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Kerry pins loss on Sept. 11
New York Daily News ^ | 1/31/05 | HELEN KENNEDY

Posted on 01/31/2005 1:24:09 AM PST by kattracks

WASHINGTON - Capping his week-long return to the spotlight, a defensive John Kerry appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday to explain his election loss - and was hit with yet more questions about Vietnam.

Kerry ultimately chalked up the results to 9/11, saying it was hard for people to forsake their President after such a national trauma.

But host Tim Russert's lengthy grilling about details of a mission on the Cambodian border 36 years ago showed how well Kerry's opponents undercut his valorous record, and how badly Kerry fought back.

"I believe that 9/11 was the central deciding issue in this race," Kerry said. President Bush "obviously connected to the American people in those immediate days. When a country is at war and in the wake of 9/11, it's very difficult to shift horses."

He said a videotape of Osama Bin Laden that appeared days before the election may have sunk him. "We were rising in the polls up until the last day when the tape appeared," Kerry said.

But he noted he came within 60,000 votes of the White House, raised more money and got more votes than any Democrat before him.

Russert spent a good part of the interview asking if Kerry would release every item in his military record, which Bush has never done, and reading a Daily News editorial questioning Kerry's account of spending Christmas 1968 in Cambodia. Kerry said he was in Cambodia but not that night. "It was on another day. I jumbled the two together," he said.

The Massachusetts senator has made little effort to hide his expectation to run again in 2008, and he has the money - about $20 million left over - the organization and the name recognition needed.

However, many Democrats are still baffled at how a candidate with so much money and such a united party could lose against a relatively unpopular President who sent the nation to war for weapons that didn't exist. The loss must be Kerry's fault, they think.

"Lenny Wilkens has a better chance of coming back as the Knicks coach," sniffed a top Democratic strategist with no love for Kerry.

Billionaire George Soros, who spent $26 million on anti-Bush efforts, also blamed Kerry, telling Bloomberg News yesterday, "Kerry did not, actually, offer a credible and coherent alternative."

Experts say Kerry shouldn't be counted out. "There are only about 25 people in the country who can look in the mirror and credibly say they could be President, and Kerry is one of them," said Stephen Hess, senior presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Originally published on January 31, 2005



TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: kerrydefeat; mtp; whykerrylost
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To: federal

I missed the interview (on purpose), simply because I couldn't believe on a day that the sitting president has made possible Russert would give a whole hour to sKerry, but what did he say when asked about releasing his entire record?


21 posted on 01/31/2005 2:39:16 AM PST by UpHereEh
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To: snarks_when_bored

How many in prison for murder will insist to media
"I'm innocent." Kerry-- Manson-Only the names have been changed to protect the deranged.


22 posted on 01/31/2005 2:42:08 AM PST by StonyBurk
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To: federal
"Russert spent a good part of the interview asking if Kerry would release every item in his military record, which Bush has never done"

Yeah, what was that all about? Anyone see how he crap-weasled out of answering that? I guess he said it was all posted on his website again. And then feigned surprise when someone told him it wasn't.

23 posted on 01/31/2005 2:44:46 AM PST by libs_kma (USA: The land of the Free....Because of the Brave!)
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To: kattracks

Of course it was 9/11, and had nothing to do with the fact THAT HE SUCKS &@%$#!!!!!


24 posted on 01/31/2005 2:47:08 AM PST by Manic_Episode (I don't lose my composure in a high speed chase)
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To: StonyBurk

At least Manson doesn't try to hide what he is. In my opinion, the only difference between him and the two senators from Mass. are prison bars.


25 posted on 01/31/2005 3:08:37 AM PST by niobe527
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To: sgtbono2002
people are not born to be President. Especially Mass. pussies who never worked a day in their lives.

BINGO! His misery is our joy.
26 posted on 01/31/2005 3:15:01 AM PST by HMFIC (The Peace Symbol is the FOOTPRINT of the American CHICKEN!)
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To: boxerblues

Everyday it's a new one...put a lid on it. Get over it.


27 posted on 01/31/2005 3:15:03 AM PST by GOP_Proud (Those who proclaim tolerance have the least for my views.)
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To: AmericaUnited
What sunk him was being a fraud and a liar. When this tape came out, THE LIAR and FRIENDS claimed it would not effect them and was actually bad for Bush. THEY LIED! THEY KNEW THEY WERE LYING! ENOUGH AMERICANS KNEW HIM AND HIS CAMPAIGN WAS A LIE!

He was a liar and a fraud who lost the Presidency during wartime by only a few percentage points.

That keeps playing back through my head.

And the Fraulein of Fraud is waiting in the wings for 2008. She is the Master of Deception and has already been working on erasing fact and creating fiction about her record.

Be vigilant...

