Democrat Kerry Slams Bush for 'Excuse Presidency'
Wed Sep 15, 2004 03:54 PM ET
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By Patricia Wilson
DETROIT (Reuters) - Democratic candidate John Kerry blasted George W. Bush's "excuse presidency" on Wednesday and demanded that he take responsibility for the economy instead of playing victim.
"This president has created more excuses than jobs," Kerry told the Detroit Economic Club.
Trailing in several polls seven weeks before the Nov. 2 election, and heeding advisers who have urged him to be more forceful, the Massachusetts senator rejected the White House "perfect storm" explanation that recession, war and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were to blame for a tepid U.S. economy.
"The president wants you to believe that this record is the record of the victim of circumstances, the result of bad luck, not bad decisions," Kerry said. "Well, Mr. President, when it comes to your record, we agree -- you own it."
Although the Iraq war has supplanted the economy as voters' top issue in many polls, and national security is considered one of the Republican U.S. president's strengths, the Kerry campaign believes Bush is vulnerable on domestic issues.
"His is the excuse presidency -- never wrong, never responsible, never to blame ... no, it's not our fault; no, there's nothing wrong; no, we can't do better; no, we haven't made a single mistake," Kerry said.
TAKING OFF THE GLOVES
The Democratic nominee underscored his hard-hitting broadside by writing in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal that "cleaning up President Bush's fiscal mess will not be easy."
He told the "Imus in the Morning" radio show he was ready to slug it out with the Bush team: "I am absolutely taking the gloves off."
At a rally later in Madison, Wisconsin, a fist-pumping Kerry took the stage to the cheers of thousands and the reverberating beat of Bruce Springsteen's "No Retreat, No Surrender."
"We just want leadership that looks (us) in the face and tells America the truth and trusts Americans with the truth," he said. "For all the negativity of these other people, for all the misleading that they do, Americans know better, Americans are smarter than that." Continued ...
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