Now that he's decided to close the campaign as Howard-Dean-with-a-Silver-Star, John Kerry is claiming that the war he voted to authorize in Iraq is a "profound diversion" from the things that really matter -- Al-Qaida, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, even an alleged lack of firehouses in the United States. The implication is that if only we hadn't gotten involved in Iraq, the rest of the world would be in much better shape. This is a highly debatable proposition, and it is an area where President Bush should try to pin down his slippery adversary.
Part of what Kerry says is sheer demagoguery. He castigates Bush for spending $200 billion (actually $130 billion, but who's counting?) in Iraq and not spending it at home for schools, health care, firefighters and no doubt free treats for good little girls and boys. Yet in the next breath, Kerry attacks Bush for being profligate, period. Which is it? Is Bush spending too much or too little? It's hard to believe Kerry is serious in any case; this is merely pandering to leftist isolationism.
Kerry is on firmer ground when he suggests that Bush has allowed "the urgent nuclear dangers in North Korea and Iran ... to mount on his presidential watch." True, and if one advocated a get-tough policy with Pyongyang and Tehran, the fact that 130,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq might be an impediment. (Or they might help boost the pressure on next-door Iran.) But Kerry doesn't advocate such a policy. He wants to sign a generous deal that would pay these rogue states not to produce nukes. Appeasement hardly requires military muscle.
What of Kerry's claim that Bush was so focused on Iraq that he let Al-Qaida run wild? Actually, two-thirds of Al-Qaida's senior leadership has been caught or killed. And the United States is getting more cooperation in fighting terrorism now than before 9/11, even from states that aren't fans of the Iraq war. Look at the big roundups of Al-Qaida suspects recently in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. As French Arabist Gilles Kepel argues in a new book, the jihadists are losing their war to gain control of the Muslim world.
It's true that Osama bin Laden hasn't been caught, but it's far from clear that this is due to a lack of trying. NATO forces have been searching Bosnia for war crimes suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic since 1995 and still haven't found them. For that matter, Eric Rudolph, the prime suspect in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing, was arrested only last year -- and he was hiding on U.S. soil. Kerry is on weak ground when he suggests that Bush's focus on Iraq has worsened the situation in Afghanistan. This may have seemed plausible amid the gloom-and-doom reporting of a year or two ago, but recent news is largely positive.
Though Human Rights Watch last week warned of continuing violence and instability, this hasn't stopped millions of Afghans from registering to vote in the Oct. 9 elections. President Hamid Karzai has sidelined two noxious warlords, Ismail Khan and Muhammed Qassim Fahim. The Afghan army is growing in size and effectiveness. NATO troops are patrolling Kabul and expanding into the provinces. In an Asia Foundation poll, two-thirds of Afghans said the country was moving in the right direction.
All this progress may be occurring not despite our troubles in Iraq but because of them. If jihadists weren't attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, they would probably be throwing more energy into attacking them in Afghanistan.
Also, if the United States didn't have all those troops in Iraq, it would be tempted to send more than the present commitment of 18,000 soldiers to Afghanistan. A greater U.S. presence could help fuel a nationalist backlash and result in greater casualties, as has occurred in parts of Iraq. The Bush administration may have stumbled onto the best strategy for Afghanistan -- a low-key, long-term commitment that relies primarily on building indigenous security forces.
In a way, of course, all this is beside the point. Whether or not Iraq was central to the war on terrorism before the U.S.-led invasion -- a point on which reasonable people can differ -- there is no question that it is central today. British Prime Minister Tony Blair (a nonveteran with more political courage in his pinkie than Kerry has in his whole body) puts it well: "I can understand why people still have a powerful disagreement about the original decision to go to war, but whatever that disagreement, surely now it is absolutely clear we have to stay and see it through. Because the consequence of not doing so is that global terrorism will get a tremendous boost." Bush understands that. Does Kerry?
Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.
posted
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN OCT 03, 2004 14:05:38 ET XXXXX
DEBATE MYSTERY: DID KERRY HAVE CHEAT SHEET?
Section 5, pages 4-5 of the binding "Memorandum of Understanding" that was negotiated and agreed upon by both political campaigns states:
"No props, notes, charts, diagrams, or other writings or other tangible things may be brought into the debate by either candidate.... Each candidate must submit to the staff of the Commission prior to the debate all such paper and any pens or pencils with which a candidate may wish to take notes during the debate, and the staff or commission will place such paper, pens and pencils on the podium..."
So what did Dem presidential contender John Kerry take out of his jacket as he approached the stage [with his back to the auditorium's audience]?
