Kerry DebateLine:I trusted him on Iraq but who thought he'd screwup so bad

[papau]

"'Kerry is positioning himself so at next week's debate, . . .he can say to voters, in effect: 'I was like you, I trusted the president and I knew Saddam was a problem, so I said let's put the pressure on Iraq — but I never dreamed Bush would have screwed it up every which way from Sunday,''.....(and) 'Then Kerry can say, 'Will Iraq be any different if we keep George Bush in power for another four years?''" "'If Kerry can simply get voters to nod a little with him — to think 'Kerry's making some sense' — agree with him, then I think the flip-flop charge is negated, and we can get closer to winning this election.'" but Kerry needs to get past Jan. 11,1991 statement''It is a vote about war because whether or not the president exercises his power, we will have no further say after this vote," by pointing out "about war" does not mean "go to war immediately" -to distinguish between a congressional action intended to give the president diplomatic leverage against a rogue state and a presidential decision to launch an invasion -and that Bush did not exhaust diplomatic options.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-context22sep22,1,3653143.story?coll=la-news-a_section

Their Words, and Then the Facts
By Nick Anderson
Times Staff Writer

September 22, 2004

WASHINGTON — The presidential campaign is crackling with exchanges over Iraq and domestic issues. Here is context for some of the claims and charges.

President Bush

Statement: "The fellow I'm running against has proposed over $2 trillion of new federal spending so far…. said, 'Well, how are you going to pay for it?' And he said, 'Well, don't worry. I'll pay for it by taxing the rich.' " — Sept. 7, in Columbia, Mo.

Context: The Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, proposes a health insurance plan that would cost $653 billion over 10 years, by the reckoning of a former Clinton administration health expert.

Bush campaign aides, citing a conservative think tank, say the Kerry plan would cost $1.5 trillion; adding other Democratic proposals, they arrive at $2 trillion—figures the Kerry camp disputes. It is true that Kerry wants to finance his health plan by raising taxes on the wealthy.

But Kerry pledges not to raise rates for families earning less than $200,000 a year. Bush himself proposes tax cuts and changes to the Social Security system that many independent analysts say would cost more than $2 trillion in revenue over 10 years.


<snip>

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/22/kerry_looks_to_clarify_stance_views_on_iraq?pg=full

Kerry looks to clarify stance, views on Iraq
By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff | September 22, 2004

Iraq is usually the stuff of Top Ten lists on the ''Late Show with David Letterman," but the first guest, Senator John F. Kerry, was engaged in serious political strategy Monday night as he laid out his new bottom line on the war.

''If you had been elected president in 2000, in November of 2000, would we be in Iraq now?" Letterman asked the Democratic presidential nominee.

''No," Kerry replied, citing the lack of a threat such as weapons of mass destruction or a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.<snip>

''I think he's finally clarified where he really was on Iraq, and done so in his own voice without so many qualifiers," said Graham Allison, a Kerry adviser on national security and professor at Harvard University. ''The risk is that he comes off as too antiwar, when the reality is that he is talking like a thinking person. . . .Kerry is saying plainly that Iraq was a wrong war and forcing Bush to explain why he thinks it was a right war."

The challenge for Kerry is also making voters see all of his Iraq statements as a logical evolution -- most of all, that he voted in 2002 to threaten war, not go to war, and that he has said all along that he would not have gone to war in the same way Bush did.<snip>

[papau]

1. Elizabeth Edwards variation of "why yes then no to 87B" that sells well

"Let me tell you what happened," Elizabeth Edwards answers simply. The vote of Kerry and her husband, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, to authorize the use of force in Iraq was like hammer, she explains, to pressure then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- 'like pulling out a switch, if you're a mom' -- a threat of force they'd hoped that the United States would never have to use. And at the time, Edwards and Kerry insisted that if there were an invasion by U.S. forces, there must be a plan for peace in the aftermath.

But after the Iraq invasion, there was no plan from the president, Edwards insisted. Security in Iraq was deteriorating, and something had to be done to ensure soldiers' safety. So when Bush sought $87 billion more for the war effort, Edwards and Kerry refused to give him "a blank check."

She snatches an index card off a nearby table and holds it up to signify Kerry's and Edwards' vote. "It was like this: 'Give me a plan, and I'll give you the vote,'" she says, waving the card behind her head.

But the president "would not do it, he would not give them a plan," Edwards says. "... They could not in good conscience ."


http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04266/383299.stm

Campaign Snapshot: Elizabeth Edwards / Dems' '2nd lady' effective in Jeannette
Wednesday, September 22, 2004

By Maeve Reston, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[Larkspur]

2. I'm smarter than Kerry...

"'Kerry is positioning himself so at next week's debate, . . .he can say to voters, in effect: 'I was like you, I trusted the president and I knew Saddam was a problem, so I said let's put the pressure on Iraq — but I never dreamed Bush would have screwed it up every which way from Sunday,''....

I didn't trust Bush and new that he'd screw up Iraq. In fact I'm not the only one who felt that way. Those with more knowledge about Iraq's WMD capability, like Scott Ritter, also knew that Bush was lying. Gee, so did Rep Pelosi, who led the mutiny against Gephardt over the House IWR vote.

[DrFunkenstein]

3. Not "Trust" - I Thought He Was A Man That Honored His Word

Call him out on his own terms.