Posted on 09/03/2004 3:19:35 PM PDT by Shermy
NEWARK, Ohio (Reuters) - Democrat John Kerry on Friday dismissed the Republican convention as "bitter and insulting" and promised to be a U.S. president who would tell Americans the truth.
"Every time they open their mouths they can't tell the truth," Kerry said at a rally. "It's time for us to have a president of the United States who can look you in the eye and when he does, you know you're being told the truth."
The newly combative senator from Massachusetts said he would not allow President Bush (news - web sites) or others to question his fitness for the White House.
"Not gonna do it, not gonna happen," Kerry said. "I will not have my commitment to defending this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they had a chance and I will not have it questioned by those who misled this nation into war in Iraq."
Neither Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney, who scathingly attacked Kerry's national security credentials at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night, fought in Vietnam. Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard and Cheney obtained five draft deferments.
Kerry, a decorated Navy lieutenant who commanded gunboats in the Mekong Delta, has been criticized for failing to react quickly or strongly enough to advertisements challenging his service and his qualifications for the presidential role of commander-in-chief.
The group behind the television ads, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, has been "demonstrated as pathological liars," said Joe Lockhart, a senior adviser to Kerry.
"Their integrity, their veracity has been impeached repeatedly, and this campaign is not going to be decided by a bunch of right-wing kooks who are working with the White House," he said. The Bush team has denied any connection with the Swift Boat organization.
Kerry, shown to be trailing the president by 11 percentage points among likely voters in a Time magazine poll released on Friday, assailed Bush for a "record of failure" on everything from jobs to Iraq.
He listed some of Bush's reasons for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq -- weapons of mass destruction and connections to al Qaeda -- and added after each: "That wasn't true."
NEGATIVE POLITICS
Kerry said Republicans had distorted his 20-year record in the U.S. Senate, including his vote authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and his subsequent vote against $87 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (news - web sites). He predicted voters would reject cynical politics when they went to the polls on Nov. 2.
"All this negative advertising, blah blah blah," Kerry said. "It turns people off."
After ceding much of the political stage to the Republicans this week, Kerry hit the campaign trail with a two-day bus tour of Ohio, a critical battleground state hit especially hard by manufacturing job losses.
He ridiculed the Bush administration's "celebration" of the August job numbers released on Friday that showed the unemployment rate had dropped from 5.5 percent to 5.4 percent with the addition of 144,000 new jobs.
"At the rate that this administration is creating jobs, you're not going to have a net plus-one job in the state of Ohio until the year 2011," Kerry said. "I don't think this is something to celebrate. I think it's something to get to work on."
Kerry aggressively criticized the just-concluded Republican convention in New York that formally nominated Bush for re-election, although he said he "listened to zero of it."
"I read the speech last night of the president and I guess I'd sum it up in just four words: all hat, no cattle," he said. "What we've learned now is that the president and the Republican Party will say anything and do anything in order to try to get re-elected."
Should of been posted with a Barf Alert!
Who has the DNC craybaby photo...post it.
Im excited to hear that. It will be a change of what we have had for the last few years.
Now when is he suppose to become the President of Iran?
"The group behind the television ads, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, has been "demonstrated as pathological liars," said Joe Lockhart, a senior adviser to Kerry.
"Their integrity, their veracity has been impeached repeatedly, and this campaign is not going to be decided by a bunch of right-wing kooks who are working with the White House," he said. The Bush team has denied any connection with the Swift Boat organization. "
Them's fighting words...
Didn't Jimmy Carter promise not to lie to us either? Sometimes simply telling the truth is not nearly enough by itself....
Joe better be careful....O'Neill will sue him for liable.
"Every time they open their mouths they can't tell the truth,"
Um, Cambodia?
Another flip flop? Why the change of heart?
That would be a change of pace from his current status as a Senator and Presidential candidate that never tells the truth.
Thats the BUG EYED Lockhart we all remember..
Scream Joe...holler....rail.....but Lurch is going down!!!!
Kerry will stop lying if we just elect him President?
This guy is a parody of himself.
Pathological liars don't know the differnce between a lie and the truth.
BBBBWWWHHHHaAAAAAAHHHHH
HiccuP
Here we have a proven liar, that worked for a proven liar, lying about honest people being liars.
Does that mean if elected (God forbid) we will hear the truth about Vietnam? Kerry is such a loser. I am surprised he has not been laughed off the stage yet.
Yes, please direct me to the vomitorium! My head is spinning!
I'd rather he just keeps lying.
Yep. When an opportunist politician calls 260 decorated American vets liars, there's a price he'll have to pay! He thought Nam was bad!
I loved Lynn Swann last night on Greta saying that he met John Kerry and there "was nothing there". Compare that to President Bush last night with tears in his eyes as he talked about the soldiers that died.
John Kerry, I don't trust you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.