Video replays of the Kerry maneuver played all weekend long on the internet.
[A tight zoom analysis of the Boston.Com feed shows Kerry pulling a mysterious item his jacket [14 seconds into video, after commerical]. Kerry appears to unfold some sort of paper seconds later, at his podium.]
A top Kerry campaign source explained to the DRUDGE REPORT late Sunday how Bush supporters were once again trying to distract.
"Kerry did not cheat," said the Kerry insider. "This is more lies from Republicans, who are hoping for a quick change of subject away from the president's performance, and the new polls."
When pressed on the fact that even brandishing a pen from his jacket would have violated debate rules, the Kerry staffer laughed, adding, "See you at the inauguration, Drudge".
Developing...
----------------------------------------------------------- Filed By Matt Drudge Reports are moved when circumstances warrant http://www.drudgereportArchives.com for updates (c)DRUDGE REPORT 2004 Not for reproduction without permission of the author
posted
Middle Class Said To Pay Higher Tax Rate Than Heinz Kerry And Kerry Mon Oct 11 2004 10:22:17 ET
Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, writes in the WALL STREET JOURNAL on Monday: "According to the Kerrys' own tax records, and they have not released all of them, the couple had a combined income of $6.8 million in income last year and paid $725,000 in income taxes. That means their effective tax rate was a whopping 12.8%.... "Under the current tax system the middle class pays far more than the Kerry tax rate. In fact, the average federal tax rate -- combined payroll and income tax -- for a middle-class family is closer to 20% or more. George W. and Laura Bush, who had an income one- tenth of the Kerrys', paid a tax rate of 30%. ...
"Here is the man who finds clever ways to reduce his own tax liability while voting for higher taxes on the middle class dozens of times in his Senate career. He even voted against the Bush tax cut that saves each middle-class family about $1,000." The Kerrys "have unwittingly made the case for what George W. Bush says he wants to do: radically simplify and flatten out the tax code. ... So before John Kerry is given the opportunity to raise taxes again on American workers, shouldn't he and Teresa at least pay their fair share?"
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
WOW - Kerry's campaign was a cluster fuck - read below.
NEWSWEEK ELECTION ISSUE: 'How He Did It' Thursday November 4, 2:37 pm ET
NEW YORK, Nov. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- When President Bush's poll numbers surged in April after a press conference where his performance was derided by the press and the chattering classes, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry was baffled, writes Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in an exclusive report in Newsweek's special election issue. "He said with a sigh to one top staffer, 'I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot.'" The November 15 issue "How He Did It" (on newsstands Thursday, November 4) includes an exclusive behind-the-scenes account of the entire presidential campaign reported by a separate Newsweek Special Project team that worked for more than a year on the extraordinary campaign. Highlights from the report:
The Clintonista "Coups." At several critical junctures Kerry's campaign (and the candidate himself), struggled to find sure footing. Following the missteps of August, Clinton veteran James Carville confronted Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, telling her she had to step aside and let newly arrived Joe Lockhart run the campaign. So worked up, Carville began to cry, imploring Cahill: "You've got to let him do it." Carville continued, "Nobody can gain power without someone losing power." Carville threatened to go on "Meet the Press" the next day "and tell the truth about how bad it is" if Cahill didn't give effective control to Lockhart.
The "Outlandish" McCain Offer. Kerry's courtship of Senator John McCain to be his running mate was longer-standing and more intense than previously reported. As far back as August 2003, Kerry had taken McCain to breakfast to sound him out to run on a unity ticket. McCain batted away the idea as not serious, but Kerry, after he wrapped up the nomination in March, went back after McCain a half-dozen more times. "To show just how sincere he was, he made an outlandish offer," Newsweek's Thomas reports. "If McCain said yes he would expand the role of vice president to include secretary of Defense and the overall control of foreign policy. McCain exclaimed, 'You're out of your mind. I don't even know if it's constitutional, and it certainly wouldn't sell.'" Kerry was thwarted and furious. "Why the f--- didn't he take it? After what the Bush people did to him...'"
"A Marathon Man." Kerry's intensity on the trail rarely, if ever, faded. Moments after delivering his victory speech after wrapping up his party's nomination on March 2, Kerry was back in his motorcade and on his cell phone. "Dad," asked his daughter Alexandra. "Will you please appreciate this moment for 10 seconds?" Newsweek reports, "He mumbled yes, yes, he was happy, it was good, and then went back to working the cell phone." It occurred to his daughter Vanessa that her father did not match the media's clichi of him being a fourth-quarter player, he was a marathon man. Writes Thomas, "Kerry liked to say that 'every day is extra' after Vietnam, but actually every day was like the day before, a relentless march toward his goal."
