Kerry Supports the Troops
BY JAMES TARANTO
The Best of the Web
Monday, December 5, 2005
The old proverb is right: A haughty, French-looking Massachusetts leopard who by the way served in Vietnam doesn't change its spots. John Kerry* appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer yesterday, and his comments on U.S. troops in Iraq were vintage 1971 (link below in PDF, quotes on pages 3-4):
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Schieffer: Let me shift to another point of view, and it comes from another Democrat, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. He takes a very different view. He says basically we should stay because, he says, real progress is being made. He said this is a war between 27 million Iraqis' freedom and 10,000 terrorists. He says we're in a watershed transformation. What about that?
Kerry: Let me--I--first of all, there is so much more that unites Democrats than divides us. And Democrats have much more in common with each other than they do with George Bush's policy right now. Now Joe Lieberman, I believe, also voted for the resolution which said the president needs to make more clear what he's doing and set out benchmarks, and that the policy hasn't been working. We all believe him when you say, 'Stay the course.' That's the president's policy, which hasn't been changing, which is a policy of failure. I don't agree with that. But I think what we need to do is recognize what we all agree on, which is you've got to begin to set benchmarks for accomplishment. You've got to begin to transfer authority to the Iraqis.
And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not--
Schieffer: Yeah.
Kerry: --Iraqis should be doing that.
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Terrorizing kids and children and breaking sort of the customs! Didn't "Jenjis Khan" used to do stuff like that in Vietnam? Note, too, that Kerry isn't against this per se; he just thinks Iraqis should be doing it. It's highly reminiscent of Vietnam, only back then Kerry's words carried some weight because he sold himself as a veteran against the war, whereas now he's just the junior senator from Massachusetts.
* Do we really need a footnote when we describe him in the text?
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