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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (30166)	2/17/2004 4:40:48 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793914

Sullivan fisks Kerry's debate performance: We've been treated to many disquisitions on the "new" John Kerry, the emboldened, clear, unpompous candidate who emerged from primary season with a real chance to beat an increasingly vulnerable George W. Bush. Sadly, that new candidate didn't show up Sunday night in Wisconsin for the Democrats' most recent (and possibly final) debate. The same old tedious, flip-flopping Kerry was in evidence. Here are three interactions with two of his questioners--Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Lester Holt of MSNBC--and my interpolations. GILBERT: Let me turn to you, Senator Kerry, because you said your vote wasn't a vote for what the president ultimately did. But you did vote to give him the authority, so do you feel any degree, any degree of responsibility for the war and its costs and casualties? KERRY: This is one of the reasons why I am so intent on beating George Bush and why I believe I will beat George Bush, because one of the lessons that I learned -- when I was an instrument of American foreign policy, I was that cutting-edge instrument. I carried that M- 16. I know what it's like to try to choose between friend and foe in a foreign country when you're carrying out the policy of your nation. Oh, please. This immediate invocation of military credentials is both unseemly in its self-regard and irrelevant to the question. The presidency of the United States is open to those with military service and those without. It's a civilian office. Once you argue that a man with active military service is somehow more qualified to make decisions on war and peace, you are arguing that those without such service are somehow suspect. You are undermining our civilian democracy. This isn't Argentina. KERRY: And I know what it's like when you lose the consent and the legitimacy of that war. And that is why I said specifically on the floor of the Senate that what I was voting for was the process the president promised. There was a right way to do this and there was a wrong way to do it. And the president chose the wrong way because he turned his back on his own pledge to build a legitimate international coalition, to exhaust the remedies of the United Nations in the inspections and to go to war as a matter of last resort. The president went to the Security Council twice to achieve support. Twice--after twelve years of Democratic and Republican administrations grappling with the perceived threat from Saddam. The relevant question therefore is: What would Kerry have done after the failure of the second resolution? Stand down the military? Retreat before Saddam and Chirac? Demobilize? Call for more inspections? Unless he can tell us precisely what he would have done differently in this "process," his positioning is just, well, positioning. Last resort means something to me. Obviously, it doesn't mean something to this president. I think it means something to the American people. In 1991, it's worth recalling, "last resort" for Kerry meant leaving the invasion of Kuwait in place. And the great burden of the commander in chief is to be able to look into the eyes of any parent or loved one and say to them, "I did everything in my power to prevent the loss of your son and daughter, but we had to do what we had to do because of the imminency of the threat and the nature of our security. " I don't think the president passes that test. How does Kerry know this? Is he implying that the president deliberately lied about the threat he believed Saddam posed? It's not worth disinterring the "imminence" debate, but it is worth reiterating that what Kerry is accusing the president of is treating the lives of U.S. soldiers cavalierly. It's about the lowest shot you can possibly launch at a political opponent. Yet it's Kerry's option before he even answers the question put to him. GILBERT: But what about you? I mean, let me repeat the question. Do you have any degree of responsibility having voted to give him the authority to go to war? KERRY: The president had the authority to do what he was going to do without the vote of the United States Congress. President Clinton went to Kosovo without the Congress. President Clinton went to Haiti without the Congress. So is Kerry now saying that the president didn't need and shouldn't have sought congressional approval for war against Saddam? That's why we have a War Powers Act. What we did was vote with one voice of the United States Congress for a process. This is pathetic. Everyone knew that the congressional vote allowed the president to wage war if necessary. Kerry's weaseling out of this obvious fact is in itself--finally!--an answer to the question. Kerry will not take responsibility for a vote whose meaning was crystal clear at the time. And remember, until the Congress asserted itself, this president wasn't intending to go to the United Nations. In fact, it was Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft and others and the Congress who got him to agree to a specific process. The process was to build a legitimate international coalition, go through the inspections process and go to war as a last resort. Actually, it was Colin Powell and Tony Blair who encouraged the president to go via the United Nations. And Bush never publicly said he was intending to go to war without such an effort. And what, pray, is the difference between an international coalition and a "legitimate" international coalition? Was the Clinton Kosovo war the product of an "illegitimate coalition" because it wasn't approved by the United Nations. Is NATO illegitimate? Is Kerry now saying that only U.N.-sponsored coalitions are henceforth kosher? What signal does this send to those many countries who did join the coalition? He didn't do it. My regret is not the vote. It was appropriate to stand up to Saddam Hussein. There was a right way to do it, a wrong way to do it. My regret is this president chose the wrong way, rushed to war, is now spending billions of American taxpayers' dollars that we didn't need to spend this way had he built a legitimate coalition, and has put our troops at greater risk. More flim-flam. Does Kerry believe that other governments would be funding the bulk of Iraqi reconstruction if they had given token consent to the invasion? He has no evidence for this. This was always going to be a fundamentally American commitment. Only the United States has the military means and economic power to bring about a transition to democracy in Iraq. Anyone who believes otherwise is engaged in a fantasy about the real world. cont. at. tnr.com

To: michael97123 who wrote (30166)	2/17/2004 4:56:34 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793914

Somehow I really doubt that Karl Rove is shaking in his shoes over John Kerry. A liberal Senator from Massachusetts, pompous, charm-free, with an undistinguished legislative record and a long history of trying to get on both sides of every controversial issue. Have you ever heard him speak? Bo-o-o-ring. Who really likes him (besides American Spirit)? Now the election is far from a done deal. Bush could blow it, or events could blow it for him. But I really doubt, for all the desperate desire of the Democratic base to give Bush the boot, that Kerry can win the election. This election is George Bush's to lose.