Posted on 09/03/2004 9:27:49 AM PDT by ex-Texan
Kerry: "Bush Unfit to Lead this Country"
(Headline Ought to Be: Kerry Looses His Cool, Blows the Election With Angry Reply to Bush)
Springfield, Ohio -- Roaring back at his Republican rivals, Sen. John Kerry called President Bush "unfit to lead this country" for "misleading" America into war in Iraq, and said Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had avoided fighting in the Vietnam War.
"For the past week, they have attacked my patriotism and even my fitness to serve as commander in chief," Kerry told thousands here at a midnight rally shortly after Bush accepted the Republican nomination for a second term and questioned Kerry's support for combat troops in Iraq. * * *
The Kerry campaign scheduled the event days ago in an effort to reclaim the initiative in the race without letting a single news cycle pass. Kerry spoke a mere half an hour after the president concluded his acceptance speech -- and Kerry aides issued his prepared text even before Bush took the podium.
* * *
Bush, for his part, depicted Kerry Thursday night as a tax-hiking, big- spending social liberal who had defended his vote against an appropriations bill for Iraq by saying the matter was complicated. "There is nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat," Bush said.
Kerry, decrying what he called "the anger and the distortion" of the Republican convention, hit back in his toughest appraisal yet of the qualifications of the incumbents.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Clinton's heart attack, surgery and hospitalization will take some more coverage away from Kerry over the next week.
That is Hanoi sKerry to the right of Hanoi Jane, isn't it?
Well, the price of oil is actually controlled by a lot of different factors, including Saudi princes and Hugo Chavez. But it's also controlled by higher demand everywhere, including China and the like. I haven't seen Kerry's plan to change this situation. Last time someone tried was the Carter years, and it was a disaster.
Handing out billions of dollars in government contracts without a bid to Halliburton while you're still on the payroll makes you unfit to lead this country.
They're not exactly making Halliburton huge bucks, actually. I think Halliburton got the job because it was one of the few companies that could be counted on to do the work. $2.50 a soda isn't such a bad price if people have to drive it through a war zone in convoys, understandably taking combat pay and using the most high-overhead transportation system you could have.
Halliburton may not be perfect, but it's doing a tough job and doing it well enough to support our troops, and that's what matters.
War is expensive and I don't think it's possible to avoid significant waste and still support everyone adequately. It's a tough environment and I think Kerry and his friends choose not to see that just so they can take cheap shots.
D
IF KERRY starts on Bush's time in National Guard not being sufficient, then be sure to remind the DEMRATS of FDR'S SPEECH IN 1940, EXCERPT website, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/docs/pppus.php?admin=032&year=1940&id=127 :
"Next, take up the Army: Under normal conditions we have no need for a vast Army in this country. But you and I know that unprecedented dangers require unprecedented action to guard the peace of America against unprecedented threats.
Since that day, a little over a year ago, when Poland was invaded, we have more than doubled the size of our regular Army. Adding to this, the Federalized National Guardsmen, our armed land forces now equal more than 436,000 enlisted men. And yet there are armies overseas that run four and five and six million men.
The officers and men of our Army and National Guard are the finest in the world.
They will be, as you know, the nucleus for the training of the young men who are being called under the Selective Service Act, 800,000 of them in the course of this year out of nearly 17,000,000 registered—in other words, a little less than 5 per cent of the total registration.
General Marshall said to me the other day that the task of training those young men is, for the Army, a "profound privilege."
Campaign orators seek to tear down the morale of the American people when they make false "
NOTE FDR CALLED THEM THE FINEST IN THE WORLD....and it was that administration that created the Army National Guard the way it is today!
Kerry: "Bush unfit to lead country."
Ozzymandus: "Kerry unfit to clean public toilets."
And Kerry looks like he wants to moralize his way into the White House. That worked (under extraordinary circumstances) for Carter and Wilson, but it's also no way to win presidential elections. It didn't work for Stevenson or McGovern or Mondale or Dukakis or Gore. Or for that matter for Landon or Goldwater or Dole. And it's not how Roosevelt or Kennedy or Clinton or Truman or Johnson got in, to name only the Democrats.
Voters value optimism in candidates, and if they have to choose they prefer their Democrats to be more rascal than prig. Even when a candidate has a negative message (and politics can't avoid some negativism) they expect him to say it with confidence, a smile, and a positive spin. But Kerry looks too much like John Winthrop's dour and long-faced Puritan descendant. A candidate has to spend so much time telling the party faithful what they want to hear, that it's hard to change gears for the general election and focus his message on the undecided voter, who doesn't warm to partisan indignation. Like many another candidate -- like Mondale or Dukakis or Gore -- Kerry is going to regret not having that drop of Irish charm or Southern smoothness that wins over voters.
What was proven by the conventions could be summed up this way.
Bush wants to lead us.
Kerry wants to be President.
Kerry is a 'spoiled teenage brat'.
OK. Show us some leadership. Sen. Kerry, name one major piece of legislation you sponsored during your nearly 20 years in the senate! Hint: You may need to answer this question before Nov. 2.
The contrast between the president's acceptance speech and Kerry's semi-coherant rant was as glaring as a nuclear explosion.
Nobody that I know of has ever tried having a campaign rally at midnight. I can't believe that the Clinton handlers he just hired dreamed it up. IMO, this was Kerry's idea. He's probably pulling a Carter and micromanaging everything.
It's a fake. Here's the real one:
LOL! I laughed too and have been calling him Twinkle Toess off and on ever since. Also told Hubby last night Kerry' throws (he can't pitch to save his life) like a girlie man. It's a lot more accurate than saying he throws like a girl. AS a girl, I can and have pitched way better than that.
I think W kicked the NY Slimes' butt pretty well last night.
Thanks for the clarification on the picture.
Drinking heavily before midnight campaign appearances is not recommended for candidate of any party.
Ross Perot looks positively staid in comparison.
What can Edwards be thinking now?
Thanks...the PhotoShop abilities of some of the posters knocks me out.
My copy just arrived today! I'm all smiles! I get to start reading it tonight.
Stick around, you might learn something, like flying jet fighters for the Air National Guard is real, honest to gosh, military experience. You'll also find links to Zell Miller's speech, from which you would learn that Lurch voted against almost all the weapons systems we used to win the Cold War, the two Gulf Wars and need today for the war on terror. Some "experience."
Lurch betrayed his fellow veterans when he returned from Vietnam and did it again in his Senate voting record.
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