Posted on 10/02/2004 2:33:27 PM PDT by Mike Fieschko
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 - More than a dozen times in their 90-minute debate on Thursday night, President Bush accused Senator John Kerry of continually shifting positions on Iraq."As the politics change, his positions change," Mr. Bush said at one point. "You cannot lead if you send mixed messages," he said at another.
This line of attack has become a central element of the Bush campaign, and Mr. Kerry was clearly prepared to answer it.
"I've had one position, one consistent position," Mr. Kerry said.
This is just one of several points on which the candidates disagreed during the debate. Other disputes involved nuclear proliferation and whether the Bush administration has spent enough for domestic security.
Concerning Iraq, a review of Mr. Kerry's public statements found that his position had been quite consistent. But as the politics changed, Mr. Kerry repeatedly changed his emphasis. News accounts reflected what he was emphasizing at the time. And Mr. Kerry was often unclear in expressing his views.
Since well before the presidential campaign began, Mr. Kerry has maintained that Saddam Hussein was a menace and that removing him from power was a worthy goal. He has said that the president needed the authority to use troops in Iraq.
But Mr. Kerry has also said that Mr. Bush should not have gone to war without exhausting all diplomatic alternatives and without mobilizing international support. And he has insisted that the war's cost should be covered as much as possible by repealing tax cuts for the wealthy enacted during the Bush presidency.
On Oct. 9, 2002, Mr. Kerry was planning to run for president, but had not yet announced his candidacy. Before he voted to give Mr. Bush the authority to use force in Iraq, he declared on the Senate floor: "I will support a multilateral effort to disarm him by force, if we ever exhaust those other options, as the president has promised, but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances."
That is essentially his position today. But look at what Mr. Kerry has said in the meantime:
In May 2003, two months after the United States invaded Iraq and routed Mr. Hussein's army, Mr. Kerry was the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, from the antiwar wing of the party, was not yet regarded as a serious threat.
In a nine-candidate debate in Columbia, S.C., on May 3, Mr. Kerry declared: "I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him."
By October 2003, Dr. Dean had begun to emerge as a strong candidateand it had become clear that no unconventional weapons would be found in Iraq. On Oct. 12, Mr. Kerry asserted on the ABC News program "This Week": "The president and his advisers did not do almost anything correctly in the walk-up to the war. They rushed to war. They were intent on going to war. They did not give legitimacy to the inspections. We could have still been doing inspections even today."
Five days later, Mr. Kerry voted against a Republican bill to provide $87 billion more to support American troops and to pay reconstruction costs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before that vote, he voted for a version of the measure Mr. Bush threatened to veto, a version that would have paid for the $87 billion by repealing tax cuts for Americans with annual incomes of more than $200,000.
By January 2004, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary were at hand, Mr. Kerry's campaign had yet to gel and Dr. Dean, having generated enormous enthusiasm from antiwar Democrats, seemed on the verge of winning those contests. On Jan. 6, Mr. Kerry, on the MSNBC program "Hardball," was asked by its host, Chris Matthews, "Are you one of the antiwar candidates?"
Mr. Kerry replied: "I am. Yes, in the sense that I don't believe the president took us to war as he should have. Yes, absolutely. Do I think this president violated his promise to America? Yes, I do."
By March, Mr. Kerry had won the early contests, essentially clinching the nomination. On March 16, he explained his vote against the $87 billion for the troops by saying, in a comment Mr. Bush has repeatedly ridiculed, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
On Aug. 9, following the Democratic convention, Mr. Kerry told reporters during a trip to the Grand Canyon that he "would have voted for the authority" for Mr. Bush to use troops in Iraq even if he had known that unconventional weapons would not be found and that no close connection existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
This was the first time Mr. Kerry had expressed that view, and reports emphasized it. Many accounts, especially those on television, did not include his further explanation that "it's the right authority for a president to have" and that, referring to subsequent events in Iraq, he "would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has."
Then last month on the radio program "Imus in the Morning," its host, Don Imus, asked Mr. Kerry, "Do you think there are any circumstances in which we should have gone to war in Iraq?"
Mr. Kerry replied: "Not under the current circumstances, no. There are none that I see. I voted based on weapons of mass destruction. The president distorted that, and I've said that."
That was another new point, and nearly all accounts emphasized it. Many did not include the rest of what Mr. Kerry said: "But I think it was the right vote based on what Saddam Hussein had done, and I think it was the right thing to do to hold him accountable. I've said 100 times, there was a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. The president chose the wrong way."
Nuclear Proliferation
Both candidates called nuclear proliferation the greatest threat to American security. But they differed on specifics and used facts loosely to defend their stances.
Mr. Kerry said, "Thirty-five to 40 countries in the world had a greater capability of making weapons at the moment the president invaded than Saddam Hussein."
A report this year by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace lists 36 countries that have, once had or are suspected of pursuing nuclear weapons programs, including Iraq, whose program it lists as "recently terminated." Some countries have not progressed any further than Iraq and could not yet produce weapons.
Mr. Kerry maintained that the Bush administration had been slow to secure nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, saying that 600 tons of material would take another 13 years to secure. A similar figure is cited by the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington and the Project to Manage the Atom at Harvard.
Mr. Bush countered by saying, "Actually, we've increased funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation, about 35 percent since I've been president."
Victoria Sampson of the Center for Defense Information said Mr. Bush's 35 percent figure was "not entirely accurate," since it included money for disposing of the United States' own unneeded nuclear materials.
Mr. Kerry may have exaggerated the attention he has given the issue of proliferation. He said, "I did a lot of work on this. I wrote a book about it several years ago."
