Old Kerry Quotes Unearthed

[FishForLunch]

By Matthew Reid
"Where's the backbone of France?"

No, that's not the name of the new Toby Keith CD. It's not some ill-timed remark from President Bush or even the title of a new book from Ann Coulter. That is but one of the provocative questions asked by Sen. John Kerry on CNN's Crossfire back in November of 1997.

That comment, and others cited below, came during Kerry's vigorous defense against charges that the Clinton administration was sparring with member nations of the UN Security Council, including France and Russia. We now know that France was illegally trading with Saddam during those years, which explains their behaviour, but what about Mr. Kerry?

It does appear that his position on war vacillates depending on the political benefit to him - and the party affiliation of the president initiating the action. Gulf War 1, Republican president George Bush 1, Kerry votes no - even though Saddam had invaded another country! (And now he talks like he supported it all along.)

1997-1998, Clinton wants to use military force, no problem, he's a Democrat. And while Kerry did vote to authorize the recent War in Iraq, he now claims he wasn't really voting to use force, just to threaten it.

On the campaign trail, Kerry blames the President for equipment shortages our troops are dealing with, relating stories of family members buying body armor on the Internet. Yet it was John Kerry, who inexplicably voted against the 87 Billion Dollar appropriations bill which included funding for that very same equipment.

Then again, Mr. Kerry has never let what he said yesterday interfere with what he needs to say today.

Take Kerry's response to the well-orchestrated Democrat charge that Bush was AWOL. He tried to appear above the fray, saying something like, well, it was a difficult issue, I understand that, "some people wanted to serve, others didn't."

That choice of words is curious because, while Kerry did serve, it was not his first choice. A February, 1970 Harvard Crimson article says, "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

Some people chose to go to Vietnam, others would have rather gone to France.

And while Kerry and the Democrat Smear Machine forced the President to release all of his Vietnam era records, John Kerry refuses to release his medical records.

Kerry was in Vietnam for 4 months during which he was awarded 3 Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in battle. Mr. Kerry is the only obstacle to the release of those records, but for some reason he doesn't want the public to see them.

Of course, he probably doesn't want anybody to see this either, but here's more from that Crossfire transcript, Kerry, defending the Clinton administration from charges of failed leadership said, "On the contrary. The administration is leading - I think the United States has always reserved the right and will reserve the right to act in its best interests."

Wait a second. John Kerry equating presidential leadership with going it alone? This doesn't sound like John F. Kerry circa 2004 does it? Then again, Kerry's never been one to let his position on an issue stop him from taking a completely different position on the very same issue.

Kerry continued, "And clearly it is not just our best interests, it is in the best interests of the world to make it clear to Saddam Hussein that he's not going to get away with a breach of the '91 agreement that he's got to live up to, which is: allowing us to know that he has dismantled his weapons."

More from Senator Kerry, the unilateralist hawk, "Clearly the allies may not like it, and I think that's our great concern - where's the backbone of Russia, where's the backbone of France, where are they in expressing their condemnation of such clearly illegal activity: they're now climbing into a box and they will have enormous difficulty not following up on this if there is not compliance."

I hope there's room for Mr. Kerry in that box. After all, he has made 'restoring our standing in the world' a prominent campaign pledge. He regularly lambastes the president for his 'isolating us from the rest of the world'. Funny, Kerry loved when Clinton did it.

But that's been Senator Kerry's m-o whenever his previous convictions became inconvenient - switch tack and don't look back. Maybe the more appropriate question would be, "Where's the backbone of Kerry?"

SOURCES:


1. CNN Crossfire / November 12, 1997; Wednesday, 7:30 pm Eastern Time (Lexis-Nexis Transcript #97111200V20)

2. The Harvard Crimson quote is available online here: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=352185

[FishForLunch]

IT'S AN ODD campaign gimmick, but Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., often tells voters that he was "misled" and that's why he voted for an October 2002 resolution authorizing military force against Iraq.

Kerry says he believed the resolution tied President Bush to promises to build an international coalition, to work with the United Nations and only go to war as a last resort. A disappointed Kerry now says Bush failed in all three venues.

Kerry's story only works if you don't know that the resolution didn't bind Bush as Kerry said.

A month before Kerry's "yes'' vote, Bush went to the United Nations and said the following: "Saddam Hussein has defied the United Nations 16 times. Not once, not twice -- 16 times he has defied the U. N. The U.N. has told him after the (Persian) Gulf War what to do, what the world expected, and 16 times he's defied it. And enough is enough. The U.N. will either be able to function as a peacekeeping body as we head into the 21st century, or it will be irrelevant. And that's what we're about to find out.''

When Kerry met with The Chronicle Editorial Board on Friday, I had the chance to ask the senator how he could have expected Bush to behave differently in light of what Bush had said.

Kerry's answer reminds me of the angry customer in the Federal Express ad, who, clad only in a towel and a loofah mitt, calls a company to complain that FedEx delivered his package as scheduled, which he should not have expected, and by the way it inconveniently interrupted a "complicated exfoliation."

Kerry's answer was that Washington insiders believed that Bush didn't mean what he said. "I think that you had a hard-line group (then Pentagon adviser) Richard Perle, (Deputy Defense Secretary) Paul Wolfowitz and probably (Vice President Dick) Cheney. But when Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker (former advisers to the first President Bush) weighed in, very publicly in op-eds in the New York Times and the (Washington) Post, the chatter around Washington and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell in particular, who was very much of a different school of thought, was really that the president hadn't made up his mind. He was looking for an out. That's what a lot of people thought."

