Posted on 07/14/2005 2:21:33 AM PDT by kcvl
Sen. Kerry is wielding a double-edged sword
By Alexander Bolton
Sen. John Kerry is facing a dilemma.
With an eye towards running for president again in 2008, the Massachusetts Democrat has positioned himself as one of the most pugnacious critics of the Bush administration, often aligning himself with liberal activists. But at times, his aggressive anti-Bush rhetoric risks alienating other parts of his own party.
Kerry’s predicament was apparent this week as he took the lead among Democrats by calling for President Bush to fire his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, for Rove’s alleged role in revealing the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
At a press conference Tuesday on homeland security, as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) nodded in agreement, Kerry said: “Karl Rove ought to be fired.” Kerry also circulated a “fire Rove” petition yesterday through his leadership political action committee to nearly 3 million Democratic activists.
“We need you to recruit your friends and neighbors to sign our Fire Rove petition today to show that Americans will not tolerate White House dirty tricks that compromise our national security,” Kerry wrote in an e-mail.
“What we have seen from Kerry since the election is that he’s more aggressive and more pugnacious,” said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Darrell West, a professor of political science at Brown University, said “Kerry has been among the most vociferous critics of the Bush administration since the election.
West noted that Kerry grilled Condoleezza Rice during her Senate confirmation and “voted against several Bush administration initiatives.”
But while Kerry has had the support of Clinton and many other Democrats on the Rove issue, his colleagues have left him out on a limb as he has championed other causes of the liberal wing of the party.
Shortly before the recess, Kerry wrote to Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, urging the committee to complete its investigation related to the infamous Downing Street memo, which liberal critics claim as proof that Bush had predetermined his decision to invade Iraq.
But Kerry could only garner signatures from nine colleagues, despite circulating the letter to the entire Democratic caucus.
Kerry urged Roberts and Rockefeller to complete “phase two” of the committee’s probe on prewar intelligence. Roberts and Rockefeller had agreed to break the investigation into two parts: phase one, which focused on the intelligence community’s information gathering, and phase two, which is to target the Bush administration’s use of intelligence and the pressure the administration may have exerted on analysts.
As a concession to Republicans, Rockefeller agreed to conduct the more politically sensitive second phase after last year’s election.
Citing the Downing Street memo, Kerry exhorted his colleagues not to let the second half of the probe languish.
“The committee’s efforts have taken on renewed urgency, given recent revelations in the United Kingdom regarding the apparent minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior national security advisors,” Kerry wrote. “These minutes — known as the ‘Downing Street Memo’ — raise troubling questions about the use of intelligence by American policy makers.”
Only one member of the Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jon Corzine (D), who is running for governor in blue-state New Jersey, signed on to the letter. It received no mainstream-media attention, but several liberal blogs, such as Talking Points Memo and Rawstory.com, wrote about Kerry’s effort.
Senate observers such as West said that Kerry is catering to liberal activists who view the Downing Street memo as a “smoking gun” showing that Bush was so determined to invade Iraq that he and his advisers believed faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities.
“I think Kerry is playing to the base,” West said. “He understands that liberals are just absolutely furious with Bush over the war. And they see the Downing Street memo as prima facie evidence of deceit within the administration and he hasn’t ruled out running for president in 2008.” By criticizing Bush and championing issues popular with members of liberal organizations such as MoveOn.org, Kerry seems to be taking a path similar to one trod by former Vice President Al Gore after he lost the 2000 election to Bush.
But while liberal activists have been energized over the Downing Street memo, other Democratic senators and major newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have not.
For example, last month, MoveOn.org gathered more than 500,000 signatures on a petition “demanding that President Bush provide a detailed response to the smoking-gun evidence in the Downing Street memos of deceptions about the war in Iraq,” according to a MoveOn.org press release.
The Downing Street issue has drawn more support from House Democrats. House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) delivered the petition to the White House and held a mock hearing on the memo.
But Senate Democrats have kept their distance, despite Kerry’s work.
“I suspect it is a strategic decision on the part of Democrats that there are a certain core set of issues they want to put their capital into and this is not one of them,” Ornstein said. “Part of it is it’s rehashing history.”
A Democratic Senate aide said, “Either they sold it very poorly, or the caucus isn’t interested. My guess they just sold it poorly.”
Now thats funny right there!
Which means the THE DORK will wind up cutting himself on both edges...
"Did'nt mommy tell you not to play with sharp objects till you grow up?"
yup!
Is that why he was so edgy when he lost.
Geez...first I heard Gore was considering 08....now Kerry. Do the dems think either of these losers would have a chance in 08? No matter, whomever they run is going to lose. And then we will have to listen to another 4 or possibly 8 years of whining about voter fraud. The sustained whine of so many can be annoying as hell after a while. But as winners,we are used to it. That is our load to bear. Bwaaaahhaaaaaahaaaa!!!
If I didn't despise Kerry so much, I'd be tempted to pity this pathetic man's efforts to be relevant. I put that temptation behind me, however, and despising him is still operative. LOL
[A Democratic Senate aide said, “Either they sold it very poorly, or the caucus isn’t interested. My guess they just sold it poorly.”]
LOL, a liberal cannot admit you heard him and simply don't agree. It's always a problem "getting the message out". Apparently this is true even when the preachee is another liberal. They live their lives wrapped in a cloak of denial.
Gigilo you ought to be tried for treason, but we can't always get what we want eh gigilo?
Kerry just wants to keep his name in the news. He has nothing to offer other than his same tired old criticisms. What a loser. Just seems to me the people of Mass. aren't very bright.
Can't wait for Carter and McGovern to make announcements.
Fire Kerry, as a salute to the Military!
Which means he'll put himself up for two more Purple Hearts ;-)
Sword. Snort. That's not even a letter opener.
Is it not ironic that JF'enKerry thinks he is smart enough to tell Bush what to do----Even though he had worse grades at Yale then Bush
Maybe the reason is that there is still just enough sense left in some dems to realize chasing dubious,quite likely fabricated,documents is a dead end road.
For the Dems in Mass. to keep electing losers like Kerry and Kennedy doesn't just tell us they are not very bright, it says they are the dimmest in the country by far.
There has to be someone in the Republican Party in Mass who could run a good campaign against Kerry. He/she should run on this point: In all the years that Kerry has represented Mass, what has he done? Kerry needs to be backed against the wall on this. It's a matter of public record that he hasn't done anything. That should be hammered home over and over and over until the good folks of Mass realize that they have been duped.
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