Originally posted by GrimisWe have proof Kerry lied.
Please direct my to proof(not left-wing conjecture) that Bush lied.
Not playing Devil's Advocate...
Bush's lack of proper follow up on REALLY bad intel led to the number's listed above.
Either way, it happened on his watch. HE screwed up. He either...
a) Failed to properly find the evidence or follow up on investigations of WMDs
or
b) Knew there wasn't any and lied to us.
Either a liar or incompetent president. Take your pick.
But Kerry's "lie" isn't all that different from good ole Ashcroft's "lie".
So, what the lesson of the day kids?
Politicians = Liars (it's part of the job)
Now ask yourself, "How does this lie hurt me or my country? Directly or indirectly?" (I'm sure plenty of people will be able to come up with "something" that shows some 2nd,3rd or 4th tier way it effects "something")
I also like to ask, "How many people are dead because of this lie?"
But that's just me.
edit - added in (I'm sure plenty...)
(edited by ThreepMe on 26.4.04 0757) "Are you kidding me? A soda with MY name on it? Now more than ever, SODAS RULE!" - Edge to Christian Smackdown Sept 7th 2000
I really don't see this as that monumental (incessant press notwithstanding). I'm sure we all could be called on contradictory statements over the course of our lives, especially if we were videotaped. Kerry possibly lied. Bush possibly either lied or withheld truth about WOMD or Intel leading to the war (six in one, 1/2 dozen in the other).
I guess if everyone ALWAYS told the truth, we could feel differently. I understand the idea of wanting our leaders to be perfect role models, but I guess the cynic in me says that they're just screwed up humans like the rest of us. No more, no less.
"It is YOU--the quality of your minds, the integrity of your souls, and the determination of your wills--that will decide your future and shape your lives."
Benjamin E. Mays, Morehouse College President, 1940-1967
We can judge "W" based on 3+ years as President. His past was dug up in 2000. Kerry's past is going to come up since he is the new kid on the block. They can go over Kerry's record as a pol but it is nowhere near what a sitting President has.
Kerry has lied. Bush has lied. Anyone schocked is very naive. But to accuse Bush of lying on WMD's is premature because we don't know and may never. There is a difference between a bad decision and a lie. It's getting bad when a person of my political bent stands up for "W".
Kerry is really mishandling this medal thing. Whether or not it was his medals, the symbolism of the event is exactly the same. So he should just say either that it WAS his medals, and he would do it again. Or he should just say that it really doesn't matter if it was his medals or not, because the message is the same, and he stands behind that message. The fact that Kerry gets so defensive about this is what is making this an issue. (or if he decided he did the wrong thing, he should say that he regrets the event. But he needs to just take a stance one way or the other, and not worry about whether or not it was his medals, because it really doesn't matter).
The Bored are already here. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. And no... we won't kill dolphins. But koalas are fair game.
Originally posted by rockdotcom_2.0Palp, by your Bio you are 22 years old. I can GUARANTEE you 35 years from now you will feel differently about a great many things than you do today.
The absolute arrogance of some Republicans to me is horrifying, and hilarious at the same time.>
But not NEARLY as arrogant as telling someone their opinion is garbage just because he is 22 years old. No, just hilarious. And...
Originally posted by rockdotcom_2.0 Fucking ridiculous.
Originally posted by rockdotcom_2.0Palp, by your Bio you are 22 years old. I can GUARANTEE you 35 years from now you will feel differently about a great many things than you do today.
The absolute arrogance of some Republicans to me is horrifying, and hilarious at the same time.>
But not NEARLY as arrogant as telling someone their opinion is garbage just because he is 22 years old. No, just hilarious.
Well Ed I think you totally missed my point in this. I didnt say his opinion was garbage. I was saying that holding someone to an opinion they had 35 years ago is somewhat pointless because people change.
But dont let that stop you from spinning it ok?
And Frosty, Bush dont want to talk about the real issues because at the moment Bush doesnt look good on any real issues.
Originally posted by rockdotcom_2.0And Frosty, Bush dont want to talk about the real issues because at the moment Bush doesnt look good on any real issues.
If Bush made good and followed through on his State of the Union address promise and STRIPPED Barry Bonds of last year's MVP, he could pretty much bank on my vote.
Originally posted by rockdotcom_2.0at the moment Bush doesnt look good on any real issues.
Kerry is pretty much on the wrong side of public opinion on two of the most important issues: taxes and the war. This is why Kerry isn't talking about issues...
The election is still six months away. But Kerry's reputation has been built over 40 years. And the voters seem to be sniffing it out.- David S. Broder
But that's because people spin taxes as this unnecessary evil, when they are a required part of gov't income. I mean, when we're wasting billions of dollars on a needless "war" and we are running out of money and amassing a sizable deficit (increased by us paying for other countries' support at times), one of the logical ways to increase revenue to me seems to do some tax tweaking.
Mind you, I'm stauchly middle class, so the tax burden is usually the same for me no matter who's wearing the red ties, but I'd feel a lot better if we weren't throwing money (and lives) into the sand by the billions.
If more people watched BBC and other countries' coverage of this war (and saw some of the more gruesome stuff that our media outlets won't include in their coverage) opinions just might change. MOHO, of course.
"It is YOU--the quality of your minds, the integrity of your souls, and the determination of your wills--that will decide your future and shape your lives."
Benjamin E. Mays, Morehouse College President, 1940-1967
Man, does anyone really care what he did with the medals? I sure as hell don't, you know why, its his medals, he earned them, he can do what he wants with them. And don't give me this crap about him not earning the one purple heart out of three. I believe every vet should get a purple heart just for going to war espically a total disaster that was Vietnam. It amazes me the pro-military news medias are playing this up at the same time, Bush was hiding in Texas getting hammered and snorting coke. So, if we really want to dig in the past about where our candidates whereabouts during Vietnam, I'd rather take a solider who saved lives and became disinfranchised then a rich kid who was having a good time with drugs and girls.
