The Kerry Presidency - What would this be like?

Centroles you are a voice crying in the wilderness.

I am reminded of another one. John the Baptist. They beheaded him.

I'll be watching this thread with interest. :wink:

It mostly depends on who he would fill his cabinet positions with.

It would be relatively similar to the Bush administration.

The main difference is that the outcries and whining would come from a different side and create the illusion of a very different government.

I won't vote for a man who is on every side of every issue. We already had one of those and I didn't care for it. I want a president of conviction and principle of the likes of Ronald Reagan who carried 49 of 50 states when he was elected president the second time. George W. Bush is no Ronald Reagan, but he's much closer than a John Kerry.

Speaking of being on both sides of the issues, George Bush promised the NRA an office in the White House, but has now said he will happily sign the assault weapons ban.

Curious.

Foxfyre, there is much evidence that bush is far more notorious for flip flops than Kerry.

I urge you to check this thread...

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23120

Sometimes it is prudent to change one's mind for reasons of principle or new information; it is pandering to change one's mind because it is politically favorable. I have looked at that thread Centroles and disagree with the thesis of it.

My perception is that GWB can and does stands firm on issues whether they are politically popular or not. John Kerry does not.

But bush brags that he "never revisits a decision. (only)intellectuals change their mind." (Time, April 12, 2004)

"It helps Bush that when he backslides, he is typically shifting to a popular position from an unpopular one. Kerry reverses himself more subtly, over time and often with an intricate explanation, none of which can fit in a 30-sec ad.... circumstances have changed between any given flip and flop." (Time, April 12, 2004)

Bush's list of waffles easily match or exceed Kerry's record

1. Resisting democrat's calls to reorganize the govt. to better coordinate domestic security efforts and then changing his mind when FBI agent Coleen Rowley went public with the 9/11 clues that slipped through the cracks and then taking credit for the Homeland Security department that he initially stringently opposed.

2. Bush attacked Kerry for proposing intelligence cuts in 1995 while ignoring the fact that the republicans in congress proposed and eventually approved an even greater reduction in intelligence funding the same year. Kerry was merely proposing an alternate bill that wouldn't cut intelligence as heavily

3. Rice's decision to testify.

4. Steel tariffs

5. Not funding his own no child left behind policy

6. Abandoning any notion of fiscal responsibility by spending away the largest surplus in history and adding 2 trillion to our national debt

7. Calling a bill that increases cutting down forests Healthy Forests and a bill that lowers emission standards and fines and thus increases air pollution as well as Mercury and many other toxic substance emmisions the Clean Air Act.

8. Saying that he supports states rights while consistently cutting state funding to the point that colleges across the US had to raise tuitions by alarming amounts.

9. His federal budget deficits are larger than any president's in American history; in fact TWICE as large as any previous record! After he promised to cut govt spending.

10. Pleding 15 billion to help fight AIDs publically (and taking credit for this) and then specifically asking congress to stop trying to increase AIDs funding and to lower it to 2 billion.

11. Pledging to eliminate Al Queda and then removing troops and funding from Afganistan to the point where Al Queda has reemerged all over Afganistan.

12. Stating that he supports a small noninterventionist govt. and then declaring a war on porn such as that found on HBO or can be rented in hotel rooms, supporting sodomy laws that regulate what two consenting adults can do in the privacy of their own bed room and calling gays sinful and immoral, and passing the patriot acts which allow the govt to lock people up indefinately without any evidence, giving them a trial or even telling them or their families why they are in jail.

13. Saying in the 2000 debate that that US should not be engaged in nation building activities. Now it's clear that since he took office, he had his eye on regime change in Iraq, even before 9/11. In addition, the Patriot act expands the ability of law enforcement to conduct secret searches, and engage various forms of surveillance, including internet monitoring and wiretapping. It gives the FBI access to American citizens' highly personal medical, financial, mental health, and student records without notification or permission, and allows them to investigate individuals without probable cause of a crime.

14. Changing his justification of the war from wmds to wmd program related activities.

15. He has established the beginnings of a Medicare prescription drug plan that ALONE will soon cost taxpayers TWICE as much as federal welfare EVER DID! And the ironic things is that the plan hands out large entitlements to pharamcetical companies but provides very little aid to seniors themsleves and will cost many seniors more than they used to pay. The plan also takes away the governments right to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices or the right to import the same drugs from Canada for significantly cheaper.

16. Taking credit for having the McCain Finegold bill passed in his administration after threatening to veto the bill and pleading with republicans not to support it.

Now if those weren't waffles, I don't know what are.

But what's worse than the waffles are outright lies.

The Bush administration threatened to have fired a guy if he revealed the true cost of the Medicare bill to congress before they vote on it. Bush told congress that it would cost only half as much as Bush already knew it would cost.

The Bush administration made fake news clips that sounded like an actual news story done by an actual reporter (a reporter who we later found out never existed) speaking favorably of the Medicare bill and then sent them to local tv stations, many of which ran them thinkin they were news stories.

Bush specifically claimed that there was a link between Saddam and Al Queda when he knew that no evidence of such a link exists.

And those are just off the top off my head.

Did you start this thread to discuss Kerry's presidency or Bush's waffling?

