Reply #128: Funny how RiF quotes Russert's question, but not Kerry's answer.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

SEN. KERRY: I was upset, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: ...and delighted by Newt Gingrich?
SEN. KERRY: No, I was upset at what had happened in 1994. And if you recall, many of us were pressing for campaign finance reform. We wanted to achieve campaign finance reform while we had both houses and the presidency. I, in fact, visited with President Clinton at the time with Bill Bradley and Senator Joe Biden. That agenda we didn’t get. On health care, I did not sign on to President Clinton’s plan. I had a different approach. I thought we should have done something less complicated. We had a compromise which Bill Bradley, Senator Chafee, Senator Dole, a group were working on. Now, you know, it didn’t work either. Sometimes in politics and in life you take a different course from what’s expected of you. That’s leadership. I expressed a point of view of frustration and anger at the time. President Clinton, amazingly, turned around, did a number of extraordinary things, you know, came back from the 1994—and, you know, if you look at what Newt Gingrich said in his speech and then look at what he did, they were two different things. I was reacting to where, you know, there was a great deal of frustration in Washington. I do believe since then I stood up and fought almost everything Newt Gingrich did because he proved that rhetoric and actions are two different things.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/960385.asp

Contrast this with Dean response when confronted with his past statements:

STEPHANOPOULOS: (Gephardt) also says that in 1995, you specifically supported the 270 billion dollars or so in tax cuts that were called for by Newt Gingrich --

DEAN: I think that's very unlikely.

Ready to deny.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here's the document…

Busted!

And it's pretty clear that you said you would accept a seven- to ten-percent cut in the rate of growth of Medicare, which is --

DEAN: Oh, a cutting the rate of growth is much different --

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, except that the cut in growth rate in 1995 came to 270 billion dollars.

DEAN: I've got to find out…but I fully subscribe to the notion which is to reduce the Medicare growth rate to ten percent or less, I'm sure I said that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's what Newt Gingrich was calling for in 1995.
http://www.liberaloasis.com/archives/091403.htm#091603




GEPHARDT: Howard and I just have a basic disagreement. He said in, I think, 1993 that Medicare was the worst federal program ever. He said that it was the worst thing that ever happened.

He also supported, at our darkest hour--when I was leading the fight against Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America, he was shutting the government down--Howard, you were agreeing with the very plan that Newt Gingrich wanted to pass, which was a $270 billion cut in Medicare.

Now, you've been saying for many months that you're the head of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. I think you're just winging it.

This is not the view of Democrats, in my view.

This program has been under attack from the Republicans since the beginning. And we need a candidate against George Bush that can take the fight to him on it, not someone who agreed with the Gingrich Republicans.

WILLIAMS: Governor Dean?

DEAN: That is flat-out false, and I'm ashamed that you would compare me with Newt Gingrich. Nobody up here deserves to be compared to Newt Gingrich.

(APPLAUSE)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A433-2003Sep25.html

Another denial. Why deny, instead of explain?