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Posted on 07/30/2004 9:13:54 AM PDT by buzzyboop
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - President Bush (news - web sites) launched his counterattack Friday against John Kerry (news - web sites), saying his Democratic rival spent 18 years in the U.S. Senate with "no signature achievements."
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"My opponent has good intentions, but intentions do not always translate to results," Bush told thousands of supporters who repeatedly interrupted his remarks with standing ovations.
Appearing at a baseball stadium at Southwest Missouri State University, Bush said that during eight years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kerry voted to cut the intelligence budget but had no record of reforming America's intelligence-gathering capability. Problems with the intelligence agencies have been blamed for many of the failures surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Bush also said Kerry has no significant record for reforming education or health care.
The president said that Kerry and running mate John Edwards (news - web sites) consistently oppose reforms that limit the power of Washington and leave more power in the hands of the people.
"This week members of the other party gathered in Boston," Bush said. "We heard a lot of clever speeches and some big promises. After 19 years in the United States Senate my opponent has had thousands of votes but very few signature achievements."
Bush also mounted a defense of his record, saying that Kerry would erase gains made in the past four years in the economy and U.S. security.
"We are turning the corner and we are not turning back" in the war on terrorism and on issues from improving education and health care to maintaining the tax cuts he has put in place, said Bush, declaring: "Results matter."
"They're going to raise taxes, we're not," Bush said of Kerry.
He said the Bush administration has "a clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world."
Bush also contrasted the longtime government service of Dick Cheney (news - web sites) to Edwards, a first-term senator.
"I appreciate my running mate," said Bush. "He's not the prettiest man in the race, but he's got sound judgment."
Offering broad outlines of his re-election agenda, Bush promised better times and fresh ideas, declaring "we have more work to do."
In response to Bush's speech, the Kerry campaign said "results do matter" and that Bush's policies have led to record deficits, skyrocketing health costs, lower quality jobs, a military that is stretched too thin and a nation isolated from its allies.
In his acceptance speech Thursday night, Kerry hit hard at the president's handling of the Iraq (news - web sites) war and the war on terror.
"Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so," said Kerry. "Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so."
Outside the minor-league baseball stadium where Bush spoke, hundreds of protesters carried signs and chanted.
"I'm so frightened about what's happening to the country," said Joan Wagnon, 72, of Springfield. She held a sign reading, "Don't waive your rights while waving your flag."
Bush did not stay up to watch Kerry's convention address but read and saw reports about it, spokesman Scott McClellan said. Adviser Karl Rove watched the speech, McClellan told reporters.
"I think the senator of Massachusetts is a walking contradiction," McClellan said. Although he called Kerry's speech "nicely crafted," he criticized Kerry's Senate record and said he is "running as fast and as far as he can from that record."
In a trip focused on the Midwest, the president campaigns Saturday by bus in Ohio, the second bus tour he has made in the state in three months. He will wrap up two days of campaigning with a rally Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh, just hours after Kerry speaks in a nearby suburb. It will be his 31st visit to Pennsylvania since being elected.
Bush won Missouri in 2000 with 50 percent of the vote to Al Gore (news - web sites)'s 47 percent, and in Springfield, Mo., the president appeals to some of his strongest supporters in the state.
"This is a turnout game and whoever mobilizes their base most effectively is going to win the state," says political science professor Martha Kropf of the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Missouri has lost nearly 40,000 manufacturing jobs since Bush took office, but the picture has improved markedly in the past year, with the labor force as a whole adding 83,000 jobs.
Well, for one, he executive more criminals than any other governor in the history of the United States.
The road to good intentions is paved with higher taxes.
With an economy bigger than most countries as well
Bush managed a professional baseball team and started an energy company, though it wasn't succesful. He was elected twice in landslides as Governor of the second-biggest state in the country. Plus he learned how to fly the F102 Delta Dagger jet fighter in the Guard, an obsolete plane that literally had a bar in the middle of the window.
I wouldn't focus on his record as a business man before he was Governor. Even Bush looks back on those times and laughs at all his mistakes (trading Sammy Sosa to the White Sox, for example).
I did, there's nothing to make up, I was just seeing if anyone had anything else, as there is not much mentioned about when he was gov., and a lot of talk about how Kerry isn't experienced in anything...just trying to be fair and balanced.
buzzy for starters as governor of texas W reduced particulate emisions in houston by 11%, passed concealed carry in a dem state, and left texas with a surplus in the bank
And we all know full well that if the two men in the article were reversed, it would read, "Kerry Questions Bush's Achievements".
Remember, as far as the media is concerned...Republicans ATTACK, Democrats QUESTION.
In the course of being elected Governor of Texas, he put an end to years of Dimocratic ownership of the Governor's residence, and subsequently presided over the utter demise of the Dimocratic Party of Texas;
when he took office, no Republicans held statewide office; now, no DIMOCRATS hold statewide office.
In fact, I believe they turned out the lights at Dim HQ just last week!
He balanced the state budget without resorting to an income tax - how much state income tax do you pay? - and continued to lure big and small industries away from the Socialist North.
Need I continue, or can you look it up yourself?
I don't think the population of Texas would agree that any other population is "equal" to Texas.
Besides other accomplishments listed on this thread, and an MBA from Harvard, he learned how to throw a baseball… accurately.:-)
Bush received an MBA in Harvard and actually got his hands dirty in the private sector. He didn't mooch off of rich middle-aged women, slander our military, or sucked off the government teat, as Ketchup boy did.
Now there's an achievement.
Hey spinmeister at the AP, that means that Missouri gained 43,000 jobs.
It was a nice try though.
Can the AP never get a headline right?
Bush did not criticize kerry's achievements at all. He basically said Kerry was devoid of them after being a senator for 18 years.
There is quite a difference.
Clearly the AP is running interference for Kerry because it is virtually impossible to refute Bush's "no accomplishments as a Senator" charges.
Exactly.
And does anyone think that Kerry's speech mobilized HIS base - the hairy, unwashed anti-war Leftists, the faggots, bra-burners, gun-grabbers and baby-stabbers?
He didn't throw a single crumb to any of them, so they;'re left with nothing but a burning irrational hatred to motivate them.
Kerry's biggest achievement since returning from Vietnam was giving a hamster CPR.
Just curious, how many times did Kerry vote against military appropriations?
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