What about what Bush said to the U.N.? That was "rhetorical," Kerry answered. And "a whole bunch of very smart legitimate people" not running for president thought as he did. "So most people, actually on the inside, really felt that (Bush) himself was looking for the way out to sort of satisfy Cheney, satisfy Wolfowitz, but not get stuck." Kerry continued, "The fact that he jumped and went the other way, I think, shocked them and shocked us."

So Kerry was "misled" because he believed that Bush didn't mean what Bush said.

Talk about your dirty tricks . . .

Kerry also downplayed the importance of his Iraq vote when he told The Chronicle, "Moreover, we didn't give (Bush) any authority he didn't have. (President) Clinton went to Kosovo without Congress. Clinton went to Haiti without Congress."

And: "What we thought we were doing was getting him (Bush) to a place where it would be harder to go to war."

The scariest part is that Kerry looked as if he believed what he said. He had noted that all of his fears of where Bush might err turned out to be right. At the same time, Kerry asserted that his vote for military force made it "harder" for Bush to go to war.

There are a few ways to interpret Kerry's statement.

One is to believe the Kerry spin that the Vietnam War vet is a reluctant warrior, who only sends other mens' sons off to war under the most dire circumstances, and Kerry somehow believed that a Senate vote authorizing force would make it harder for Bush to send U.S. troops to Iraq.

Or you can believe Kerry is a reluctant warrior who voted for war, even if he opposed it, because he was running for president, and the war polled well.

Or you can believe that Kerry strongly believed in the war, but now poses as a reluctant warrior because he is running for president as a Democrat.

Or you can believe that you shouldn't believe a politician who complains he was misled because another politician had the cheek to mean what he said.

[EricaLubarsky]

IT'S AN ODD campaign gimmick, but Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., often tells voters that he was "misled" and that's why he voted for an October 2002 resolution authorizing military force against Iraq.

Well thats fine with me, but he needs to lay off the critiques of Bush. He can't have it both ways really. I'll still vote against Bush, but Kerry has some interesting quirks like that.

[Drbio]

A vote for Kerry is a vote for Osama.

[Mavdog]

That choice of words is curious because, while Kerry did serve, it was not his first choice. A February, 1970 Harvard Crimson article says, "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

Some people chose to go to Vietnam, others would have rather gone to France.

uh huh, now we should ask anybody who faught valiantly for their country if they would "have rather" not faught, and if the answer is "Yes" we should ridicule their courage, their laying their life on the line in service to their country, and hold that courageous act, an act that earned them commendations such as the Purple Heart, up for apparent ridicule.

Pretty crass and low class IMHO.

[MavKikiNYC]

Hmm.....


Whatever happened to Kerry's Purple Heart anyway? Was that one of the medals he threw away in protest of the war? If he didn't respect what those military honors represented and suggested about him, why should voters 30 years later?

[dude1394]

Originally posted by: Drbio
A vote for Kerry is a vote for Osama.

I LOVE that... Anyone know if there is a poster or bumper-sticker of that somewhere?

[dude1394]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC
Hmm.....


Whatever happened to Kerry's Purple Heart anyway? Was that one of the medals he threw away in protest of the war? If he didn't respect what those military honors represented and suggested about him, why should voters 30 years later?

Well he still has it. He threw someone else's away and claimed it was his. I guess he was trying to impress Hanoi Jane.

[dude1394]

When Kerry met with The Chronicle Editorial Board on Friday, I had the chance to ask the senator how he could have expected Bush to behave differently in light of what Bush had said.

Kerry's answer reminds me of the angry customer in the Federal Express ad, who, clad only in a towel and a loofah mitt, calls a company to complain that FedEx delivered his package as scheduled, which he should not have expected, and by the way it inconveniently interrupted a "complicated exfoliation."

Kerry's answer was that Washington insiders believed that Bush didn't mean what he said. "I think that you had a hard-line group (then Pentagon adviser) Richard Perle, (Deputy Defense Secretary) Paul Wolfowitz and probably (Vice President Dick) Cheney. But when Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker (former advisers to the first President Bush) weighed in, very publicly in op-eds in the New York Times and the (Washington) Post, the chatter around Washington and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell in particular, who was very much of a different school of thought, was really that the president hadn't made up his mind. He was looking for an out. That's what a lot of people thought."

What about what Bush said to the U.N.? That was "rhetorical," Kerry answered. And "a whole bunch of very smart legitimate people" not running for president thought as he did. "So most people, actually on the inside, really felt that (Bush) himself was looking for the way out to sort of satisfy Cheney, satisfy Wolfowitz, but not get stuck." Kerry continued, "The fact that he jumped and went the other way, I think, shocked them and shocked us."

So Kerry was "misled" because he believed that Bush didn't mean what Bush said.

Only John Kerry and Sadaam Hussein didn't believe that Bush didn't mean what he said. Osama sure gets it. Khaddafi sure gets it. Arafat sure gets it. Hell even the french have gotten it by now.

What is it about John Kerry and dictators that they don't believe what bush said. Only thing I can figure is that they all have delusions of grandeur.

[Max Power]

dude1394 is on a roll and DESTROYING reeds in every thread.

Pretty funny stuff.