Posted on 03/08/2004 4:34:31 AM PST by BigWaveBetty
Edited on 03/08/2004 4:52:05 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Kerry 1997:The administration... don't believe that they even need the U.N. Security Council
During a 1997 debate on CNN's "Crossfire," Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry made the case for launching a pre-emptive attack against Iraq, according to Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who appeared with Kerry on the program.
King recounted the debate for WABC Radio's Monica Crowley on Saturday, recalling that at the time, the U.N. Security Council had just adopted a resolution against Iraq that had been watered down at the behest of the French and the Russians.
According to King, Kerry argued: "We know we can't count on the French. We know we can't count on the Russians. We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest."
"Crossfire" transcripts from 1997 are no longer available, but King said he'd share a copy of the Kerry tape with Crowley, who said she looked forward to broadcasting it. Stay tuned. Link
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So far this post at a blog is all been able to find on these Kerry remarks:
In my earlier post today I commented about a news story from Newsmax which reported that in an 1997 episode of CNN's Crossfire John Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, advocated a pre-emptive strategy in dealing with Saddam. Now my frequent commentor and fellow blogger Jaws has fished the transcript from the bowels of LexisNexis and provided me with it, the relevant parts are as follows:
JOHN SUNUNU:...This whole process gave our allies an opportunity not only not to follow America's leadership, not only not to allow us to lead, but to tell us we'd better not do what the president is now saying he might do.
KERRY: Well, John, there's absolutely no statement that they (France, Russia) have made or that they will make that will prevent the United States of America and this president or any president from acting in what they believe are the best interests of our country.
SUNUNU: But isn't what he has seen is a loss of U.S. leadership and an erosion under an administration that has failed to lead?
KERRY: On the contrary. The administration is leading. The administration is making it clear that they don't believe that they even need the U.N. Security Council to sign off on a material breach because the finding of material breach was made by Mr. Butler. So furthermore, I think the United States has always reserved the right and will reserve the right to act in its best interests.
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Now the words aren't exactly the same as reported in the earlier story but there's no doubt Kerry, in 1997, thought that a resolution from the UNSC was not needed because proof of Saddam being in material breach had been found. Further more he then believed a president doesn't need to worry about the concerns of other countries when the "best interests of our country" are at stake. hmmmm...now between '97 and 2004 what has changed?...hmmmm, it brings his world renown perchant for flip floppage to a whole new level. Link
March 15, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - First lady Laura Bush and the president's mother, Barbara Bush, are now openly "questioning" the direction of President Bush's campaign team, a stunning new report claims.
With national polls showing the once-invincible Bush in a dead heat against Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the two powerful Bush women are among many White House advisers fearful that the 2004 re-election team isn't up to the task. Barbara Bush "does not want to see her family go through a '92 thing again," according to two well-connected Bush aides quoted in Time magazine.
The Time report notes a series of missteps and challenges facing the Bush-Cheney re-election team as it heads into the fall campaign season. One recent blunder came last week when Bush was excitedly preparing to appoint Nebraska millionaire Anthony Raimondo as his new national "jobs czar." But Bush had to backtrack when Kerry pointed out that the man laid off 75 U.S. workers in 2002 to build a $3 million factory in China. NY Post
March 15, 2004 -- SEN. John Kerry boasts how he "sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9/ 11," referring to his 1997 book "The New War." Too bad he didn't blast it when it really counted - four months before the hijackings, when he was hand-delivered evidence of serious security breaches at Logan International Airport, with specific warnings that terrorists could exploit them.
Former FAA security officials say the Massachusetts senator had the power to prevent at least the Boston hijackings and save the World Trade Center and thousands of lives, yet he failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his state's main airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings.
"He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck" on back through the federal bureaucracy, said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent from the Boston area who in May 2001 personally warned Kerry that Logan was ripe for a "jihad" suicide operation possibly involving "a coordinated attack."
Rewind to May 6, 2001. That night, a Boston TV station (Fox-25) aired reporter Deborah Sherman's story on an undercover investigation at Logan that Sullivan and another retired agent helped set up. In nine of 10 tries, a crew got knives and other weapons through security checkpoints - including the very ones the 9/11 hijackers would later exploit.
The next day, Sullivan fired off a two-page letter to Kerry highlighting the systemic failures. rest of story
The singer whos facing child molestation charges was trying to get a film called Hot Rod made, according to Jersey Girl director Kevin Smith.
It was about Michael Jackson morphing into a car, Smith tells Playboy magazine in an issue just hitting newsstands. Jackson was behind it, and he wanted it to be this story about a guy, played by himself, who hangs out with a little boy, and this little boy gets into the car and drives him around. MSNBC
LOL, I wonder the same thing every time I see that stupid ad. The other thing that bugs me is when they list all the possible side effects and all the conditions that you if you have, you shouldn't take this wonder drug. Well, duh, totally healthy guys shouldn't need the drug, right?
Why did Clinton have to mention that his trainer was German?
How desperate is CNN?
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- More than 60 people gathered Monday in Washington for a march to the White House, calling for an end to U.S. military action in Iraq. The protest, the second day of a two-day demonstration against the Bush administration, drew mostly peace activists, along with a few relatives of U.S. troops, organizers said. link
Oh my sides! A few dozen, you say? Why is it that every conservative "protest" in which I've participated, where at least that many attended, was completely ignored by the media?
We already knew Walter's mind wasn't exactly a steel trap. Speaking of dimwitted Dems, Hillary! was guest of honor at a cocktail party:
FORMER Ambassador to the Slovak Republic Karl Spielvogel and his wife, Barbaralee Diamonstein - their Park Avenue residence outdoes the Bratislava one - did cocktails for Hillary. "This is a light evening," Hillary told me. "I only have three stops."
Seventy-five people. Excepting one lady named Gail Maidman in yellow, almost every female wore black. Some so high-class it cuts down your conversation. Like I asked one elegant blonde, "So what do you do?" Said this Liz Newman: "I give away money." Former Mayor David Dinkins: "With the research this takes, that's a hard thing to do." Yeah? I'd have thought poverty was even harder, but what do I know.
Attorney General Spitzer's wife, Silda, piloting their three children: "We're meeting Eliot and heading upstate for two days." New York mag's former editor Caroline Miller: "Its new owners are excellent people with fine ideas. I like them a lot." And there was political pro Robert Zimmerman who's on so many talk shows it costs extra to get a TV set that comes without him.
Some Hillary niftyisms: "Look, I have nothing against the wealthy. Especially since my husband is now working" . . . "The current administration tried to undo everything my husband had done. It's been 'very challenging' for us" . . . "I called Kerry a serious man for a serious job and John said, 'Yes, but I'm trying to lighten up' " . . . "I know about winning and losing elections. In '92 we had a near-death experience. They said Bill's dead meat and we should get the carcass off the floor."
Added Ambassador Spielvogel: "John Kerry and [DNC chairman] Terry McAuliffe have agreed to unleash Bill in the coming campaign."
Then, exactly as Hillary mentioned our energy problems, the lights cut out for a second - as if Cheney was in the basement working the switches. At the piano in the Spielvogels' gallery, Hillary told me: "When I was 10 my mother made me take piano lessons. But I couldn't keep them up. I had to stop because of the Siamese cat. He didn't like my playing. In fact, he hated it. This cat was hard of hearing, and he sat on the piano and went crazy whenever I hit the keys. I just couldn't take that cat. When I started on 'Marche Militaire' he hissed at me."
What the hell, it's good practice for a political career. (Cindy Adams)
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