posted on March 19, 2004 03:35:51 PM new
You can't have it both ways, John boy. Either you did or your didn't.
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Bush Uses Kerry's Words in Campaign Ad
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 18, 2004
Filed at 6:00 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- John Kerry's words are being used against him in President Bush's new television ad, which accuses the presumptive Democratic nominee of waffling on military issues.
Airing nationally on cable TV, the commercial borrows heavily from an ad Bush is airing in West Virginia this week criticizing Kerry for voting against an $87 billion aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan last year.
Campaigning in West Virginia Tuesday, Kerry responded to the ad, saying he voted against the $87 billion bill because he did not support the president's military and reconstruction plans. The Democrat explained that he supported a failed amendment that would have paid for the Iraq and Afghanistan programs by repealing Bush's tax cuts.
``I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it,'' Kerry said.
Bush's campaign tacked that quote to the end of the West Virginia ad, which was edited slightly to make room for Kerry's have-it-both-ways response. The new ad was released Thursday.
Kerry's campaign criticized Bush and ``his attack-dog vice president'' for assailing Kerry as ``America continues to falter.'' Privately, Kerry's advisers acknowledged that the response was a mistake that played into Bush's efforts to cast his rival as a politician who takes both sides of every issue. The development also underscored how difficult it will be for Kerry to defend the thousands of votes he has cast as a four-term Massachusetts senator.
``Slash-and-burn politics aren't going to fix the problems in Iraq, employ a single American or bring health care to a single family,'' said Stephanie Cutter, Kerry's spokeswoman. ``Mission still not accomplished.''
Both versions of the ad open with Bush saying he approved the message, a requirement under the law. They accuse Kerry of voting against body armor and higher pay for U.S. troops as well as improved health care for reservists, all provisions in the $87 billion bill.
The new ad includes the announcer saying, ``What does Kerry say now?'' and then fades to Kerry's quote. It ends, like the West Virginia ad, with the announcer accusing Kerry of being ``wrong on defense.''
It is the latest example of what the Bush campaign promises will be a nimble advertising campaign that targets issues and voters better than the Republican did in the 2000 race against Al Gore.
Bush is spending about $4.5 million through May on cable TV and about $6 million a week on broadcast TV in 18 states to try to cast Kerry as a flip-flopping, soft-on-terrorism politician. After a brief hiatus, Bush also is running his 60-second positive ad that depicts him as a leader on the economy and terrorism.
Kerry and his allies are competing ad for ad against Bush in many key markets, accusing Bush of ruining the economy and distorting Kerry's record.
The White House believes the next two months may be more important than the last 60 days of the campaign because they have a chance to define Kerry before Americans get to know him.
The Democrats ran on 'Honesty' and I told 'em at the time they would never get anywhere. It was too radical for politics. The Republicans ran on 'Common Sense' and the returns showed that there were 8 million more people in the United States who had 'Common Sense' enough not to believe that there was 'Honesty' in politics." --Will Rogers
posted on March 19, 2004 03:44:27 PM newKerry's advisers acknowledged that the response was a mistake that played into Bush's efforts to cast his rival as a politician who takes both sides of every issue.
As many of kerry's statements do. Probably why President Bush said he won't debate with him until he's through debating with himself. LOL LOL [That was so good & true].
And kerry's enjoying R & R right now. Trying to relax from the stressful past few months. On vacation he's now cussing at and saying that the Secret Service people assigned to 'protect' him are intentionally causing him to fall on the ski slopes.
posted on March 19, 2004 06:02:24 PM new
More flim flam by Bush & the Republican party.
The truth is, Kerry did vote for a resolution to provide funds for the Iraq campaign, on October 2, 2003.
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 1796 to S. 1689 (Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan Security and Reconstruction Act, 2004 )
Statement of Purpose: To provide funds for the security and stabilization of Iraq by suspending a portion of the reductions in the highest income tax rate for individual taxpayers.
When Bush decided that he'd rather have tax cuts for the wealthy, Kerry voted against Bush's version, which would plunge us into more deficit spending.
It's amazing how these guys can twist things around...
******
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on March 19, 2004 06:42:17 PM new
kerry was ONE of only 11 who voted against the bill as passed. The other bill didn't pass.....along with most of the bills kerry's record shows he's voted for. He's always too far left.
posted on March 19, 2004 07:02:14 PM new
thank you for that clarification on the Kerry vote, bunni...the twisting of it is so typical of the way the right will wage this campaign. Out of context quotes used to make a perfect lie out of the truth...
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posted on March 19, 2004 07:40:52 PM new
taken from NRO
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March 17, 2004, 1:10 p.m.
[b]Where the Dem Was
John Kerry chose not to support our troops[/b].
By Barbara Comstock
"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." — John Kerry, March 16, 2004
Perhaps this is one of John Kerry's "nuanced" positions. Perhaps it sounds better in the original French.
However, the English translation of the above is, "It depends upon what the meaning of 'voted for' is."
In October 2003, when the vote to fund our troops came up in the Senate, John Kerry's presidential fortunes were sinking. He started out his run for president as the Democratic frontrunner, but he was trailing third in fundraising to Howard Dean and John Edwards. Dean had raised $14 million to Kerry's measly $4 million in the most recent quarter. Dean was surging in New Hampshire with a double-digit lead over Kerry. Kerry's campaign staff was imploding in what would end up being an exodus of key top staff just a few weeks later, in early November.
