Just hang a lantern on Kerry's record
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Thursday, October 7, 2004
The best thing about the final weeks of a presidential election is not, contrary to popular opinion, that it's almost over. It's that with time running out, candidates have no choice but to cut to the chase.
In a campaign speech yesterday in Pennsylvania, President Bush did just that by contrasting, in the clearest terms yet, the two candidates' records and visions for the future.
``My opponents' endless back-and-forth on Iraq is part of a larger misunderstanding,'' Bush said. ``Senator Kerry is proposing policies and doctrines that would weaken America and make the world more dangerous.''
That should set the elite media all atwitter, considering their level of indignation when Vice President Dick Cheney said much the same thing.
Bush also finally set that ``misunderstanding'' in the context of John Kerry's 20-year voting record in the U.S. Senate.
``As a candidate, my opponent promises to defend America. The problem is, as a senator for two decades, he has built a record of weakness . . . He twice led efforts to gut our intelligence service budgets . . . He voted against many of the weapons that won the Cold War . . . He has voted more than 50 times against missile defense systems that would protect us from the threats of a dangerous world,'' the president said. Those are votes Kerry must explain, not ignore, as he has done throughout this campaign.
And Kerry will sure have to do a better job explaining what Bush labeled the ``Kerry doctrine,'' requiring American actions in the war on terror to pass a ``global test.''
Bush gave no quarter on economic issues, either. ``[Kerry] voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes 98 times . . . He voted for higher taxes on Social Security benefits . . . Now the senator is proposing higher taxes on more than 900,000 small business owners. My opponent is one of the few candidates in history to campaign on a pledge to raise taxes. And that's the kind of promise a politician from Massachusetts usually keeps.''
Oy. A reputation well-earned is surely hard to shed, and that's something John Kerry may find out the hard way.
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