Kerry no-show in intelligence committee-Missed 38 of 49 public hearings in 8 years

worldnetdaily.com ^ | 8-2-04

[treeclimber]

WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry missed most of the public hearings of the Senate Intelligence Committee during his eight years on the panel, according to his colleagues.

During his tenure on the committee, which provides oversight of national intelligence agencies, Kerry was absent for 38 of 49 public hearings, according to Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

"There's been a total avoidance of discussion of the voting record of John Kerry," said Chambliss last week, following Kerry's acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination. "But that's not surprising. There's one area that he claims to have a lot of expertise and that's in the area of national security and on the issue of terrorism."

Chambliss said Kerry's vice presidential candidate, John Edwards, is a current member of the committee, "And I'll just tell you that in the last year and a half we haven't seen a whole lot of his running mate. And I would hope that he would agree to release to you the record of his attendance at meetings and hearings of the Senate Intelligence Committee over the last year and a half, or his total service on that committee."

Chambliss also questioned some of the votes Kerry did cast.

"For example, in1993 after the World Trade Center bombing Senator Kerry introduced a number of measures that were to reduce funding for the intelligence community by $7.5 billion, including a bill that he introduced in 1995 that called for the reduction in funding for the intelligence committees and intelligence communities by $300 million a year for five consecutive years," he said.

Chambliss points out those five years led up to Sept. 11. Kerry did not get any co-sponsors on that bill.

"He's been in the Senate for 20 years," said Chambliss. "Nobody has come to the platform to say, 'This is what John Kerry has done in his 20 years in the Senate.' They're not doing that because they can't do that."

[yoe]

Kerry had Sandy Berger on his campaign committee as his Security Advisor...until Berger got caught on camera with his pants down, 'er stuffed.........

[mewzilla]

Kerry have been reporting for the cushy duty at the convention. But hew sure as HECK was AWOL from his intell committee responsibilities.

[motor_racer]

Could we please stop saying "missed" and start saying "skipped"? To say he missed them implies it may have been unavoidable, even an innocent mistake. He skipped them. They simply didn't rise to the top of his priorities.

[uncbob]

Under no scenario will the Democrats get a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.

They don't have to If the GOP loses control they will roll over even more than they do as a majority

[Condor51]

"Reporting for ...... oops!
Never mind, gotta run. See ya."

[Stag]

Hey, don;t be so hard on the guy, burying his head in the sand is a perfectly reasonable strategy for a 4 month combat vet.

[prairiebreeze]

From another article AWOL In The Fight Against GW Bush

The publication Congressional Quarterly examined 119 recorded votes held in 2003 in which the president had taken a position. CQ found that Kerry was present for just 28 percent of those votes. In contrast, Kerry's colleague from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, was present for 97 percent of the votes.

When Kerry showed up, he did indeed vote against the president a significant number of times. In 2003, according to CQ, Kerry sided against the president 70 percent of the time. Kennedy, usually viewed as the gold standard of liberal orthodoxy, voted against Bush 53 percent of the time.

How in the He!! does this guy justify a paycheck?? Wake up Massachusettes, FGS!

Prairie

[angkor]

missed 38 of 49 hearings for this, 22 of 30 hearings for that

Has a career rating of 92 from Americans for Democratic Action, a premiere liberal lobbying group.

[IamConservative]

Let's hope not. The Dems have established that the filibuster is to be used as a tool to prevent a President from implementing a legislative agenda.

[prairiebreeze]

Ping, for your distribution consideration. :^)

[TheBattman]

Exactly what I was thinking - he has missed nearly all of the security briefings, mised hearings, and yet is suppose to be such an expert on the subject?

And Stupid American Sheople are polling (at least in most of the Major Lame-stream media's polls" in favor of this lying sack of crap.

I guess we will see if the end of America is at hand - depending upon the November election.

