EDITORIAL
Kerry-Edwards Stonewall
If not murder, John F. Kerry and John Edwards have accused President Bush of something close to criminally negligent homicide in Iraq. "They were wrong and soldiers died because they were wrong," Kerry said of the Bush administration over the weekend.
This is strong language, but not unjustified. Last week's Senate Intelligence Committee report adds to the pile of studies and reportage that has undermined the key reasons Bush gave for going to war: Saddam Hussein's imperial designs, links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction and so on.
The trouble is, both Sens. Kerry and Edwards voted yes on the resolution authorizing the war in Iraq. And now they refuse to say whether they would have supported the resolution if they had known what they know today. Both say they can't be bothered with "hypothetical questions."
But whether it is a hypothetical question depends on how you phrase it. Do they regret these votes? Were their votes a mistake? These are not hypothetical questions. And they are questions the Democratic candidates for president and vice president cannot duck if they wish to attack Bush on Iraq in such morally charged language.
After all, the issue raised by the Senate Intelligence Committee report is not whether the Bush administration bungled the prosecution of the war, or whether there should have been greater international cooperation, or whether the challenges of occupying and rebuilding the country were grossly underestimated. When Kerry says "they were wrong," he is referring to the administration's basic case for going to war. Kerry supported that decision. So did Edwards. Were they wrong? If they won't answer that question, they have no moral standing to criticize Bush.
Reluctance to answer the question is understandable. If they say they stand by their pro-war votes, this makes nonsense of their criticisms of Bush. If they say they were misled or duped by the administration, they look dopey and weak. Many of their Democratic Senate colleagues were skeptical of the administration's evidence even at the time. If Kerry and Edwards tell the probable truth — that they were deeply dubious about the war but afraid to vote no in the post-9/11 atmosphere and be tarred as lily-livered liberals — they would win raves from editorial writers for their frankness and courage. And they could stop dreaming of oval offices.
Kerry and Edwards are in a bind. But it is a bind of their own making. The great pity will be if this bind leads the Democratic candidates to back off from their harsh, and largely justified, criticism of Bush. The Democrats could lose a valuable issue, and possibly even the election, because the Democratic candidates were too clever for their own good.
In the past, Kerry has dodged the question of his pro-war vote by saying that he intended to give Bush negotiating leverage and to encourage multilateral action, not to endorse a unilateral American invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, what he may have intended is not what he voted for. Furthermore, a vote in favor of the war resolution was unavoidably a statement that the various complaints against Hussein did justify going to war against him, if all else failed, whatever caveats and escape hatches were in any individual senator's head.
Kerry and Edwards would like to fudge the issue by conflating it with questions about how the war was prosecuted. Or they say that what matters is where we go from here. It is true that "what now?" is the important policy question. But that doesn't make it the only question. How we got here affects how we get out. And even if it had no practical relevance to our future Iraq policy, hearing how Kerry and Edwards explain their votes to authorize a war they now regard as disastrous would be helpful in assessing their character and judgment.
Their continued refusal to explain would be even more helpful, unfortunately.
latimes.
here is what happened.
the poll numbers said they should vote for the war, so they did.
then, the poll numbers said dean was winning so they voted against funding the war
now, they are waiting for the pols to tell how to answer the question now.
edwards and kerry are spineless who have no core, no conviction, and no intelligence. they do what the polls tell them to do.
leaders lead, idiots follow polls
why would anyone vote for these 2 cowards who make policy based on polls, not what they think is right?
this is the case bush needs to make on a daily basis
DECIDING POLICY based on polls. edwards/kerry spineless
Moderator: S2k Moderators
Rainstorm, can you please post the link to your source?
As representatives of the people, polling is one good way to know what the 'people' want from their elected officials. I agree that polls can be skewed by purposeful duplicity, but still, it's a finger on the pulse.
Myself, I'd rather have representation that pays attention to what their supporters feel are the proper responses to issues that are important to their constituents.
As representatives of the people, polling is one good way to know what the 'people' want from their elected officials. I agree that polls can be skewed by purposeful duplicity, but still, it's a finger on the pulse.
Myself, I'd rather have representation that pays attention to what their supporters feel are the proper responses to issues that are important to their constituents.
Last edited by Kiko on Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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rainstorm
Kiko wrote:Rainstorm, can you please post the link to your source? I'm not sure where the editorial ends and your commentary picks up.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la- ... 9345.story
the la times is a far left paper. this is not coming from a conservative source
you may have to register to veiw it. only takes a minute or so
Last edited by rainstorm on Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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streetsoldier
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Stephanie
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My father sent this to me. It's written by a conservative and HIS feelings on the war in Iraq and the Administration;
A conservative's view of W
Here's a surprisingly honest voice from the conservative side about how
W
isn't really a conservative. Surprising not because it's true but
because so few conservatives are admitting it.
