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and My Toons Page [Updated 11-7] 
Posted on 09/07/2004 2:14:21 PM PDT by Shermy
GREENSBORO, N.C. (Reuters) - Democratic White House challenger John Kerry sharply rebuked President Bush on Tuesday for choosing to go to war in Iraq and sticking Americans with the $200 billion bill.
With a tighter stump speech and a sharper message built around a riff on Bush's middle initial, Kerry declared: "W stands for wrong -- wrong direction, wrong choices -- and it's time to put it right."
He said he would start to do that by internationalizing the security and reconstruction effort in Iraq and showing "the kind of statesmanship and leadership that builds a true coalition to share the costs and share the burden."
The Massachusetts senator has publicly struggled to explain his vote for the congressional resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq and his subsequent vote against $87 billion to fund operations there and in Afghanistan. Bush has branded him a flip-flopper.
Since Kerry said last month that he would have voted for the resolution even if he had known that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, Bush has tried to convince voters that they both agreed on the need to get rid of the Iraqi leader.
But Kerry scornfully took Bush to task on the issue, telling a town hall meeting in Greensboro: "He says that he's confused about the differences in our positions on Iraq and he even tried to claim that we had the same positions.
"Let me explain to him in a few simple words -- it's not that I would have done just one thing differently in Iraq, I would have done everything differently in Iraq."
Kerry, who campaigned in Republican-leaning North Carolina, the home state of running mate Sen. John Edwards, called the "mess" that Bush had made in Iraq the president's "most catastrophic" wrong choice.
'WRONG CHOICE'
"It was wrong for America to choose," Kerry said. "This was his choice. He chose the date of the start of this war. He chose the moment and he chose for America to go-it-alone and today all of America is paying the price."
As the number of deaths among U.S. troops neared 1,000, Kerry pointed out that almost all the coalition casualties in Iraq were Americans and then opened a new line of attack by addressing the economic cost of the war and laying out how the money could have been better spent.
"The price tag so far, $200 billion dollars and rising," he said. "That's $200 billion that we're not investing in health care in America, that's $200 billion we're not investing in schools in America, that's $200 billion that were not investing in prescription drugs for seniors."
Struggling to catch up to Bush in national polls after the Republican Convention last week, Kerry revamped his campaign staff to bring on new advisers and sharpen his message two months before the Nov. 2 election.
Despite outside advice to avoid the issue of national security -- regarded as Bush's strength -- and focus on the economy and domestic issues, Kerry himself raised the subject of Iraq early in his remarks.
He also lambasted Bush's record on jobs -- almost 1 million have been lost since the president took office -- in a state vulnerable to outsourcing overseas. More than 160,000 jobs have been lost in North Carolina, mostly in the furniture and textile industries.
Bush won North Carolina comfortably in 2000, but with manufacturing employment down more than 20 percent since 2001, economic woes have eroded his popularity.
"North Carolina has been hurt by outsourcing, the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs and George Bush's failure to enforce our trade laws," Kerry spokesman David Wade said. "North Carolina is a state we believe we can put in the Democratic column."
Better to fight it there than in our schools here.
Kerry is pulling everything out of his a$$ that he can come up with...meanwhile his ship sinks...
Well, I guess the days of free wars is over. Maybe Kerry can find a war garage sale or a 24 hour war sale with an early bird discount.
There's a campaign theme for you...JFK I is rolling in his grave...
"This was his choice. He chose the date of the start of this war.
What was Kerry's date? France said it would never say yes to military enforcement.
He chose the moment and he chose for America to go-it-alone and today all of America is paying the price."
"Go-it-alone" = "unilateral" = "without French approval"
Yep, your are right Kerry, it is the American way of doing things protected by our Constitution.
He's better off sticking to a couple points and hammering them home. That's what he's doing now, so we'll likely see a slight up-tick in his numbers (especially due to the 1,000 threshold being crossed). Then that will fade and he'll then switch to his newest latest great idea.
"North Carolina has been hurt by outsourcing, the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs and George Bush's failure to enforce our trade laws,"
Kerry's playing coy with the trade issue. He's a worse "free" trader than Bush, but pretending he's different he scores points I suppose. He's careful not to alienate foreign interests - his "cure" is current trade laws - but the lack of which are the major cause of our troubles. The other side of his cure is massive corporate welfare subsidies to create unspecified "new" and "higher paying" jobs.
It seems to me that we haven't done much since the convention. With the Kelly, Graham and "Phony Fighter Pilot" books coming out, we need to stay on the attack.
"Kerry: Bush 'Chose' Iraq War, Americans Pay Bill
Reuters ^ | September 7, 2004"
Yea john "flip-flop" kerry, and the AMERICAN PEOPLE also chose President Bush as their leader... and will choose him again to lead this Nation! :-)
LLS
Bush admin giving him plenty of help as many here have noted. for example, Kerry works the memes of the Iraq War like "go-it-alone" without the Bushies sticking it in his face with France. Part of the fallout for the admin's year and a half playing nice and pretending they could get France and the UN to help, quahing Food for Oil revelations, and generally not explaining the war or geopolitics as they had before it.
