| Why Kerry Can't Stay on Message |
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September 7, 2004 |
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RUSH: So John Kerry is out there saying that W "stands for wrong." He said yesterday that Iraq "was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time," which translates to: "We'd be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power," and it represents another flip-flop! Bill Kristol today, writing at the Weekly Standard's website, said that this whole view that Iraq is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time is a... Let me say something about this first, because this just goes to show exact -- this is the one thread, this thin little thread, that the Democrat campaign hinges on, is that they can convince a majority of voters that Iraq was the wrong thing to do, that Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism, that Iraq is nothing more than a personal quest of Bush and Cheney for whatever conspiratorial personal reasons they have -- and that's the strength of their campaign! Now, they say they're going to try to go back to health care and all this other stuff, but Kerry has once again come out with a new position on Iraq.
As Kristol writes, "Not an unheard of point of view. Indeed as President Bush pointed out today, it was Howard Dean's position during the primary season. On December 15th, 2003, in a speech at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, Howard Dean said that, quote, 'The capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer,' unquote. Dean also said, 'The difficulties and tragedies we faced in Iraq show the administration launched the war in the wrong way at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help, and at the extraordinary cost so far of $166 billion.'" So Kerry is now plagiarizing Howard Dean, the man he vanquished for the nomination! But when Dean said this, when Dean said, "This is the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong way," who challenged Howard Dean at that moment? Anybody want to take a guess? |
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 It was old Lurch! "John Kerry, December 16th, the next day, at Drake University in Iowa, Kerry asserted that, quote: 'Those who doubted whether the Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.'" This is stunning. So Howard Dean says, "Wrong place, wrong war, wrong time," wrong whatever. Kerry today, over the weekend, decides (Kerry sing-song voice), "You know what? I liiike that. My staff caaan use what old Hoooward was saying." Kerry apparently forgot that he repudiated what Howard Dean said himself. We are smack-dab in the -- I don't care who you have on your campaign staff, they can't square this. When anybody can go out and recite quotes from Kerry and show he him all over the map. Here is how Bush dealt with this at a campaign rally in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, last night.
BUSH: After voting for the war but against funding it, after saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisors (Crowd laughter) and yet another new position. (Crowd laughter) Suddenly he's against it again.
RUSH: And he's doing so in the words of Howard Dean. At Poplar Bluff, Missouri, which is just south of my hometown of Cape Girardeau, President Bush said, "'The war in Iraq was right for America,' rebutting Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry's contention that it was 'the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time,'" which again is a lifted quote from Howard Dean. "At a stop in Missouri on the traditional opening day of the campaign, Bush scolded his opponent for what he characterized as waffling on the Iraq war, took a jab at a Democratic campaign that appears troubled amid a shuffling of top staffers," and then he said what we just aired for you. "The latest Gallup poll, CNN/USA Today, likely voters taken Friday through Sunday puts Bush at 52 over Kerry's 45; 1% for Ralph Nader. At a campaign stop in West Virginia Kerry fired back saying the president's 'rush to war' cost the U.S. 200 billion that could have been used for domestic spending initiatives that he favors."
Boy, I'll tell you! These wars really do put a crimp in spending, don't they? This is an amazing thing, folks. He's now lifting quotes from Howard Dean, after he had repudiated the very thing Howard Dean said. "Vice President Cheney, campaigning in Iowa..." Oh, also Cheney started ripping into our allies again. He said, "It's the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and if the 40 countries that have helped liberate Iraq constitute a coalition, it's the phoniest thing I ever heard," quote, unquote. Cheney, who was in Iowa, said, "Those allies including Britain, Australia, and most of the former communist bloc in eastern Europe deserve our respect, not our insults." Cheney said, "I got news for Senator Kerry. As General Tommy Franks said, 'Every contribution from every nation is important.' Demeaning our allies is an interesting approach for somebody seeking the office of the presidency. When it comes to diplomacy, it looks like John Kerry should stick to wind surfing.'" |
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Well, here's a guy -- this is another thing. Here's Kerry ripping our allies while saying he's going to get our allies to do things that they won't do for George W. Bush. You know, the media will do its best just to report this and not analyze the -- I don't want to say the word "insane." This is just impossible to follow. The Kerry statements from day to day, much less week to week, on Iraq and all these issues, are impossible to follow, and it's impossible to see any consistency in anything he's saying. So they can throw his staff up there; they can make all these things and they can upgrade here and downgrade there, but if you don't have a candidate who can stick to one policy over and over and make the point and become identified with it -- and he just can't. You know, I'm beginning to think that there is a characteristic that Kerry has, and it is that he will not be tied to one position on anything. There's something in his makeup. He wants flexibility and nuance on everything. He just doesn't have the fortitude, guts, I don't know what it would be to take a position and stick to it, and I think that people who do that are people that generally are not confident of what they really think about it and so they want to be able to have the flexibility to move in case events change or in case that they're lack of confidence is born out as true and they were wrong about it.