As the war-funding vote loomed, the antiwar Deaniacs were driving the campaign dynamics. Kerry was on the defensive for his vote in support of the war. This vote was extremely unpopular with the New Hampshire Democratic primary voters, who opposed it by a margin of 3 to 2.
The prospects of fellow candidates, Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, were also suffering due to their support of the president.
But for those who voted for the war on principle, the facts were simple. The Iraq/Afghanistan Supplemental Funding bill provided approximately $65.6 billion for military operations and maintenance and $1.3 billion for veterans' medical care. The bill provided $10.3 billion as a grant to rebuild Iraq, including $5.1 billion for security and $5.2 billion for reconstruction costs. The bill also provided extra money for body armor for soldiers.
Even the Washington Post editorialized in favor of the bill.
So how did the Democratic presidential candidates vote? Lieberman and Gephardt supported the troops along with liberal-Democratic colleagues such as Tom Daschle, Dianne Feinstein, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and even Hillary Clinton. In the Senate, the vote was 87 to 12. Only eleven Democrats and independent Senator Jim Jeffords voted against the $87 billion.
So, what did Senator Kerry do? He did what he has done for two decades in his Senate career: He stuck his finger in the wind. Then he voted in the way he thought would best help his chance for the Democratic nomination.
Senator Lieberman didn't buy Kerry's explanation that he really "voted for" the troops. He scolded Kerry for his primary-voter-poll-driven vote: "If everyone had voted the way [Massachusetts Sen.] John Kerry did, the money would not have been there to support our troops..."
On October 15, 2003, a Washington Post editorial called Senator Kerry's position an "irresponsible course" and said it was "imperative that this spending should be approved." Dick Gephardt called the vote for the $87 billion "the only responsible course of action," and added, "We've got to send the right signal to our troops in the field, and we've got to send the right signal to people in Iraq."
John Kerry was more interested in sending the "right signal" to the extremists in his party, whom he was trying to peel away from the soon-to-be unhinged Howard Dean. Or perhaps he was trying to send the "right signal" to all of those "foreign leaders" (or "more leaders" around the world who, he claims, want to see him as president. But what John Kerry really did with that vote was to send the "right signal" to the American people that he is not prepared for the tough and principled decisions that a commander-in-chief must make when a nation is at war.
— Barbara Comstock is a former Department of Justice spokeswoman
posted on March 19, 2004 07:59:41 PM new
You know that there was no Kerry plan to raise taxes for families making less than 200,000. and furthermore, there was no effort to use this bill as leverage to raise taxes on the part of Kerry or any other senator.
Linda, your credibility will sink faster that Bush's if you continue to post such false information.
Kennedy's explanation
Until the Administration genuinely changes course, I cannot in good conscience vote to fund a failed policy that endangers our troops in the field and our strategic objectives in the world instead of protecting them. The greatest mistake we can make in Congress as the people's elected representatives is to support and finance a go-it-alone, do-it-because-I-say-so policy that leaves young Americans increasingly at risk in Iraq.
So when the roll is called on this $87 billion legislation, which provides no effective conditions for genuine international participation and a clear change in policy in Iraq, I intend to vote no. A no vote is not a vote against supporting our troops. It is a vote to send the Administration back to the drawing board. It is a vote for a new policy – a policy worthy of the sacrifice our soldiers are making, a policy that restores America as a respected member of the family of nations, a policy that will make it easier, not far more difficult, to win the war against terrorism.
Kerry was operating under the same principles. Your allegation that soldiers would have been denied support is just more right wing sleaze.
posted on March 19, 2004 08:09:34 PM new
That's true, Helen, but rather than have the rich pay equitable taxes Linda prefers a president who spends money he doesn't have, sending us into an ever increasing debt.
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and - and in short you are for ever floored." --Mr. Micawber, in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield
******
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on March 19, 2004 08:12:35 PM newYou know that there was no Kerry plan to raise taxes for families making less than 200,000. and furthermore, there was no effort to use this bill as leverage to raise taxes on the part of Kerry or any other senator
Want to point out to me where I said what you've just stated. I didn't.
posted on March 19, 2004 08:16:36 PM new
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That's true, Helen, but rather than have the rich pay equitable taxes.
The rich do pay equitable taxes, imo. And the term 'rich' to me is not a couple nor a small business with an income of $200,000. or over as defined by some here.
posted on March 19, 2004 09:01:08 PM new
Linda, you said, It's a little boy attitude....you don't vote on my bill to raise taxes then I won't vote on your bill to give the soldiers what they need.
I replied,...there was no effort to use this bill as leverage to raise taxes on the part of Kerry or any other senator
posted on March 19, 2004 09:24:45 PM new
helen - I don't have a clue what you are talking about. Do you?
The $87b bill that passed had an amendment that didn't pass. kerry had tried to attach this amendment so that funding for our soldiers needs would come from eliminating the Bush tax cut to those making $200,000. or more. That's an increase in taxes to those who received it.
around the world who, he claims, want to see him as president. But what John Kerry really did with that vote was to send the "right signal" to the American people that he is not prepared for the tough and principled decisions that a commander-in-chief must make when a nation is at war.