Segmentation Fault: Core dumped..;-)

Mr. President: Let’s win this election fair-and-square, like a true Texan!

Posted : August 17, 2004 at 5:08 pm [America/Los_Angeles]

From Salon’s War Room…

…

Bush’s slippery spin on Kerry’s Iraq views

For a week now, George W. Bush has been delighting his audiences
with a new riff on John Kerry’s Iraq views. “Almost two years after he
voted for the war in Iraq, and almost 220 days after switching
positions to declare himself the antiwar candidate, my opponent has
found a new nuance,” Bush says. “He now agrees it was the right
decision to go into Iraq.”

Even by this White House’s sorry standards for truthfulness, the
Bush bit on Kerry is extraordinary: It’s false four times over. Let’s
break it down.

“Almost two years after he voted for the war in Iraq . . .” John
Kerry never “voted for the war on Iraq.” In October 2002, he voted for
a resolution that authorized Bush to use force in Iraq if — and only
if — the president determined it necessary to defend U.S. national
security and to enforce United Nations resolutions.

Although he chooses to ignore it now, Bush certainly seemed to
understand the conditional nature of the Senate vote when it was made.
The day before the Senate voted, Bush said the resolution meant that
the Iraqi government “must disarm and comply with existing U.N.
resolutions, or it will be forced to comply.” The day the Senate voted,
Bush said the Senate had authorized “the use of force, if necessary.”
While Bush may have known that he was going to invade Iraq no matter
what, that’s not what Bush said, it’s not what the resolution said, and
it’s not what Kerry voted for. (more on this from a previous blog entry of mine)

” . . . and almost 220 days after switching positions to declare
himself the antiwar candidate . . . ” Kerry never declared himself “the
antiwar candidate.” Bush is referring to an appearance Kerry made on
“Hardball” on Jan. 6, 2004. Chris Matthews asked Kerry, “Do you think
you belong in that category of candidates who more or less are unhappy
with this war? The way it’s been fought? Along with General Clark,
along with Howard Dean, and not necessarily in companionship
politically on the issue of the war with people like Lieberman, Edwards
and Gephardt? Are you one of the antiwar candidates?” Kerry’s response:
“I am. Yes. In the sense that I don’t believe the president took us to
war as he should have, yes. Absolutely.”

The Bush-Cheney campaign seems to understand that the question
Matthews actually asked and the answer Kerry actually gave don’t
support their flip-flop claim. Thus, when the campaign released a video
on Kerry’s “flip-flops” on Iraq, it edited down the exchange so it
looks like this. Matthews: “Are you one of the antiwar candidates?”
Kerry: “I am. Yes.” Last night on “Hardball,” Bush strategist Matthew
Dowd defended the campaign’s editing efforts, telling Matthews: “You
asked John Kerry a yes or no question. And he said ‘yes, absolutely.’”

Matthews didn’t buy it. “Is the president going to keep saying that
something that was said on this show wasn’t said? Would you like to
have your sentences cut down like to a third of their length and let
people decide on the first three or four words what you meant by the 20
words? I think you guys should consider taking this off your loop. I
think the president ought to be shown this tape so he knows what he’s
talking about, instead of having it fed to him by somebody who doesn’t
show [him the] full sentence.”

” . . . my opponent has found a new nuance . . .” There is nothing
“new” about Kerry’s position on Iraq. Bush is referring here to Kerry’s
Aug. 9 statement in which he said that, even knowing what he knows
today, he would have voted in favor of the October 2002 resolution, but
that he would have used the authority it gave the president “very
differently” than the way Bush did.

That’s almost exactly what Kerry has said about his vote any number
of times before. In an interview in Salon in May, for example, Kerry
said: “My vote was the right vote. If I had been president, I would
have wanted that authority to leverage the behavior that we needed. But
I would have used it so differently than the way George Bush did.” When
Kerry made his statement at the Grand Canyon, at least some of the
media recognized it for what it was: nothing new. CNN headlined the
story: “Kerry stands by ‘yes’ vote on Iraq war.” NPR said: “Kerry
Reaffirms Iraq Stance at Grand Canyon Stop.” That doesn’t help Bush’s
flip-flop charge, so Kerry’s consistent statement on Iraq somehow
becomes a “nuance” that’s “new.”

“He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq.” Kerry has
not said that it was “the right decision to go into Iraq.” Kerry said
on Aug. 9 that he thought his vote on the 2002 resolution was the right
one because it gave Bush “the right authority for the president to
have. ” Kerry said that Bush has used the authority in the wrong way.
While one of Kerry’s top national security advisors has said that Kerry
“in all probability” would have gone to war in Iraq eventually, Kerry
hasn’t said that himself. Rather, Kerry says that Bush rushed into war
“on faulty intelligence” and “without a plan to win the peace,” that he
misled the country “about how he would go to war,” and that he has
failed to persuade other countries to join the war effort.

Will any of this matter to the Bush-Cheney campaign? Probably not.
While Bush and Cheney finally seem to have stopped spreading the phony
claim that Kerry is the “most liberal” member of the U.S. Senate, the
White House still hasn’t condemned the misleading “Swift Boat Veterans
for Truth” ad that its backers are running. And on “Hardball” last
night, Dowd gave no indication that the White House plans to back down
from its slippery spin on Kerry’s Iraq views.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room//index.html

For more articles on Kerry’s position on Iraq, the fake swift boat
attacks, and everything else related to the campaign, check out the
Kerry 2004 Reference Library–now with over 700 entries and growing, at:

http://kerrylibrary.forumflash.com

I have said it in the past and I will say it again. Mr. President, let us talk about the goodies that are in store for the average American voter if you get elected on Nov. 2nd. 2004. I think it’s time you and your PR machine said a little more substantial than phrases like “…steady leadership..moral clarity..” which may sound impressive during stump speeches and TV ads, but in the end does not convey much.

Too many people have died, many more have been maimed and countless family members find a gaping hole in their lives which they will never be able to fill. All in less than three years! In my humble opinion, the least you and your cabal can do to honor these folks is to have an election that is about “issues” and not about asinine political chicanery as detailed in the article above.

For once, win an election fair-and-square, like a true Texan!

- Anand

Category: United (or not) State of American Politics 2004