[aruanan]

Related to Kerry's almost complete no-show, I heard a clip of Kerry telling how GW Bush had misled him and the American public into authorizing the use of force in Iraq. This clip provided a very good, but scary, insight into how Kerry's mind works.

Kerry said he voted for the bill but that he had specifically listed what he meant by voting for that bill in his Senate speech. He went on to say that Bush had not fulfilled those enumerated Kerry speech conditions and, therefore, had misled both Kerry and the American people about the use of force in Iraq.

The problem with this argument is that it was the bill, not Kerry's rhetorical filagrees, that authorized GW Bush to do what he did in Iraq. It was the wording of the bill, not Kerry's reasons for voting for the bill, that defined the scope of the president's action in Iraq.

Kerry's comments indicate that for him the most important thing about the bill was his reason for voting for it. This gives insight into the degree of his inflated self-importance. Accordingly, anything that doesn't jibe with Kerry's reasons for voting for the bill, never mind the actual language of the bill, is contrary to the bill. This sort of thinking borders on the pathological.

Now if all these things Kerry had enumerated were SO important that he expected them to be followed by the president as though they had the force of law, then he should have offered them as specific amendments to the bill. But he did not.

Not only this, Kerry claims that since his reasons for voting for the bill weren't followed, GW Bush had been misleading him in asking him for authorization for the use of force in Iraq. Huh? GW Bush was acting within the language of the bill, not within Kerry's wish list about why Kerry was signing the bill. So where's the misleading?

If you look at some other comments Kerry made last week about that bill, you'll see Kerry stated that he and others thought GW Bush was just asking for this authorization in order to placate folks like the Secretary of Defense and that Bush wouldn't actually go ahead and use force. Kerry claims, then, that when GW Bush actually did go ahead and use force in Iraq, he was able to do so by having misled Kerry into thinking that he was going to take the resolution and then do nothing.

So what we have here is a case of one person, GW, clearly stating what he was going to do and why he was going to do it, and another person, Kerry, believing that GW was just saying all these things but was actually planning to do what Kerry wanted. So when what Kerry thought wasn't followed, he claims that the other person had somehow 1. known what he thought, 2. pitched his deal to Kerry based on a mutual, though unspoken, understanding, 3. gotten the okay, and then 4. violated that unspoken understanding, having deliberately misled Kerry into supporting it in the first place.

Do we really need this kind of "mind" in the White House as Commander in Chief? He's too much steeped in the Senate tradition of saying one thing for the record and another thing off the Senate floor, of tradeoffs and ostensible, but not real, support to deal with folks like Osama who say, "We will destroy you" and then set about trying to do it. Kerry and his word games and complexities and nuances need to be left on the curbside with the rest of the trash. It has no place in the Executive Branch.

[no dems]

I heard Senator Zell Miller (D) of GA say the same thing on yesterday's Meet the Press. I thought: Here's another op for the GOP. But, will they capitalize on it?" I hope so.

I can't wait to hear Zell speak at the GOP Convention.

I will e-mail this to the BC'04 Campaign as well as several battleground state GOP HQ, Hannity, O'Reilly, and Rush.

[hoosiermama]

AM not sure that the RNC should show the film....It does need to be made and distributed, but would have more impact if it were put together and funded by a "Group of grass root citizens"......

[OrioleFan]

I bet Kerry passed up briefings on the latest threats, too.

[Graymatter]

"And I would hope that he would agree to release to you the record of his attendance at meetings and hearings..."

Excuse me? Are you telling us this is not simple public knowledge? We need his permission to know if he has been at his job?

[Whataday]

It is amazing that no one on the networks brings this up...

[Graymatter]

Excellent argument. I hope somebody's listening!

[TexasCajun]

And as a Senator for what? 20 yrs? He can not even mention 1 piece of legislature that he sponsored or cosponsored that he help enact, not one!

...did even have anything to say about his senate career in his acceptance speech.

[aruanan]

Thanks.