If every veteran received a medal, then what is the purpose of even having said medal?
Randy Orton: I say a lot of things, Jim Bob. Some of them make sense aaaaaand some of them don’t. It’s really a crapshoot with Randy Orton. I think that makes interviews exciting.
With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party's got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can't exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.
With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner.
What to do? Look for the Dem biggies, whoever they are these days, to sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike. Then they can return to business as usual— resurrecting John Edwards, who is still hanging around, or staging an open convention in Boston, or both.
If things proceed as they are, the dim-bulb Dem leaders are going to be very sorry they screwed Howard Dean
The election is still six months away. But Kerry's reputation has been built over 40 years. And the voters seem to be sniffing it out.- David S. Broder
Well, Nuclear Winter, to be honest, I don't know. I think that every person that decides to serve their country and put their life on the line should be given something. Lord knows they get paid very little compared to the hours, days and years they put in. I would like to see some recognitation givn to those people and perhaps if you go to war, you should get a medal, hell I think you should get a ton of medals.
CRZ is right, what is the issue here? Is America really going to carry about Kerry's medals or are they going to care about jobs, the war and other real issues. The Republicans are really digging themselves a hole if they keep attacking Kerry on 'Nam, because the Democrates can easily bring up Bush's lack of service at the time. I just think this is another Republican attack that will blow up in their face, see Bush's September 11th ad.
Kerry should be killing Bush right now, but for some reason is floundering. He needs a spark, he should name his Vice President sometime in the next few weeks. I hope for his sake its either Edwards or the greatest political swerve ever, McCain. He needs southern votes and both can deliever. The Democrates need to focus on their issues and get their message across or they'll start looking like their only plan is to attack Bush. The smear campaign can go on for only so long, eventually you have to have a clear message. Kerry needs to define his objectives better and then the rest of the party can attack Bush.
Originally posted by A FanKerry needs to define his objectives better and then the rest of the party can attack Bush.
That is Kerry's problem at this point. He stands for nothing other than getting himself elected President. He has nothing going that a lot of people are picking a candidate because that caniddate is not George Bush. That's it.
The election is still six months away. But Kerry's reputation has been built over 40 years. And the voters seem to be sniffing it out.- David S. Broder
Originally posted by A FanKerry needs to define his objectives better and then the rest of the party can attack Bush.
That is Kerry's problem at this point. He stands for nothing other than getting himself elected President. He has nothing going that a lot of people are picking a candidate because that caniddate is not George Bush. That's it.
And Bush's only seems to stand for re-elect me as president just because change is bad.
Originally posted by A FanKerry needs to define his objectives better and then the rest of the party can attack Bush.
That is Kerry's problem at this point. He stands for nothing other than getting himself elected President. He has nothing going that a lot of people are picking a candidate because that caniddate is not George Bush. That's it.
And Bush's only seems to stand for re-elect me as president just because change is bad.
No. It's "Elect me because I am all that stands between you and the terrorists."
And then there is the issuse of why people are talkign about Kerry's war record anyway.... His Vietnam record was supposed to be his greatest asset, but instead it has turned into a political liability. Why did that happen? Here's our explanation:
He talked about Vietnam entirely too much. We noticed this way back in December 2002, when in an interview with Tim Russert he even managed to work Vietnam into an answer about capital punishment. The incessant repetition makes him seem either opportunistic (trying to exploit his service to further his political ambitions) or obsessive (unable to view Vietnam from a healthy distance even after more than three decades). Either interpretation raises questions about his ability to lead the country effectively today.
The adversarial press being what it is, Kerry's single-minded emphasis on his Vietnam experience also invites scrutiny of such matters as the questionable circumstances surrounding his first purple heart--blemishes on an otherwise honorable record.
He became an antiwar activist. Sure, lots of Americans ended up opposing the Vietnam War, but Kerry did so by becoming the respectable face of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group whose stock in trade was accusations that American servicemen had committed war crimes. These claims came in the form of "confessions" from men, some of whom turned out not even to be veterans--and Kerry repeated them in sworn testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971.
Kerry's involvement with VVAW has drawn attention to the group's most unsavory activities, such as a discussion of an assassination plot against pro-war senators that took place at a November 1971 meeting. Kerry played no part in that plot and might not even have attended the meeting, but inevitably a politician is judged by the company he keeps. By signing up with VVAW way back when, Kerry made it harder today to present himself as a war hero. Whereas veterans might ordinarily identify with one of their own, many are furious over what they see as his betrayal back in 1971.
He attacked his opponents for not serving. This didn't start with his response to Medalgate, in which for the first time he raised the tired old question of President Bush's National Guard attendance record. Here he is in Pittsburgh April 19: "I'm tired of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and a bunch of people who went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve when they had the chance. I'm not going to listen to them talk to me about patriotism." Such partisan demagoguery might have played well in the primaries, but it's unlikely to win over many wavering voters in the fall.
Is there anything Kerry can do to get himself out of this mess? Maybe. His war record ought to count to his credit, but he'd be better off talking much less about his own heroism in Vietnam and letting others make the case instead. Probably the best moment in his entire campaign came in Iowa, when Lt. James Rassmann thanked him for saving his life.
(edited by Grimis on 28.4.04 1626)
The election is still six months away. But Kerry's reputation has been built over 40 years. And the voters seem to be sniffing it out.- David S. Broder