==================
A Conservative Voice
For those who don't know, Charley Reese is a columnist for the King
Features syndicate. He turns out three columns a week and is known as
a
committed conservative. Few liberal journalists have unloaded on Bush
like this. His bio follows the article.
Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet
Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's
re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war --- Dick
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of
neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.
I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a
front man, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his
administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the
world of any president in my memory.
It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague.
Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be
embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently
and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press
conference recently.
John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to
think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than
Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's
unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very
intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his
presidential election efforts.
But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he
observed
that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was
and
never will be.
People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display
their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush.
Bush
is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me
once, but he won't fool me twice.
It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to
vastly
increase the power of government, to show contempt for the
Constitution
and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of
American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits
don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is
doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive
president
in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the
authoritarian.
It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few
Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found
yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that
either you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an
enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?
This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but
because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's
almost
restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America
is
not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in
the
world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration.
Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North
Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.
I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a
man
in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us
with it. Go to Kerry's Web site (http://www.johnkerry.com
<http://www.johnkerry.com ) and read some of the magazine profiles on
him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the
GOP
attack dogs would have you believe.
Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey,
windsurfs, rides motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and
speaks
French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has
killed
people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man
and
dispels all illusions about war.
Â(c) 2004 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Charley Reese makes his case in clear, concise prose.
"It's not important to me if people agree or disagree with my point of
view," he says. "What I hope my column does is provoke people into
thinking about issues, about the world, and their place in it."
Reese, a conservative columnist, does not mince words. In his column,
which King Features Syndicate distributes three times a week to more
than 150
newspapers, he does not hesitate to take a stand and back it up to the
end.
Charley Reese was born Jan. 19, 1937, in Washington, Ga. He was raised
there, in eastern Texas and northwest Florida. By the time he was 19,
he
had worked as a janitor, printer, cub reporter, civil servant and
caption
writer for Plant News Pictures, Ltd. in London.
In 1955, he began his career at the Pensacola News in Florida as a cub
reporter. For the next 10 years, he worked at various newspapers,
honing
his craft by reporting everything from sports to politics. Between
1969
and 1971, he worked as a campaign staffer for gubernatorial, senatorial
and
congressional races in several states. He joined The Orlando Sentinel
in
1971 as assistant metro editor. He later became assistant to the
publisher,
then columnist and editorial board member. He has traveled to Europe
and
the Middle East on assignments, all the while maintaining his
distinctly
American style of journalism.
Reese served two years of active duty in the Army and received an
honorary
doctorate from Webber College in Florida. He has been nominated for
the
Pulitzer Prize and voted the best columnist in Florida by both the
Florida
Press Association and the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. He is
the
author of four books, including Great Gods of the Potomac, and was the
ghost writer of The Eleventh Hour by Gen. Lewis Walt.
An American foundation commissioned Reese to write a study of the
Swiss
national defense system.
A conservative's view of W
Here's a surprisingly honest voice from the conservative side about how
W
isn't really a conservative. Surprising not because it's true but
because so few conservatives are admitting it.
==================
A Conservative Voice
For those who don't know, Charley Reese is a columnist for the King
Features syndicate. He turns out three columns a week and is known as
a
committed conservative. Few liberal journalists have unloaded on Bush
like this. His bio follows the article.
Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet
Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's
re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war --- Dick
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of
neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.
I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a
front man, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his
administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the
world of any president in my memory.
It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague.
Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be
embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently
and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press
conference recently.
John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to
think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than
Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's
unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very
intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his
presidential election efforts.
But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he
observed
that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was
and
never will be.
People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display
their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush.
Bush
is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me
once, but he won't fool me twice.
It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to
vastly
increase the power of government, to show contempt for the
Constitution
and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of
American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits
don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is
doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive
president
in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the
authoritarian.
It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few
Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found
yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that
either you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an
enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?
This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but
because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's
almost
restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America
is
not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in
the
world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration.
Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North
Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.
I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a
man
in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us
with it. Go to Kerry's Web site (http://www.johnkerry.com
<http://www.johnkerry.com ) and read some of the magazine profiles on
him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the
GOP
attack dogs would have you believe.
Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey,
windsurfs, rides motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and
speaks
French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has
killed
people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man
and
dispels all illusions about war.
Â(c) 2004 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Charley Reese makes his case in clear, concise prose.
"It's not important to me if people agree or disagree with my point of
view," he says. "What I hope my column does is provoke people into
thinking about issues, about the world, and their place in it."
