Kerry's tough talk at odds with record

Boston Herald ^ | 7/30/04 | Boston Herald editorial staff

[kattracks]

John Kerry [related, bio] was surely on target when he warned last night, ``This is the most important election of our lifetime.''
     When our world changed on Sept. 11, the stakes for this nation did indeed become high.
     ``We are a nation at war,'' Kerry said, ``a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have every known before.''
      He'll get no argument on that score. But a nation at war rarely wants to change its commander-in-chief. And while Kerry's case for doing so was rhetorically compelling, it needs to be set against Kerry's own record.
      ``Let there be no mistake; I will never hesitate to use force when it is required,'' he said. ``I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military.''
     But long before he voted against funds to support troops engaged in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kerry was proposing to slash Defense budgets. In 1993 he wanted to cut the number of Navy submarines and reduce the number of Army light infantry units and Air Force tactical fighter units. In 1995 he voted to freeze Defense spending for seven years. In '96 he proposed slashing $6.5 billion from the Defense Department budget.
     ``I will immediately reform the intelligence system,'' he said, ``so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics.''
     Can't argue with the premise, but the words come from a man who after the first World Trade Center bombing proposed $7.5 billion in intelligence cuts and in '95 voted to cut FBI funding by $80 million.
     As for homeland security, well, however much voters admire firefighters, hiring 100,000 more of them really amounts to fighting the last war, not the next one.
     ``Elections are about choices,'' Kerry said. ``And choices are about values. In the end, it's not just politics and programs that matter; the president who sits at that desk must be guided by principle.''
     But even those of us who have known Kerry for decades are bewildered by what those principles are.
     The Kerry vision for this nation remains a work in progress. The rhetoric of hope and optimism is surely uplifting, but a nation needs to hear more than catchy phrases to oust an incumbent president.

[Jeff Head]

Bingo. He said he wanted to be judged by his record.

Let it be so. From 20+ years in the US Senate, he's closer to a Marxist than anything else.

[John Valentine]

Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.

I am dazed. I am dumbstruck. Is the man so stupid that he doesn't even realize what he has said? That he has just proposed that we go back to the passive whack-a-mole mode we were in until 9-11?

And his promised swift and certain response - against WHO, exactly? This conundrum has been our problem from the beginning in this assymetric war, a conundrum that we have only begun to move beyond by taking the fight to them under the inspired and committed leadership of President Bush.

What Kerry seems to be suggesting now is that deterrence will work against death-worshiping Islamic maniacs hiding in caves and non-descript apartments dispersed all over the world - perhaps as well as it did against the former Soviet Union with its fixed populations and real national interests. What shred of evidence is there to support such a notion?

To say that this notion is delusional is way too generous to the man espousing it. In truth, it is completely and suicidally insane. What does that say about the man? Let's get the word out.

[Texasforever]

Kerry is running on a 4 month record in Vietnam. It is the 30 years following that will get him. He has made a real mistake with this "war hero" sham.

[AFPhys]

Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I am dazed. I am dumbstruck. Is the man so stupid that he doesn't even realize what he has said? That he has just proposed that we go back to the passive whack-a-mole mode we were in until 9-11?

And his promised swift and certain response - against WHO, exactly? This conundrum has been our problem from the beginning in this assymetric war, a conundrum that we have only begun to move beyond by taking the fight to them under the inspired and committed leadership of President Bush.

Dead on. This will be hammered mercilessly by President Bush and VP Cheney during the coming months. People are going to realize this is a do-nothing liberal simply talking, talking, talking - just as he has on the floor of the Senate for lo these many years. He's toast.