Kennedy:Fraudulent Iraq war case devised in Texas for Repubs

What he said is just as easy as anything said on this forum. He's trying to 'boost' the Dem party now, it's all politics as usual.

Kennedy, DeLay Clash Over Criticism of Bush's Iraq Policy
Sep 19, 2003
By Lolita C. Baldor - Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay lashed out at Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy for his criticism of President Bush's Iraq policy, describing the comments as a "new low" and calling on presidential candidates to repudiate the remarks.
In an interview with The Associated Press Thursday, Kennedy said the case for going to war against Iraq was a fraud "made up in Texas" to give Republicans a political boost and the money for the war is being used to bribe foreign leaders to send troops. Those words drew the wrath of Texas Republican DeLay.

In a statement released Friday, DeLay said Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and other Democratic presidential hopefuls should "have the courage" to repudiate Kennedy's remarks, which he called a "new low." And he said it was "disturbing that Democrats have spewed more hateful rhetoric at President Bush then they ever did at Saddam Hussein."

After a day's silence on the matter, the White House also responded to Kennedy's comments.

"This is the kind of charged political rhetoric here that obscures the real policy debate, which is how we make America safer in a post-Sept. 11 world," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "Sept. 11 taught us we need to confront new threats before they reach our shores."

Responding to DeLay's call for Democratic presidential candidates to disavow Kennedy's comments, Kerry fired back - at the Texas lawmaker.

"Tom DeLay is a bully," Kerry said. "He tried to bully Democrats in Texas and we're not going to accept his shrill partisan attacks or allow him to suggest that patriotism belongs to one political party."

Kerry was referring to DeLay's role in redistricting the state's congressional boundaries to benefit Republicans.

Kennedy dismissed DeLay's comments, saying that once again GOP leaders are avoiding questions about Bush's policies "by attacking the patriotism of those who question them."

Kennedy also elaborated on his comments in an interview on CNN Friday, saying the administration is announcing an $8.5 billion loan to Turkey, and that country will then provide military assistance in Iraq.

"It didn't have to be this way," he said. "We wouldn't have to be providing these billions of dollars to these countries to ... coerce them or bribe them to send their troops in, if we'd done it the right way, if we'd gone to the United Nations, if we had built an international constituency."

McClellan called the funding charges "more political rhetoric that have no basis in fact."

DeLay didn't defend the administration's policy, preferring to put the responsibility on Democrats to take sides. But the Democratic drumbeat against the Bush administration's Iraq policies has only intensified in recent days.

Earlier this week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a senior member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, called on Bush to fire advisers who helped set U.S. policy in Iraq because it has been riddled with miscalculations over armed opposition and rebuilding.

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAK96TRSKD.html

Well, this is refreshing news (re Kennedy).

Is there any basis in fact for this claim? Kennedy cites none ... he's just satisfied to make the charge. Some analysts believe Kennedy is alluding to a meeting in Texas in January of 2002, not 2003. Carl Rove was talking to Texas Republicans and told them that the public trusts the Republicans to do the right thing in fighting terrorism. Was that Kennedy's announcement "that the war was going to take place and was going to be good politically?"

Kennedy also says that foreign leaders are being bribed with taxpayer money: "My belief is that this money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops."

Nobody has made this claim before Kennedy. There are no US taxpayer funds being paid to foreign leaders for support in the war in Iraq. Could Kennedy possibly be talking about the U.S. paying the transportation costs for foreign troops going to Iraq?

This bloated sot shouldn't even be in the Senate. The very fact that he is a respected member of the Democratic leadership is testament to the moral depravity of the Democratic Party and its supporters. Here is a man who allowed a woman, widely believed to be his paramour, to die inside his partially submerged car while he paced up and down the roadside worrying about his political future. He then used his family's wealth and fame to virtually escape any responsibility for his cowardly actions. He should have had the decency to disappear behind the walls of the Kennedy compound years ago. Instead, he's one of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate, orchestrating filibusters against conservative appointees to federal courts and lying about the motivations behind the war on terrorism.

Democrats should be so proud.

Brand X
Brand X, I don't know your age or level of education. Perhaps you missed the history of US "diplomacy" while you were in school.

I can assure you that the US (and many other countries) engage in what is known as "Checkbook diplomacy." The US has a long history of engaging in this practice that is widely known in the US and around the world.

You may wish to scan the following Google pages to close the gap in your knowledge of world-wide checkbook diplomacy.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=US+Checkbook+Diplomacy&btnG=Google+Search

---BumbleBeeBoogie

I know money changes hands, we just paid 10 million to Thailand for a terrorist capture etc. So if it's common practice, why does Ted feel he should make like it's a revelation?

Brand X
Brand X, why don't you tell us why you think Senator Kennedy is raising the issue at this time and about this war?

---BumbleBeeBoogie

It's quite obvious, read my very first response, wish should have been my last, pointless thread other than it was news.

Brand X- when you recounted the story about the Chappaquiddick kid( excellently, I might say) you missed another of the reasons why Kennedy is, IN MY OPINON, absolutely devoid of any moral authority.

When Ted Kennedy was at Harvard, his major interests were allegedly Football and Women.
When exam time came, Kennedy was able to get another student to take his Spanish Exam finals.

Kennedy was discovered and uncermoniously expelled from Harvard.

(Incidentally, a story like this puts the lie to the idea that Harvard can be bribed--Bush at Harvard MBA-- since all of the money and considerable influence of papa Joe Kennedy was unable to prevent Ted's expulsion.


A man with NEGATIVE moral authority- Ted Kennedy.