Kerry's drive to self-perfection was boundless-sometimes to a fault. In early spring he sought counsel from Washington speech coach Michael Sheehan. With aides he would sometimes say, "Tell me everything you think I'm doing wrong." When John Sasso arrived on the campaign in September he found a candidate who had turned himself into a pincushion. "Kerry had been inviting personal criticism from pretty much anyone who had an opinion...Kerry was drowning in negative energy from all around," Thomas writes. Sasso wanted it to stop. There was to be no more direct criticism of the candidate, period. And Teresa and the daughters were not exempt, Newsweek reports.
Additional exclusive news reported in Newsweek's Special Election Issue:
Clinton Advice Spurned. Looking for a way to pick up swing voters in the Red States, former President Bill Clinton, in a phone call with Kerry, urged the Senator to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, "I'm not going to ever do that."
Kerry Anger Over Swift Boat Ads. By August, the attack of the Swift Boat veterans was getting to Kerry. He called adviser Tad Devine, who was prepping to appear on "Meet The Press" the next day: "It's a pack of f---ing lies, what they're saying about me," he fairly shouted over the phone. Kerry blamed his advisers for his predicament. (Cahill and Shrum argued responding to the ads would only dignify them.) He had wanted to fight back; they had counseled caution. Even Kerry's ex-wife, Julia Thorne, was very upset about the ads, she told daughter Vanessa. She could remember how Kerry had suffered in Vietnam; she had seen the scars on his body, heard him cry out at night in his nightmares. She was so agitated about the unfairness of the Swift Boat assault that she told Vanessa she was ready to break her silence, to speak out and personally answer the Swift Boat charges. She changed her mind only when she was reassured that the campaign was about to start fighting back hard.
Managing Teresa. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, presented a host of behind-the-scenes drama for Kerry. Early on, the campaign staff regarded Teresa as something of a hypochondriac, and she canceled three trips in October at the last minute, usually for what was described to aides as a "nonspecific malady." Kerry's first campaign manager, James Jordan, had little patience for her strong opinions, sending emails trashing the candidate's wife...which inevitably reached his rivals within the campaign, including Bob Shrum (an old Teresa friend) and helped seal Jordan's eventual dismissal.
Later came Kerry campaign's post-convention "Sea to Shining Sea" tour: a 3,500-mile bus and train trek that was not a happy trip for Teresa. With each passing day she made less effort to hide her displeasure. Audiences were mystified when Teresa turned her back to them at daylight rallies and wore dark sunglasses and a hat at night (backstage, the candidate's wife complained of migraines and sore eyes). As they reached the climax of the tour, an hourlong "family vacation" hike in the Grand Canyon, the planned happy-family- vacation was disintegrating in plain view. Daughter Vanessa didn't enjoy being a prop, Teresa was complaining of migraines and telling her husband she couldn't walk anymore. The candidate tried to bravely soldier on, pulling his sullen wife and children to show them the magnificent condors flying overhead.
Edwards Campaigns for Veep. Hours after bowing out of the presidential nomination race on March 3, the senator from North Carolina convened a small circle of his closest advisers at his house on P Street in Georgetown. He wanted the veep nomination, Edwards told his aides, he wanted it badly, and from that moment was going to wage "a full-fledged campaign" to ensure that he got it.
Shades of Dukakis. In early August, when the Swift Boat story started to pick up steam on the talk shows, Susan Estrich, a California law professor, well-known liberal talking head and onetime campaign manager for Michael Dukakis, had called the Kerry campaign for marching orders. She had been booked on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" to talk about the Swift Boat ads. What are the talking points? Estrich asked the Kerry campaign. There are none, she was told. Estrich was startled. She had seen this bad movie before.
Newsweek's 2004 Special Election Issue marks the magazine's sixth consecutive installment of providing a behind-the-scenes account of the entire presidential campaign. The 50,000-word inside story was written by Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and edited by Special Projects Director Alexis Gelber. The project's correspondents are: Jonathan Darman (with Kerry), Kevin Peraino (with Bush) and Contributing Editors Eleanor Clift and Peter Goldman.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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In the same vein.. Last June/July there is a U.S. World and News report all about the Iowa Primary, and how the people running Deans campaing basically underestimated the effort they needed there, and the Kerry people really understood Iowa, and really beat Dean badly there because of power conflicts within the Dean campaing... his people basically lost it for him (aside from the yalp that was totally overblown..) It was interesting, it was very informative about the caucus system (f'd up)
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