By Matt for the TIB Network:
Chad and Phil are at it again...The Bush campaign is continuing its usual pattern of selectively quoting John Kerry's statements. Their latest effort picks up on one word Kerry used in a NY Times Magazine story but fails to mention the following excerpts from the article. Why do you think that is?Well, fellas, because it isn't THEIR job to sell YOUR candidate? That's my first guess... Bush/Cheney is cutting to the heart of the matter, but let's see what you got that the Bush campaign "doesn't want us to see."
"Richard A. Clarke, who coordinated security and counter- terrorism policy for George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, credits Kerry with having seen beyond the national-security tableau on which most of his colleagues were focused. 'He was getting it at the same time that people like Tony Lake were getting it, in the '93 -'94 time frame,' Clarke says, referring to Anthony Lake, Clinton's national security adviser. 'And the 'it' here was that there was a new nonstate-actor threat, and that nonstate-actor threat was a blended threat that didn't fit neatly into the box of organized criminal, or neatly into the box of terrorism. What you found were groups that were all of the above.'"Richard Clarke...you really want me to take Richard Clarke seriously after his disgraceful performance shilling for Kerry at the 9/11 Commission hearings. I'm supposed to forget the lies I read in his awful book. I'm supposed to believe some partisan hack because two clowns from the same Kerry/Edwards campaign that Clarke USED to work for say so? I think not...
"In other words, Kerry was among the first policy makers in Washington to begin mapping out a strategy to combat an entirely new kind of enemy. Americans were conditioned, by two world wars and a long standoff with a rival superpower, to see foreign policy as a mix of cooperation and tension between civilized states. Kerry came to believe, however, that Americans were in greater danger from the more shadowy groups he had been investigating -- nonstate actors, armed with cellphones and laptops -- who might detonate suitcase bombs or release lethal chemicals into the subway just to make a point. They lived in remote regions and exploited weak governments. Their goal wasn't to govern states but to destabilize them."
What else you got?
(Responding to the 9/11 attacks) "You know, my instinct was, Where's my gun?' Kerry told me. 'How do you fight back? I wanted to do something.' That evening, sitting at home, he called an aide and said he wanted to go to New York that very night to help the rescuers; he was ultimately convinced that such a trip was logistically impossible. In the days ahead, Kerry would make two trips to ground zero to see what remained of the carnage."Okay...let's break that down a bit...
"Kerry told me he would stop terrorists by going after them ruthlessly with the military, and he faulted Bush, as he often does, for choosing to use Afghan militias, instead of American troops, to pursue Osama bin Laden into the mountains of Tora Bora, where he disappeared."
"'I'm certainly, you know, not going to take second seat to anybody, to nobody, in my willingness to seek justice and set America on a course -- to make America safe,' Kerry told me. ''And that requires destroying terrorists. And I'm committed to doing that. But I think I have a better way of doing it. I can do it more effectively."
The "where's my gun" bit: So, Senator, is this or is this not a war? I thought you said it was some sort of law enforcement operation? And should the goal of a war be the elimination of the threat not the return to some to-be-determined level of nuisance?
"Outsourcing" Tora Bora: This whole line of reasoning is an insult to the special forces operators who were out there getting the job done. I wrote about this distortion here.
Today's position on terrorism: Quite frankly, these are the words of a candidate that realizes he doesn't have a record that he can hold up and he's hoping that he can smoothtalk his way out of the question. Does he really believe that the best way to win is to defeat terrorists? Ask a followup question on the level of nuisance a President Kerry would be willing to accept...
Next?
"'I think we can do a better job,' Kerry said, 'of cutting off financing, of exposing groups, of working cooperatively across the globe, of improving our intelligence capabilities nationally and internationally, of training our military and deploying them differently, of specializing in special forces and special ops, of working with allies, and most importantly -- and I mean most importantly -- of restoring America's reputation as a country that listens, is sensitive, brings people to our side, is the seeker of peace, not war, and that uses our high moral ground and high-level values to augment us in the war on terror, not to diminish us.'"That's great that the candidate thinks and has a plan but if he isn't willing to tell the American people what he would do differently what's the point? That whole laundry list above is already called the Bush Plan...and we know that's working.
"By infuriating allies and diminishing the country's international esteem, Kerry argued, Bush had made it impossible for America to achieve its goals abroad."Once again...we have over thirty allies in Iraq. You can belittle them if you like, but the reality is that France, Germany, Russia, and China were on Saddam's payroll. And so was the United Nations. It's called "Oil for Food" but it should have been called "Oil for Terror" because that's what it was...
"Kerry's view, that the 21st century will be defined by the organized world's struggle against agents of chaos and lawlessness, might be the beginning of a compelling vision. The idea that America and its allies, sharing resources and using the latest technologies, could track the movements of terrorists, seize their bank accounts and carry out targeted military strikes to eliminate them, seems more optimistic and more practical than the notion that the conventional armies of the United States will inevitably have to punish or even invade every Islamic country that might abet radicalism."Okay...a John Kerry vision means what exactly? I rank this up there with Kerry's "plans"...if the candidate isn't willing to talk about his vision and answer direct questions then what's the point? This paragraph is nothing more than Kerry cheerleading...not a substantive and objective assement of Kerry's abilities.
"Kerry, too, envisions a freer and more democratic Middle East. But he flatly rejects the premise of viral democracy, particularly when the virus is introduced at gunpoint. 'In this administration, the approach is that democracy is the automatic, easily embraced alternative to every ill in the region,' he told me. Kerry disagreed. 'You can't impose it on people,' he said. 'You have to bring them to it. You have to invite them to it. You have to nurture the process.'"I don't believe that's what the Bush administration has done...and truth be told, I don't have a problem with that anyway. The point is that two anti-democratic regimes were taken out on Bush's watch. The President has never said it was going to be easy, in fact, he has said the exact opposite. As cliche as this is, the point is that we have to win over the hearts and minds of the Middle East and convince them to stop strapping on bombs and blowing themselves up in public places. You want to prove Kerry has something to offer, tell me how he is going to accomplish that differently than Bush...
In other words, Chad and/or Phil...the rest of the article didn't give us anything to work with...situation normal with John Kerry.