I'm merely responding to foxfyre.

I respectfully disagree with the characterizations of Bush's policies on almost every point Centroles, but each one would be better addressed as a separate thread. So for now, let's just agree to disagree okay?

I'm not sure if you copied all these things from elsewhere or sat down and typed them yourself, but this one is definitely wrong. I was involved with the response to the Rodeo-Chedeski Fire in 2002. The reason our forests in Arizona had never been cleaned up was because of continued protests and legal battles with the so-called environmentalists. As a result, none of the flammable trash or smaller trees were ever cleaned up, and a fire that would have shortly burned itself out turned into a disaster. To paraphrase another quote, the environmentalists decided that to save the forest, they had to destroy it.

Our Arizona Senator Jon Kyl spoke about this in the Senate on September 17, 2002. You should read his speech. It is long, but it explains why the forests need to be cleaned up. Even our Democrat Governor agrees. But I suspect that in a John Kerry administration, there would be no Healthy Forests Initiative.

that's not all that the bill does tarantulus. look it up.

The fact that anyone could even consider a continuance of the shrub as president points to a serious a disease in American society. It's a nation in desparate need of a conscience transplant.

Bush anounced a war on terrorism, and invaded Iraq which in effect strengthened the resolve of every Middle East anti-American terrorist and aided greatly in the recruitment of new terrorists. Bush fell into Osama Bin Laden's trap, and invading Iraq did more to help Landen's cause than Laden could have ever hoped to achieve on his own.

Bush's invasion of Iraq under false pretenses was even stupider that LBJ escalation in Vietnam.

Kerry will lose. This is unfortunate, really, considering his administration would be substantially less retarded than the current one. That would be nice.

But, like George Bush being coherant at a press conference, it is something that would be nice, but will never happen.

International Man of Apology

John Kerry tells Tim Russert just how much he values multilateralism.

by Hugh Hewitt
04/22/2004 12:00:00 AM

OVER AT JohnKerry.com's campaign blog, they're referring to Kerry's appearance on Meet the Press as a "home run." If that was a home run, I'd hate to see Kerry strike out. On question after question, Kerry managed to turn under-armed softballs into high and tight strikes, and the damage from his reflexive parsing and dodging are just beginning to be recognized.

Kerry tried to deceive Russert on the availability of his military records, and then his campaign tried to stonewall the Boston Globe reporter who heard the candidate quite clearly promise that all the military records would be available to all comers at "headquarters." That position lasted a day before Kerry sounded retreat, though the files are still not available.

And there is plenty of controversy waiting to erupt over Kerry's assertions that (1) Social Security could be saved by growing the economy, and (2) if this isn't true, then means-testing would make sense for folks like Russert and Kerry. Kerry's got a secret plan for Social Security, and it involves cutting benefits. That much we know. Perhaps the press corps will get around to asking him how the third rail feels.

More than the records deception and more than Social Security foot-in-mouth, however, the most damaging of Kerry's statements was this statement: "Within weeks of being inaugurated, I will return to the U.N. and I will literally, formally rejoin the community of nations and turn over a proud new chapter in America's relationship with the world, which will do a number of things."

One thing such a move would be sure to do is embarrass and outrage the American public. "Literally, formally rejoin the community of nations?" What can that mean except that Kerry believes that: (1) The United States and its many allies have been acted unlawfully in liberating Iraq from Saddam; (2) the French, Russians, and Chinese should have a veto over American foreign policy; (3) an apology is in order for exposing the massive corruption of the oil-for-food program; and (4) we should be sorry for having disarmed Libya of its nuclear ambitions and mustard gas.

In fact all President Bush did was demand that the United Nations honor its own commitments, and then enforce U.N. Resolution 1441. John Kerry would seem to believe that post-9/11 America is not safe for the rest of the world and needs taming--or reintegration into the "community of nations." James Lileks wrote that Kerry clearly intends a Jolson-on-bended-knee appearance before the General Assembly, an apology to dwarf all of Clinton's apologies of the past. That indignity and more, I think. Kyoto, the Law of the Sea treaty, the International Criminal Court--you name the U.N. auspice, and Kerry will be there for it, in a "literal, formal" way.

KERRY HAS three things going for him. First, the press, like Tim Russert, isn't listening very closely to the absurdities like "literally, formally rejoining the community of nations." Second, his speaking style is so overwhelmingly self-important and so stultifying oppressive that most folks hit the off-switch when his lips begin to move, thus tuning out comments that would outrage them if they registered on the ears. And third, the "Bush Lied!" crazies wouldn't care if Kerry simply declared the dissolution of American sovereignty and a merger with Canada.

Still, with his numbers dropping and his uncanny ability to fumble every opening he's given, Kerry's got to watch his back. He "leads" the party that invented the Torricelli Option, and folks like Daschle have to be worried about a November wipe-out. A "presumptive nominee" isn't the nominee. Who was that lady on Larry King this week?

Hugh Hewitt is the host of The Hugh Hewitt Show, a nationally syndicated radio talkshow, and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard. His new book, In, But Not Of, is published by Thomas Nelson.

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It doesn't cut down forests as your quote said. It cleans them up. Look it up yourself.

Next you'll be saying that "they're just going to get rid of the clutter"