Posted on 09/20/2004 6:42:22 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK - Staking out new ground on Iraq (news - web sites), Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) said Monday he would not have overthrown Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had he been in the White House, and he accused President Bush (news - web sites) of "stubborn incompetence," dishonesty and colossal failures of judgment. Bush said Kerry was flip-flopping.
Less than two years after voting to give Bush authority to invade Iraq, the Democratic candidate said the president had misused that power by rushing to war without the backing of allies, a post-war plan or proper equipment for U.S. troops. "None of which I would have done," Kerry said.
"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," he added. "But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."
Bush hit back from a campaign rally in New Hampshire, interpreting Kerry's comment to mean the Democrat believes U.S. security would be better with Saddam still in power. "He's saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy," the Republican incumbent said.
"Today, my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind," Bush said. "He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, No, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he would have voted for force even knowing everything we know today."
Both candidates addressed partisan crowds, drawing cheers and hoots as they stretched each other's records and rhetoric — mixing facts with political creativity toward the same goal: raising doubts about the other man's credibility.
Kerry called on Bush to do a much better job rallying allies, training Iraqi security forces, hastening reconstruction plans and ensuring that elections are conducted on time. But his speech was thin on details, with Kerry saying Bush's miscalculations had made solutions harder to come by.
Bush cited Kerry's four-point plan and dismissed it as proposing "exactly what we're currently doing."
With more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq, including nearly 900 since Bush declared an end to major combat, with free elections in doubt, reconstruction efforts stalled and violence and kidnappings on the rise, Iraq could be Bush's biggest political liability. Even some Republican senators have begun to publicly second-guess the president's policies.
But Kerry has failed to capitalize thus far, struggling for months to find a clear, consistent way to differentiate his views from those of his Democratic rivals during the primary season and, since the spring, his general election foe in the White House.
Kerry's advisers say they're not sure whether it is too late for the Democrat to make the Iraq critique resonate. Polls show voters favor Bush over Kerry on Iraq and terrorism. The president shines the spotlight on his foreign policy agenda with a visit Tuesday to the United Nations (news - web sites).
Kerry said in August that he would have voted in 2002 to give Bush war-making ability, even had he known no weapons of mass destruction would be found. He stood by the vote again Monday, saying the president needed to use the threat of force to "act effectively" against Saddam.
He made a distinction between that vote to grant a president war-making authority and what he himself would have done as commander in chief with such power.
"Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious?" Bush's presidential rival said at New York University.
"Is he really saying to Americans that if we had known there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaida, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is resoundingly no because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe."
Kerry called national security "a central issue in this campaign," a bow to the fact that the race is being waged on Bush's terrain.
"Invading Iraq was a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight," he said.
Kerry used the word "truth" a dozen times to say Bush had dodged it. That doesn't count the number of times he said the president "failed to level" with Americans or misled and confused them. He blamed Bush for "colossal failures of judgment."
"This is stubborn incompetence," he said.
Kerry has sounded more hawkish, as in December when Democratic primary rival Howard Dean (news - web sites) said the world was not safer with Saddam out of power. Anybody who believes that, Kerry said, doesn't "have the judgment to be president."
Reading that quote to his GOP crowd on Monday, Bush cracked: "I could not have said it better."
The running mates got into the act, too. "Iraq's a mess," said Democratic Sen. John Edwards (news - web sites), while Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said Kerry offers only "confusion, weakness, uncertainty and indecision."
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass, reacts to passers-by outside the Conde Nast building in New York Monday, Sept. 20, 2004. Kerry had just had a closed meeting with African American business leaders inside. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Supporters cheer as Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass, is introduced on stage at a Kerry Edwards 2004 fundraiser reception in New York Monday, Sept. 20, 2004. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
In other news, Bush accuses Kerry of incopetence. Period.
The campaigns of President Bush (news - web sites) and Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) announced an agreement on September 20, 2004 to hold three face-to-face debates starting on Sept. 30 in Coral Gables, Florida. The campaign said in a joint statement that the first debate would focus on foreign policy and homeland security. The second debate, on Oct. 8 in St. Louis, Missouri, will cover 'all subjects.' The Oct. 13 debate in Tempe, Arizona, will focus on domestic and economic policy. Photo by Jim Young/Reuters REUTERS/Jim Young US ELECTION
D@mn that spell check I didn't use.
The hand picked loony lefties in the tiny room ate it all up too!
Don't we all?
What would skerry know of Iraq details? He never shows
up in the senate.
Actress Uma Thurman speaks at the Redbook Magazine Mothers and Shakers awards luncheon in New York Monday, Sept. 20, 2004. Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass, also spoke at the event. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
He (Kerry) can't even properly forge a few memos and HE HAS THE GALL to call BUSH INCOMPETENT!!!
Kerry couldn't run a hot dog stand, if he could even bring himself to enter such a plebeian venue.
Just looking at that picture reminded me of my younger years when I was brainwashed, ignorant and liberal just like them. Thank goodness I've seen the light and left the hapless Democratic Party. Someday, hopefully, those youngsters will realize the errors of their ways.
God help us all.
I heard that, John.
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) is joined by his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, left, and actress Uma Thurman at the 7th Annual Redbook Mothers & Shakers awards luncheon, in New York, Monday Sept. 20, 2004. Mrs. Kerry received an award for inspiring Americans to help others, Thurman was honored for nurturing kids born into poverty, and the candidate gave the keynote address. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Damn! what happened to Uma? she gotten Dem ugly
BTW, this event looks pretty intolerant, explicitly excluding non-Mothers and non-Shakers.
The AP should just print Kerry's press releases verbatim and write "me too" after them. That would be more honest and also save them some time.
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