 But there's clearly a lack of confidence on Kerry's part, a lack of confidence about any issue, confidence about his candidacy. If he's not confident enough about what he thinks and what he believes, if he's not confident enough in his core makeup to tell people what it is, then you have to wonder. By the way, he says he's going to coalesce all these allies that supposedly hate Bush and hate us, and he's going to make these allies our best friends. These allies are going to take over all the hard work for us so that we can come home and spend money on health care and all that. How's he going to manage this when he can't even manage a campaign staff, when he can't even keep a campaign staff together and keep them organized, and keep the campaign staff focused? It's not their fault. They can't stay focused because Kerry isn't. They can do all they want and they can come up with all the great ideas in the world but if there's no leadership from the top, if there's no guiding light, no principle, no momentum, no inertia, whatever you want to call it, then you're in trouble.
The LA Times headlines all this today by saying: "Kerry Tries to Hone Criticism of Iraq War. -- He cites the costs and questions the coalition. Bush accuses him of yet another new position. Senator Kerry today toughened his criticism of the war in Iraq, calling it 'the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time,'" and they just recite all these, Kerry's quotes, and they point out that Kerry voted for all this, that he is against today. It's left to Bill Kristol to find out that it was John Kerry pilfering a line used by Howard Dean and after Dean used the line it was John Kerry who repudiated Howard Dean. So, believe me, they're wringing their hands out there in the media. They're wringing their hands at the Kerry campaign. They're wringing their hands at the DNC. They are wringing their hands because they jumped too soon with this guy. They can't keep him on message because he has no message. It's an amazing thing to watch. I think it's kind of funny.
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Read the Articles... |
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Headline: : Kerry vs. Kerry
Subheadline: What does "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" mean?
Source: Weekly Standard
Byline: William Kristol
Dateline: September 7, 2004
JOHN KERRY said yesterday that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Translation: We would be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power.
Not an unheard of point of view. Indeed, as President Bush pointed out today, it was Howard Dean's position during the primary season. On December 15, 2003, in a speech at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, Dean said that "the capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer." Dean also said, "The difficulties and tragedies we have faced in Iraq show the administration launched the war in the wrong way, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help, and at the extraordinary cost, so far, of $166 billion."
But who challenged Dean immediately? John Kerry. On December 16, at Drake University in Iowa, Kerry asserted that "those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president."
Kerry was right then.
Headline: A Futile Foreign Policy
Subheadline: Kerry puts on a hawk suit
Byline: Victor Davis Hanson
Source: National Review
Dateline: September 07, 2004
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appears in the September 13, 2004, issue of National Review (the Kerry issue!).
John Kerry is worried about his record of support for gay unions, abortion-on-demand, and other hot-button liberal causes that rile moderate swing voters outside of New England. One way to counteract the image of an out-of-touch Boston liberal is to sound hawkish on foreign policy: If Vietnam was once something to be tapped for proof of a young Kerry's opposition to the corporate military-industrial complex, it is now even more richly re-mined in his gray years for evidence of military valor, toughness, and hyper-patriotism.
The slogans "Just as tough, but smarter," and "Respected, not just feared" now summarize the Kerry-Edwards party line on foreign policy. With those flippant phrases, a Jamie Rubin, Sandy Berger, Rand Beers, Joe Biden, or Joe Wilson can promise new style, same substance. In light of an amazing military victory in Iraq, followed by a difficult occupation, Kerry's most recent statements suggest that he would not necessarily have done anything different from what President Bush did in invading Afghanistan and Iraq, but instead would have "reached out to" and "sat down with" allies; such an embrace of multilateralism, we are assured, would have avoided a "unilateral," "preemptive," and costly American enterprise. Kerry's Iraq — it is presupposed that someone else mysteriously would have first removed Saddam — would purportedly now have involved a multinational effort, aimed more cautiously at order and stability rather than at unworkably radical democratic transformation.
MAN OF INDECISION
To the degree that there is any consistency in Kerry's evolving positions about the use of force, there seem at least two constants: partisanship and expediency. Thus Republican administrations' efforts to remove Saddam in 1991, and rebuild Iraq in 2003, prompted Kerry's initial opposition and subsequent support, depending on the pulse of the battlefield — yes to war, if victory looks assured and cheap; no, if it is in doubt or its consequences turn messy. Thus Bill Clinton's five air campaigns against Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, and Sudan — often without congressional or United Nations sanction — earned not Kerry's principled opposition to unilateralism, but his partisan approval, especially since Americans were bombing without being much shot at. That almost a decade later U.S. soldiers still patrol the Balkans or that neither the Taliban nor Saddam was much bothered by cruise missiles is not a problem.
Perhaps a better barometer of Kerry's views about American power is his past opposition to strategic military expenditures that emphasized deterrence — the B-1 and B-2 bombers, the deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Not the use of force, but U.N. resolutions, sanctions, and protocols — coupled with multipolar, American-led diplomacy — should solve critical problems. This theme was emphasized by Kerry's own father in his book, The Star-Spangled Mirror. "Americans," Richard Kerry warned presciently of George W. Bush, "are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white." We are guilty as a people of "ethnocentric accommodation — everyone ought to be like us." The elder Kerry went on to counsel about the "fatal error" of "propagating democracy" — an idealism that made us stupidly captivated by "the siren's song of promoting human rights."
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