Your hero Edwards Smashes Bush for Lying About JK's Heroism
Edwards slams Bush campaign's "lies" in ads
By Katharine Webster, Associated Press Writer | September 28, 2004
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- John Edwards accused President Bush's re-election campaign of lying in television ads about John Kerry's Vietnam War service and his plan to reform health care.
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"They will absolutely lie about anything," the Democratic vice presidential candidate said Monday in response to a question from one of hundreds of people at a "town hall" meeting in Victory Park.
A Bush health care ad claims Kerry would put health care decisions in the hands of government "bureaucrats" at a cost of $1.5 trillion. Independent analysts estimate the cost at $895 billion over 10 years, which Kerry says he would pay for by repealing Bush's tax cuts on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
"There's not a single new government program in our health care plan," which calls for strengthening existing government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, giving tax breaks to employers that provide health insurance, and allowing Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada, Edwards said.
Edwards also criticized the Bush campaign's attacks on Kerry's military service and Republican attempts to portray Kerry as a supporter of al-Qaida and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
John Kerry "is the one candidate who's actually led troops in battle," Edwards said, referring to questions about whether Bush completed his Vietnam-era National Guard service.
Regarding the charge that the Republican campaign is lying about Kerry in TV ads, the Bush-Cheney organization responded Monday that "it is perfectly clear that while the Kerry-Edwards campaign can't stand on the issues, they're forced to resort to political subterfuge and misdirection."
The Bush campaign has attacked Kerry for "flip-flopping" in his position on the Iraq war, first authorizing the invasion, then opposing the administration's conduct of the war.
Edwards said Monday that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been consistent -- but consistently wrong.
"He will never admit he's done anything wrong," Edwards said. "They've made a lot of mistakes, and our troops and our taxpayers are paying for that right now."
Edwards said he and Kerry have a realistic plan for combating terrorism, including getting more international support for rebuilding and policing Iraq, refocussing efforts on capturing al-Qaida's leaders and securing nuclear materials that might fall into the terrorists' hands.
"We will find these terrorists where they are, we will find the leaders of al-Qaida, and we will crush them," he said.
Edwards was accompanied by Kristen Breitweiser, of Middletown, N.J., whose 39-year-old husband, Ronald, died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.
Breitweiser, who apologized to the crowd for voting for Bush in 2000, said the families of Sept. 11 victims had to beg his administration to set up an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks. Then they had to battle over the commission's chair -- initially Henry Kissinger -- and access to government documents and witnesses, she said.
Now the administration is trying to change the commission's recommendations as they go through the legislative process, she said.
"We wanted the recommendations to be clean. ... They have not cooperated, and it's scary to me," she said. "We are not safe -- we could do so much more."
Speaking in support of the Bush campaign, Paul Needham, of Derry -- who worked on Edwards' primary campaign and supported the Democratic ticket as recently as last month -- said Monday he changed allegiances because Kerry recently denounced the war in Iraq.
"The reason for the war is still there: Saddam Hussein had to go, one way or another," he said. "We had multiple issues in the Middle East, and I think the president's policy is the correct one -- taking care of all those problems at once.
"The Syrians have closed their doors to terrorists, Moammar Khaddafi has decided to open his doors to nuclear inspections and join the community of nations, and Saudi Arabia has cracked down on terrorists," he said. "That's a direct result of President Bush's policies." |
