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
No doubt
This is a bogus Democratic talking point and should be countered at every opportunity. It makes this election seem much closer than it really was.
Considering 2001 happened well before Kerry's point of no return commitment to run for the presidency,
The Headline should be--
Kerry chooses to run even after events made a win impossible. (Ambitious, Dumb, Totally Selfish Rat Alert).
Not sure I agree.
2. Witness Clinton.
4. Witness Clinton
He still doesn't have a clue.
What tripe. Both from Kerry and the author. Relatively unpopular president?? Yeah, right..
Or that he openly admitted committing sedition, bragged about committing treason
Wrong Mr. Skerry!! America didn't want to vote for the weaker America (in typical French fashion) that you would have given us!
No more Kerry, please, please ... No, I do NOT care what he says or thinks. I am not interested in his opinion in the least, ever since the danger of the terrible catastrophe has passed the last November...
If kerry had signed form 180 it would probably show that he was given a dishonorable discharge for aiding the enemy and should have never been able to run for any public office. My belief is that he does have a dishonorable discharge. He's a traitor!
sounds kind of like an expresident we know of, eh?
Bingo
Oh? Didn't sheer stupidity have something to do with it?
"If you take half the people at an Ohio State football game on Saturday afternoon and they were to have voted the other way, you and I would be having a discussion today about my State of the Union speech."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6886726/
Maybe this is why.
Conservative pro-life Christian voters made monumental contributions to GWB's 2004 vote totals. Pres Bush won with 63 Million Votes (13 million more than 2000).
The map, though impressive, conveys the misleading impression that blue state Catholics voted for Kerry (a CINO).
According to EWTN "The World Over Live" analysts, with the exception of VA, where Catholics spit 70/30 in favor of Bush, the majority of Catholic voters split 55/45 for Bush.....a whopping number of votes since Catholics number about 52 million Americans.
According to CNN exit polls, Bush voters included 38% of union members, 40% of those with union members in their households, 42% of those earning $15,000-$30,000, 44% of those who earn under $50,000 and 44% of Latinos, 45% of youth (aged 18-29), 13% of liberalseven 11% of Democrats voted for Bush.
If you look closely, the map appears to place the insignificant "Other Voters" in the ocean.....that's accurate, because "Other Voters--RINO Republicans" were on cruise ships.
(MAP UPDATE Bush won Michigan, Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico later.)
Amazing. I keep looking for quotes around this statement, and they keep not being there.
Time for Helen Kennedy to run a premise-check.
THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
Don "Kerry" Quioxte and Sancho "Eddie" Panza
L O S E R ! ! ! ! !
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.
How well can he fight back when he's caught in a lie? He ain't Clinton. And valorous? Woof!
Russert spent a good part of the interview asking if Kerry would release every item in his military record, which Bush has never done
Yes he did. Apparently the author slept through the AP's FOIA request and the resulting final document dump last fall. The media just never found they dirt they wanted.
Are we absolutely sure this is Helen Kennedy and not Helen Thomas?
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