28 posted on 01/31/2005 3:15:29 AM PST by Caipirabob (Democrats.. Socialists..Commies..Traitors...Who can tell the difference?)
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To: UpHereEh
Here's a pretty close recap of Kerry's answer to the 180 question from the Talk Show Thread yesterday: Kerry asked on "Form 180" directly answered: (paraphrase) "We sent every thing out, at the last second we got more stuff that is not related to the record, but we put everything out that was there medical and everything. But I think those that are raising questions should them selves sign Form 180 as well"
29 posted on 01/31/2005 3:18:46 AM PST by Bahbah
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To: UpHereEh

UpHereEh

I didn't watch MTPress either, however; I have seen the highlites on TV and read some of the thread from yesterday.

Evidently Kerry told Russert he would sign a SF 180 (he's lying) and that he was telling the truth about his Cambodian adventure (he's still lying).

Mainly I was just making a comment about how utterly stupid and misinformed (or a liar) this writer has to be to state that President Bush hadn't released his record when he has.


30 posted on 01/31/2005 3:23:15 AM PST by federal
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To: snarks_when_bored; boxerblues
If you subtract 60,000 (or so) votes from Bush in Ohio and give them to Kerry, Kerry wins.
Right. That's the fantasy-camp thinking these self-deluders engage in. That's all it would take. Merely changing 60,000 Bush voters into Kerry voters.

Does anyone here know a single Bush voter who was close to switching and voting for Kerry? I don't know a single one. I never met one and don't think I ever will.

But in the "minds" of the great thinkers of the RAT party, it's easy to imagine that 60,000 people who voted for Bush could easily have switched their vote and voted for Kerry.

That's the way they think, and that's the way the MSM reports it.

Deep, deep fantasy.

31 posted on 01/31/2005 3:23:49 AM PST by samtheman
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To: Bahbah

The last second? We put everything out that was there? Just the facts sKerry, just the facts!


32 posted on 01/31/2005 3:25:26 AM PST by UpHereEh
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To: samtheman
Deep, deep fantasy.

Yep.

33 posted on 01/31/2005 3:28:06 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: kattracks

John F. Kerry ... The man that never was.


34 posted on 01/31/2005 3:30:44 AM PST by G.Mason (A war mongering, UN hating, military industrial complex loving, Al Qaeda incinerating American.)
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To: kattracks
Shouldn't that be "switch" horses, not "shift" horses?

Carolyn

35 posted on 01/31/2005 3:31:00 AM PST by CDHart (The world has become a lunatic asylum and the lunatics are in charge.)
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To: samtheman
Right. That's the fantasy-camp thinking these self-deluders engage in. That's all it would take. Merely changing 60,000 Bush voters into Kerry voters.

Does anyone here know a single Bush voter who was close to switching and voting for Kerry? I don't know a single one. I never met one and don't think I ever will.

But in the "minds" of the great thinkers of the RAT party, it's easy to imagine that 60,000 people who voted for Bush could easily have switched their vote and voted for Kerry.

Yes--that, or else having those 60,000 that voted for Bush not voting at all. Either way, under that scenario in their minds, Kerry wins. Under that "what if" game--"what if" 60,000 people that voted for Kerry voted for Bush instead or didn't vote at all, then Bush would have won the state by even more. This "what if" farce cuts both ways, they're just trying to come up with any kind of theoretical scenario under which Kerry would prevail.

36 posted on 01/31/2005 3:32:49 AM PST by gop_gene
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To: samtheman
If sKerry would have signed the form 180 and the truth come out about what a coward/traitor POS that he really is....he would have been lucky to get 60,000 votes in total in the entire country. But the phony ba$tard, with the help of the MSM dodged that bullet....and now is back spreading his BS lies again. He is a pathetic despicable human being and he sure isn't no brother of mine...
37 posted on 01/31/2005 3:34:04 AM PST by RVN Airplane Driver (Thanks America for not slapping us in the face again.)
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To: UpHereEh

Kerry simply cannot allow those records to become public. I worry that he will find a way to "disappear" them before we can get ahold of them.


38 posted on 01/31/2005 3:36:13 AM PST by Bahbah
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To: CDHart

60,000 votes? That's about right. And if you put in jail the RATS who are behind the fraud in Philly, Wisconsin and Michigan you have a landslide.

Cuts both ways. The Republicans should introduce a voter reform bill. Purge all rolls and make everyone reregister for the 2008 elections.



39 posted on 01/31/2005 3:36:19 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (60 votes and the world changes.)
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To: Caipirabob
He was a liar and a fraud who lost the Presidency during wartime by only a few percentage points.

That keeps playing back through my head.

Bush had some big electoral liabilities (ho-hum economy, the war, lack of WMD's, the draft lie, high gas prices, etc.) which left him vulnerable enough to enable Kerry to come close. The fact that he turned in a poor 1st debate performance and is hardly the most well-spoken person didn't help, either.

Now, if the economy had been roaring, the war was hugely popular and going smooth as silk, there were WMD's found, low gas prices and no draft lie, Bush had the communication abilities of a Reagan, etc., and Kerry still managed to get this close, I'd be disturbed. But as things stood, I'm not.

40 posted on 01/31/2005 3:40:04 AM PST by gop_gene
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