Reply #77: Well, you gotta put it back in context

[0rganism]

You say either Kerry means "good guy" (in which case he sucks) or he doesn't (in which case he's dishonest). You neglected the middle ground where Kerry's idea of a "good guy" differs significantly from your own. So what was the lead-up and exact wording, according to the transcript?

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MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the man you’d like to unseat if you become the Democratic nominee, and that’s George Bush. You’d spoke to Vogue magazine in March, and said this. “Kerry is unguarded in his comments about the man whose job he is currently after. He says his colleagues are appalled at the president’s ‘lack of knowledge’... And...he says, ‘They have managed him the same way they managed Ronald Reagan. They send him out to the press for one event a day, they put him in a brown jacket and jeans and get him to move some hay or drive a truck, and all of a sudden he’s the Marlboro Man. I know this guy. He was two years behind me at Yale, and I knew him, and he’s still the same guy.’” What does that mean?

SEN. KERRY: I believe that President Bush is a very likable fellow, and I respect—I think he’s a good man who wants to do good things.

MR. RUSSERT: Does he lack knowledge, as you say?

SEN. KERRY: I disagree with the president’s approach to almost everything he’s doing—almost everything. And you look at America and the choices we face today, Tim. On the budget, he’s favoring the wealthy in America at the expense of the middle class. He has ignored the plight of job loss in America. He has gone backwards on the environment, backwards on cities and urban—look, we’ve given a tax cut to people while states are being forced to raise taxes and cut services. He’s gone backwards in the international community. He is not making us safer in the world. He has ignored the problems of North Korea to the point that they’re a crisis. We should be freezing right where we are with North Korea today. We should be dealing with Russia and the problem of loose nuclear materials more effectively. We should be leading the world on global warming.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, you said that you knew him, that he’s the same guy he was at Yale. What does that mean?

SEN. KERRY: I think, Tim, the important thing is, what is he doing as president. As president I don’t believe he’s offering the kind of leadership our country needs. That’s what this struggle is about. This is about the presidency of the United States and the direction of our country. And I believe President Bush is not making our country safer and stronger abroad, and I think he is ignoring the choices here at home that make a difference to the quality of our life. And, generationally, as a member of the same generation, someone who came from the same institution, I have a very different vision of where America ought to go. I want us to lead.

MR. RUSSERT: But are you appalled by his lack of knowledge?

SEN. KERRY: I am appalled by the lack of his agenda, by the lack of direction, by the lack of leadership, by the lack of willingness to show a vision that takes America to a better place, by his willingness to divide America, to use the politics of wedge, of driving between people, like the Michigan case, or calling things quotas that aren’t quotas, or beginning to—or appointing judges who are ideological, who want to take away the right of privacy, take away the right to choose, someone who wants to pack the court system of America, someone who doesn’t do the hard work of bringing Congress to the table, and helping to lead us to find the common ground. You know, John McCain and I found the common ground. This president doesn’t try.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/960385.asp

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If that isn't a prime example of "damning with faint praise", they must have rewritten the definition while I wasn't looking.