I know some people on the right get a lump in their throats every time someone criticizes George W. Bush. What they don't realize is that lump is caused by swallowing the neo-con crap hook, line, sinker and stinkbait.

So Tom Delay, resident mad dog, says "This is a new low.", this speech by Kennedy saying that Two Billion a MONTH hasn't been accounted for, (how dare he be asking about the taxpayers' money!?). Well, it is a new low. In poll after poll, taken after Bush's most recent speech, including one by Fox News, say the American people are catching on to this administration's prevarications and want some accounting done besides the daily body count, and put this President's approval ratings at a new low.

Shouldn't this administration have to account for a little more than half of the four billion a month this war is costing this nation?

Shouldn't Republican representatives be asking this same question?

But since the rightwingers on this forum, instead of agreeing to have some accountability, have decided typically to attack the messenger Kennedy, I'll tell what gave me a lump in my throat this morning. The word from the Washington papers says that the sentries at the Tomb of the Unknowns were given the option to leave their posts during the recent hurricane. None did, and in interviews, said that they hadn't given the option a second thought because of the regard that they held for their fallen brothers-in-arms. Some mother sleeps better knowing her son is watched over.

The present Commander-in-Chief left his post during wartime, failed to report for duty for a over a year and failed to complete his reserve training. When he landed on that carrier awhile back, I was hoping some grizzled old Viet Nam era gunny had stepped forward to slap him in irons.
(Desertion UCMJ)

I wonder what George would have done during the hurricane if he was one of the sentries?

Joe Nation

I guess Harvard must have been easy to bribe -- Kennedy was readmitted to the school (when he and the other student were expelled, they were told they could reapply). Convenient sins of omissions rather dilutes one's argument, and although Ted Kennedy is not high on my list of respectable politicians, he is in the position to be a whistle blower on fiscal improprieties. Tom Delay's denial just makes the whole thing more suspect.

Kennedy: Bush using the war to its political advantage
Saturday, September 20 2003 @ 12:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Admin
Washington, Sep 20 (DPA) With presidential politics heating up,

Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy charged that the Bush administration had ''hyped'' the need for invading Iraq and was using the war to its political advantage.

Speaking in an interview with Cable News Network last night, Kennedy repeated comments earlier this week that there had been ''no imminent threat'' from deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to justify the war.

Kennedy also said that an 8.5 billion dollar International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to Turkey expected to be approved this weekend was part of the Bush administration's attempt to ''bribe'' other leaders to send troops to Iraq.

The U.S. is the most powerful voice and money provider to the IMF.

He said that about 2 billion of the running 4 billion dollars a month in U.S. costs for the war were going to foreign countries participating in the U.S.-led coalition.

The remarks from Kennedy, who is not running for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, represent a newly energized frontal attack on Bush for his foreign and domestic policies.

More criticism from Democrats and even Republican politicians has emerged since Bush announced he would need another 87 billion dollars to fight and finish the war in Iraq.

Kennedy charged that U.S. President George Bush's chief political advisor Karl Rove told the national Republican Committee in a West Coast meeting early last year ''about the advantages the war would have for Republican candidates''.

''There is no question in my mind that the White House has hyped the political aspects of the war in Iraq,'' Kennedy said.

Kennedy said he was concerned about the Bush administration's squelching of criticism as ''unpatriotic''.

''The American people want answers, what the cost is going to be,'' he said.

DeLay Blasts Senator's Criticism of Iraq Policy
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs20.1sep20,1,4479631.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
IN BRIEF / WASHINGTON, D.C.
DeLay Blasts Senator's Criticism of Iraq Policy
From Times Wire Reports - September 20, 2003

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay lashed out at Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy for criticizing President Bush's Iraq policy, describing the comments as a "new low."

Kennedy, of Massachusetts, said Thursday that the case for war against Iraq was a fraud "made up in Texas" to give Republicans a political boost and the money for the war is being used to bribe foreign leaders to send troops.

That drew the wrath of Texas Republican DeLay, who said in a statement that Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and other presidential hopefuls should repudiate the remarks.

Kerry responded: "Tom DeLay is a bully."

Delay, now there's a man who's opinion should be trusted.

That was certainly another Delayed reaction.

Delay DeLay in '04! Put him back on the short bus where he belongs!

But rather than apologize for the remarks he made Thursday, Kennedy strode to the Senate floor and amplified on them. He said American soldiers are paying for Bush's failed Iraq policies.

"The administration is muddling through day-by-day, while the lives of our soldiers are at risk and their families worry here at home," he said.

Bush, he said, has asked for $87 billion to keep the peace and rebuild Iraq, but hasn't accounted for the money already spent.

Asked later about the firestorms he'd set off, Kennedy said Americans have important questions about the war, and "I intend to continue to raise them."

Democrats said the GOP should not brand critics as unpatriotic for raising legitimate concerns about the administration's plan for Iraq.

"Any time somebody speaks out criticizing this administration or its policies, there is this orchestrated concerted effort to attack those who criticize," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. "Criticizing those who are vocal in their personal criticism, their approach, their concerns, is McCarthyesque."

Let us not forget, Jerry Springer was the Republican Mayor of Cincinnatti!

Lightwizard apparently doesn't know that Ted Kennedy was removed from Harvard immediately by his da-da and was enrolled in the military where he spent two years and was in the Honor( gulp) guard in Berlin.

If you think Harvard is easy to bribe, why didn't Joe Kennedy bribe Harvard on the spot so that TEddy didn't have that stain on his record?

Only people that know NOTHING about Harvard would make such a statement about Harvard being easy to bribe.

Where did you go to school- Lightwizard- Some second rate Community college???