The book, "The New War" (Simon & Schuster, 1997), discusses the issue in about 20 of its 210 pages; the book, which is subtitled "The Web of Crime That Threatens America's Security," is about dangers posed by international criminal networks, mostly involving drugs and other concerns.
Al Qaeda
Mr. Bush's statement that 75 percent of Osama Bin Laden's "people have been brought to justice" is impossible to document. It appears to refer to terrorist leaders, a poorly defined category.
There is no reliable tally of how many Qaeda operatives ever existed, and the administration has not provided the number who have been captured or killed.
Until just before the Republican convention, Mr. Bush said in his stump speeches that two-thirds had been brought to justice, but then began using the larger figure. A C.I.A. spokesman told Reuters at the time that the 75 percent figure was "absolutely consistent with our view."
Domestic Security
Mr. Kerry complained that money spent on the war could be better used for police, firefighters and other security measures at home. He said the administration had put "not one nickel" into protection for vulnerable tunnels, bridges and subways.
That is an exaggeration. Even Democratic critics demanding more spending on rail and transit security and lobbyists for transit systems say the government has spent millions of dollars, while the systems have spent more than a billion dollars.
"That's why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican convention was there," Mr. Kerry said of the lack of security upgrades. Several stations around Madison Square Garden were indeed closed, as were nearby streets, partly to deter protesters.
Mr. Bush's statement that the administration had "tripled the amount of money we're spending on homeland security to $30 billion a year" was an approximation and embroidered somewhat the rate of growth. It depends in part on what programs are counted, and from what date.
Programs inherited by the new Department of Homeland Security from other agencies have more than doubled since 2001, to about $24 billion in the fiscal year 2004, according to a report in April by the Congressional Budget Office. Related programs in other agencies have grown almost as fast, bringing total domestic security spending to about $41 billion, a doubling since 2001. Democrats have argued for even faster growth in spending on some of these programs.
The N Y Times, would we expect any less than they trying to back up their "boy".
Yea, a couple of more years and Saddam might have dropped dead or something. LOL
kerry can not be the CIC.
Please review the posts (here & elsewhere) by poster directly above
[ Rove uses Coordinated Forces of the Dark Side Choking Gesture ] ;-)Yeah, yeah, funny, ha, ha. Meanwhile, you might take a moment to notice that today is a much darker day that it WOULD have been, had Bush been properly prepared for that debate.
With your little "joke" are you implying that Rove would have to use magic to force Bush to fumble the ball? If so, you are deeply and dreafully wrong.
Don't worry, Mr. President. Spend the day shaking hands at the hurricane sites, Mr. President. And yes, Mr. President, those 5 things we've already talked about are more than enough to get you through the debate, Mr. President. The folks all love ya! No need to over-prep!
Why are you posting this silly message on every thread?
Dude...no. Chill! :)
Karl Rove got beat up by Catholic school girls for being a Republican when he was a kid. Why would he flip now?
Yer talkin crazy, man! O_ø
I can't chill, man. Something tells me this was too wrong to be honest. There's something dishonest going on here and I think we should be talking about it.
Karl Rove got beat up by Catholic school girls for being a Republican when he was a kid. Why would he flip now?I don't know. I'm just advancing a theory here. I refuse to believe that Bush being that tired and under-prepared was some kind of accident.
I don't know why Rove would do it.
Money, maybe?
Kerry has billions. Maybe he got to him. It wouldn't be so strange.
Extrodinary claims require extraordinary proof.
I might buy it if you had a tape or something, but no, this dog won't hunt.
Now, I might belive W and Rove are setting up a classic W-style rope-a-dope by lowering expectations to basement level. That's how they got Gore last time.
No one remembers the first Reagan/Mondale debate, just the "good one". :P
Are you sure, real sure this was in the NY SLIMES?
Rush says no stations were shut down. What is the truth on this - does anybody know?
skerry does NOT have billions. MAMA TAHRAAAAAZA has the money. skerry is her boy toy, and gigilo. skerry couldn't make a million if his life depended on it,
" ... sending money to open firehouses in Iraq, but we're shutting firehouses ... here in America"coming from?
Any truth to it? I recently heard this from a co-worker during a business trip.
QUESTIONS:
bump
On Aug. 9, following the Democratic convention, Mr. Kerry told reporters during a trip to the Grand Canyon that he "would have voted for the authority" for Mr. Bush to use troops in Iraq even if he had known that unconventional weapons would not be found and that no close connection existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
[campaign shake up - bring in Clinton staff]
Then last month on the radio program "Imus in the Morning," its host, Don Imus, asked Mr. Kerry, "Do you think there are any circumstances in which we should have gone to war in Iraq?" Mr. Kerry replied: "Not under the current circumstances, no. There are none that I see. I voted based on weapons of mass destruction. The president distorted that, and I've said that."
Why March? Waiting until April would have put the bulk of the fighting in summer with temperatures of 130 degrees with our troops in chem/bio suits. Also, Gen Franks mentioned in his book that after March, the Iraqi Army would enter a cycle where it started getting stronger. The weak point of the cycle ended in March.
Waiting until after summer meant keeping 250,000 troops sweltering in Kuwait for the whole summer. Very unfair to our troops. Our economy was also limping along because of war uncertainty. If you brought them home for summer, Saddam wins. He can kick the inspectors out and another year has been wasted. Net: Waiting another year worked against us
Yep, 12 years of negotiating and inspections produced nothing other than millions of dead or tortured Iraqis. It amazes me the Nero complex that the left has. Let them die, we're busy talking.
Can you imagine? The NYT erring on a fact in such a way as to strengthen a Dim candidate? SUCH a surprise! /sarcasm off
Ping for post 23. Good concise summary.
There's no way the NYT was unaware of what really happened. They're simply covering for their Global Test Student. The Post should call them on it.
Calling Alcoa! Calling Reynolds!
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