NEWSWEEK: Kerry Intends to Repeat and Refine Critique of Iraq

[Nicholas_J]

NEWSWEEK: Kerry Intends to Repeat and Refine Critique of Iraq Through Rest of Campaign, Spending Closing Week of Election on Bush's War
Sunday September 19, 11:14 am ET
Aides Say Kerry Was Furious Over GOP Attacks Against His Character


NEW YORK, Sept. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- With a new team of advisers, Democratic Presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry was preparing to accuse the president of failing to tell the truth about "the mess in Iraq" -- part of an aggressive fall strategy to challenge George W. Bush on the war. But first, he wanted the advice of former four-star general Wesley Clark. Newsweek has learned that Kerry now intends to repeat and refine his critique of Iraq through the rest of the campaign-spending the closing week of the election on President George W. Bush's war.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040919/NYSU002

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040919/nysu016_1.html

[featherman]

1. Joe Klein talked about this on Chris Matthews show (NBC Sunday version)

not MSNBC "GOP Softball". It was disgustingly anti-Kerry ("inarticulate message, inept campaign, waffler, flip flop" etc) but the panel of (name? Blond and English), Joe Klein, Gloria Borger, Andrew Sullivan conveyed some interesting stuff that may signal a shift in pro-Bush bias. The main theme I got out of ALL of them is that the war is a total mess and has them VERY SCARED and that Kerry needs to start attacking Bush on it. They seemed truly concerned that Bush DOESN'T SEEM TO KNOW how bad things are going in Iraq. Interesting.

[featherman]

3. At one point Matthews was like

"Well he must get these briefings...inside info that we don't know...I mean he's a smart guy... he must read these briefings and know..."

No, Chris. Are you getting it yet? Your wonderful "regular guy" Prez DOES NOT read the briefings. He let's someone else do it and TELL him how to think. And NO he doesn't know or doesn't understand...

[Guaranteed]

2. Whatever he says...he needs to end it

with what Richard Clarke said (see below).

Bush's recklessness has made our country less safe.

[gcomeau]

4. Perfect.

The long expected Kerry home-stretch offensive appears to have finally arrived.

Now he just has to get absolutely prepared to completely annihilate Bush on this in the debates. Bush is going to have a million and one cute little patriotic sounding one-liners on the issue all ready to go and Kerry has to get it through to people that there's NOTHING of any substance whatsoever behind any of them.

-Grant (And PLEASE would he pull out BCCI already!)

[alcuno]

5. I hope that Kerry helps the American people get past the difficulty

they have in admitting to no confidence in their government. I hope that he says that he knows that Americans want to believe their government is doing the right thing, but that it's okay to stand up when your government is wrong and toss them out.

And it's not just *. It's the entire administration.