Old Kerry Quotes Unearthed

No, that's not the name of the new Toby Keith CD. It's not some ill-timed remark from President Bush or even the title of a new book from Ann Coulter. That is but one of the provocative questions asked by Sen. John Kerry on CNN's Crossfire back in November of 1997.

That comment, and others cited below, came during Kerry's vigorous defense against charges that the Clinton administration was sparring with member nations of the UN Security Council, including France and Russia. We now know that France was illegally trading with Saddam during those years, which explains their behaviour, but what about Mr. Kerry?

It does appear that his position on war vacillates depending on the political benefit to him - and the party affiliation of the president initiating the action. Gulf War 1, Republican president George Bush 1, Kerry votes no - even though Saddam had invaded another country! (And now he talks like he supported it all along.)

1997-1998, Clinton wants to use military force, no problem, he's a Democrat. And while Kerry did vote to authorize the recent War in Iraq, he now claims he wasn't really voting to use force, just to threaten it.

On the campaign trail, Kerry blames the President for equipment shortages our troops are dealing with, relating stories of family members buying body armor on the Internet. Yet it was John Kerry, who inexplicably voted against the 87 Billion Dollar appropriations bill which included funding for that very same equipment.

Then again, Mr. Kerry has never let what he said yesterday interfere with what he needs to say today.

Take Kerry's response to the well-orchestrated Democrat charge that Bush was AWOL. He tried to appear above the fray, saying something like, well, it was a difficult issue, I understand that, "some people wanted to serve, others didn't."

That choice of words is curious because, while Kerry did serve, it was not his first choice. A February, 1970 Harvard Crimson article says, "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

And while Kerry and the Democrat Smear Machine forced the President to release all of his Vietnam era records, John Kerry refuses to release his medical records.

Kerry was in Vietnam for 4 months during which he was awarded 3 Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in battle. Mr. Kerry is the only obstacle to the release of those records, but for some reason he doesn't want the public to see them.

Of course, he probably doesn't want anybody to see this either, but here's more from that Crossfire transcript, Kerry, defending the Clinton administration from charges of failed leadership said, "On the contrary. The administration is leading - I think the United States has always reserved the right and will reserve the right to act in its best interests."

Wait a second. John Kerry equating presidential leadership with going it alone? This doesn't sound like John F. Kerry circa 2004 does it? Then again, Kerry's never been one to let his position on an issue stop him from taking a completely different position on the very same issue.

Kerry continued, "And clearly it is not just our best interests, it is in the best interests of the world to make it clear to Saddam Hussein that he's not going to get away with a breach of the '91 agreement that he's got to live up to, which is: allowing us to know that he has dismantled his weapons."

More from Senator Kerry, the unilateralist hawk, "Clearly the allies may not like it,

The link doesn't work for non-subscribers

I'm sure Rush wouldn't mind, since we're actually just giving him credit...

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Harvard Crimson 1970: Genuine Kerry

February 11, 2004

2:50 PM ET BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, Harvard Crimson, February 11th - I'm sorry - yeah, okay, published today, February 11th, 2004, but it's actually a story that goes back to 1970, February 13th.

"Ten months after returning home from Vietnam, a young John Kerry strolled into the offices of The Harvard Crimson on Feb. 13, 1970 as an obscure underdog in the Democratic Congressional primary. The decorated veteran, honorably discharged after a tour of duty in the Mekong Delta, spoke in fierce terms during his daylong interview with The Crimson’s Samuel Z. Goldhaber ’72."

For those of you in Rio Linda, '72 is the year he graduated. If you read about something that says so-and-so Stanford '85, it doesn't mean they were 85 years old, he's a graduate of Stanford '85. This guy Goldhaber graduated Harvard '72. That's what it means. I love telling people things they don't know. Back to the Harvard Crimson story.

"But almost 34 years later, Kerry’s remarks on American military and intelligence operations vastly diverge from opinions expressed by the present-day Sen. John F. Kerry, D.-Mass., the leading candidate in the Democratic primary for president. 'I’m an internationalist,' Kerry told The Crimson in 1970. 'I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.'"

That doesn't sound so different than Kerry today. He would turn over everything to the UN as far as he's concerned. That's consistent.

"Kerry said he wanted 'to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care.'" Well, he's voted to cut back the CIA. I don't think there is any inconsistency so far, do you? No, I don't, either.

"The Kerry campaign, celebrating primary victories in Virginia and Tennessee last night, declined to comment on the senator's…" Of course they're not going to comment on this, talking about all these mainstream values these Democrats are falling for. I'm telling you, they don't know who they got here. They're going to find out. They don't know who they've nominated here. "As a candidate for president, Kerry has said he supports the autonomy of the U.S. military and has never called for a scale back of CIA operations."

Well, we got to parse this. He may never have called for it, and I don't know about that, he's voted for it. We've got the voting record. He's voted to cut back the CIA, he's voted to scale it back. And supporting the autonomy of the U.S. military? I don't think so. He wanted to turn over all this Iraq business to the United Nations. He wanted to put everything in charge. He wanted the blue helmets.

"Former Secretary of Labor, Robert B. Reich defended Kerry's 1970 statements as appropriate for their time." But they haven't changed, Secretary Reich. Said the secretary, "In the context of the Vietnam War those comments are completely understandable." They are still his beliefs, Secretary Reich-h-h-h-h-h-h.

"A spokesperson for President Bush's reelection campaign said that Kerry's 1970 remarks signaled the senator's weakness on defense. Spokesperson Kevin Madden said, 'President Bush will never cede the best interests of the national security of the American people to anybody but the president of the United States, along with the Congress.' The increasingly likely matchup between Kerry and Bush has already prompted comparisons of the senator's record…" blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

"Goldhaber, '72, whose first person profile of Kerry ran in The Crimson, February 18th of '70 said yesterday that he recalled the candidate as an emerging outsider whose campaign focused squarely on his opposition to the Vietnam War, 'We lived, dreamed, and breathed Vietnam,' said Goldhaber '72. Still, Adam Clymer, '58, political director of the National Annenberg election survey at the University of Pennsylvania said that Kerry's comments would likely find their way into the Bush campaign."

Really, Adam Clymer, '58? What is your first clue? And Reich-h-h-h-h-h-h forecasted that GOP research will extend far beyond Capitol Hill. Really? What geniuses these guys are. "Said Reich, 'If Kerry is the nominee, Republicans will try and search back into everything he ever said on every issue."

We'll do that, but we're not going to have to go any further back than the Vietnam war, the Iraq war and the war on terror. Everything he said in his voting record and the CIA, it's all there. It juxtaposes nicely; it flows nicely and geometrically from what he said In The Harvard Crimson in 1970 to today. It flows. It's just a matter of time.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Articles...

(The Crimson: Old Crimson Interview Reveals A More Radical John Kerry)
(The Crimson: John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress - .2.18.70)

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