last two people we need a lecture from about how to keep the American people safe.''
``It is the height of absurdity for Dick Cheney, a chief architect of the Iraq quagmire, to talk about the leadership needed to fix the mess in Iraq that he created,'' said Edwards, reviving a word - quagmire - often used to describe the Vietnam War.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4509663,00.html
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