What an arrogant prick. OK Senator, we ask once again - Can you give us specifics of how you would have done everything differently?
As Gen. Tommy Franks said:
"The global war on terrorism will be a long fight. But make no mistake abut it: We are going to fight the terrorists. The question is: Do we fight them over there or do we fight them here?
I choose to fight them over there.
Now, some argue that we should treat this war as a law enforcement issue. And some say we should fight a less aggressive war, that we should retreat into a defensive posture and hope that the terrorists don't attack us again.
Well, my wife Cathy and I are simply not willing to bet the future of our grandchildren on the good will of murderers.
I learned a long time ago that hope, while so terribly important, is not a strategy. In the years ahead, America will be called upon to demonstrate character, consistency, courage and leadership.
You know, Lincoln once said, "Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
Well, citizens and friends, I've been with this president in tough and uncertain times, and George W. Bush is "the real thing."
He is "the real thing."
The past three years have been hard years, hard years, a time of hard decisions and tough choices. I've looked into this man's eyes, and I have seen his character.
I've seen courage, I've seen consistency, the courage to stand up to terrorists and the consistency necessary to beat them.
In the battle for Afghanistan, we removed a regime that provided the base of support for Al Qaida terrorists who had been killing Americans for years.
In the battle for Iraq, we removed a brutal regime with an avowed hatred of our country, with a history for torturing its own people, and a history for using weapons of mass destruction against its neighbors and against its own citizens.
We removed that regime with well documented ties to terrorists, like the Al Qaida murderer, Abu Zarqawi. Terrorism will not stand.
Ladies and gentlemen, terrorism against our country started long before 9/11. Terrorists have been killing Americans for more than two decades. And I am proud that this president has chosen to make a stand.
Today, in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 50 million men, women and children have been liberated from tyranny. And these countries are no longer safe harbors for those who would launch the next attack against America.
We see smiles of little girls in Afghanistan who can now go to school.
We see pride in the faces of a new Iraqi Army as they begin to protect their new freedoms. We see resolve in the faces of emerging leaders of both Iraq and Afghanistan as they build those new nations. And soon, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we will see free elections.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, terrorism and tyranny are being replaced by freedom, hope, opportunity. I for one am proud that my country, the United States of America, has given 50 million people a chance.
And we have not been in this fight alone. President Bush has built the largest coalition in the history of the world, nations united together against terrorism. Some have ridiculed the contributions made by these allies, but I can tell you that every contribution from every nation is important.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you to join me in saying thanks to coalition partners for being there when America and the world needed them.
There can be no tougher decision -- no tougher decision -- than the decision to go to war, the decision to put our sons and daughters into harm's way.
When George W. Bush asked America's men and women to go to war, he gave them every resource our nation possessed.
This man, before sending us into battle, personally asked each of my military commanders if they had everything they needed. This is a man who made sure that everything possible was done to protect our troops from the weapons of mass destruction we all expected that the enemy owned.
This is a commander in chief who is compassionate as he is courageous."
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/september/0903_franks_full_speech.shtml
Donate to Swift Boat Vets for the Truth HERE.
My Campaign Button Page
and My Toons Page [Updated 11-7]
"Let me explain to him in a few simple words -- it's not that I would have done just one thing differently in Iraq, I would have done everything differently in Iraq."
Good sound bite, dodges specific questions about what his post-war plan would have been, or how he would get Chirac to work against France's economic interests.
"I would have done everything differently in Iraq."
So I guess mr. kerry is saying that he would have left Saddam in power. Would have left the evil regime in tact...and we would see even more mass graves. Seems like Kerry is saying he would not have done anything...even though our Pilots had been fired on many times while enforcing the no fly zone.
I guess Mr. Kerry would have hung out drinking tea with the UN types...ignoring something really important...
Charles Duefler, Weapons Inspector, recently pointed out that they have found that Saddam was well advanced in his development of more WMDs....
He had gotten his hands on Uranium...
And then there is that issue of....Saddam never accounting for the WMD's that he was supposed to have destroyed.....like the shells of mustard gas that we recently round... they were stamped with a UN Number matching the stockpile that Saddam said he had destroyed.
Kerry would have done things differently...and more innocent people would have died.
You asked the question "What was Kerry's date?" He has given us the answer. He said he would respond if attacked. So, Kerry's date is that date sometime in the future, when an American city lay in ruins from a nuclear explosion, or in chaos from a biological, chemical or radiological attack.
The Frenchurian Candidate's solution to the Iraq War can be summed up in them six fightin' words: RETREAT NOW, RETREAT TOMORROW, RETREAT FOREVER!!!
If the danged Republicans and their Al Qaeda agents would quit dragging America into wars and stuff, we could have prescription drugs for seniors by now.
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