Reese, a conservative columnist, does not mince words. In his column,
which King Features Syndicate distributes three times a week to more
than 150
newspapers, he does not hesitate to take a stand and back it up to the
end.
Charley Reese was born Jan. 19, 1937, in Washington, Ga. He was raised
there, in eastern Texas and northwest Florida. By the time he was 19,
he
had worked as a janitor, printer, cub reporter, civil servant and
caption
writer for Plant News Pictures, Ltd. in London.
In 1955, he began his career at the Pensacola News in Florida as a cub
reporter. For the next 10 years, he worked at various newspapers,
honing
his craft by reporting everything from sports to politics. Between
1969
and 1971, he worked as a campaign staffer for gubernatorial, senatorial
and
congressional races in several states. He joined The Orlando Sentinel
in
1971 as assistant metro editor. He later became assistant to the
publisher,
then columnist and editorial board member. He has traveled to Europe
and
the Middle East on assignments, all the while maintaining his
distinctly
American style of journalism.
Reese served two years of active duty in the Army and received an
honorary
doctorate from Webber College in Florida. He has been nominated for
the
Pulitzer Prize and voted the best columnist in Florida by both the
Florida
Press Association and the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. He is
the
author of four books, including Great Gods of the Potomac, and was the
ghost writer of The Eleventh Hour by Gen. Lewis Walt.
An American foundation commissioned Reese to write a study of the
Swiss
national defense system.
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rainstorm
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streetsoldier
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streetsoldier
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FWBHurricane
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Stephanie wrote:John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to
think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than
Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers...
On a visit to Brazil (the country in this hemisphere with the largest African population) Bush asked their president "Do you have Blacks, too?"
Condi Rice, who was there with him, quickly informed him of the sheer stupidity of the question.
Granted, formal education can be a bit overated at times but I think the president of the most powerful nation in the world should at least have some general knowledge of other countries. Remember, he has the authority to order a nuclear strike.
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rainstorm
kittcat wrote:Rainstorm - You don't suppose the "liberal media" had anything to do with Howard Dean's demise with the overplay of his enthusiastic campaign speech?
absolutely, and it was the liberal media. they saw dean as a candidate that wasnt going follow polls and turned viciously on him.
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rainstorm
abajan wrote:Stephanie wrote:John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to
think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than
Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers...
On a visit to Brazil (the country in this hemisphere with the largest African population) Bush asked their president "Do you have Blacks, too?"
Condi Rice, who was there with him, quickly informed him of the sheer stupidity of the question.
Granted, formal education can be a bit overated at times but I think the president of the most powerful nation in the world should at least have some general knowledge of other countries. Remember, he has the authority to order a nuclear strike.
if john kerry is so educated, why does he need poll results to think for him?
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opera ghost
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rainstorm wrote:abajan wrote:Stephanie wrote:John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to
think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than
Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers...
On a visit to Brazil (the country in this hemisphere with the largest African population) Bush asked their president "Do you have Blacks, too?"
Condi Rice, who was there with him, quickly informed him of the sheer stupidity of the question.
Granted, formal education can be a bit overated at times but I think the president of the most powerful nation in the world should at least have some general knowledge of other countries. Remember, he has the authority to order a nuclear strike.
if john kerry is so educated, why does he need poll results to think for him?
Man am I tired of hearing this tired old line.
It comes down to what you expect of an elected official. I expect my elected officials to represent ME. I put them in office- I can take them back out of office- thier sole job is to represent ME and to make policy and decisions with my welfare at heart.
I don't believe in the keeper view of government... Oh we poor stupid sheep- we must wait for the grand high ones to declare what is best for us! They will know what is right and they will tell me what to do.
No. Just no. Thanks for the offer. I'm a well educated and smart individual. I don't need my president, Mayor, Governor, or State Represenitive telling me what's best for me and how to live my life- I need them *representing* me.... my beliefs, my needs. This government is by the people, for the people and of the people. It's not a monarchy. Ever hear the phrase "the customer is always right"?
I'd rather have a president who follows the will of his people than a crusader who does what he feels is right regardless of what the rest of this country believes. The first is the head of a represenative government- the second is a dictator.
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GalvestonDuck
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Stephanie wrote:GalvestonDuck wrote:I'm still trying to figure out why John Kerry referred to the Hollywood Elite as the "heart and soul" of this country during his recent festivities.
If they represent me and the rest of the heart and soul of this country, we're in trouble.
I must admit, that is a stretch!
It may be a stretch Steph...but I don't see Democrats across the country asking their beloved candidate for the Presidency for an explanation.
The reason (I'm sure) is he is ever so conscious of adding another flip-flop to his distinguished resume.
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