Reply
Sat 29 May, 2004 10:08 am
brand
Come on now. The NY Post for god's sake.
The Bush re-election strategy for 'defining' Kerry has settled on 'flip flop'. You're easily bright enough to understand that.
They did what such campaigns always do...pour through old speeches, draw from the ammunition provided by Kerry's opponents for nomination, etc. They find some derogation which they think can be made to stick, and which their electoral base wll respond to (in this case, the convenient tie-in between 'liberal' and 'can't decide', and also the convenient contrast they hope to portray between that and Bush as 'resolute', 'strong', 'bold', etc) then they just repeat it over and over, using their proxies to do the same. You oughta at least realize when you are being so transparently manipulated.
Kerry is a sheep trying to hide in wolves clothing. He needs to sound like he will be strong in fighting terrorism because he has finally realized that the majority of Americans support the war against terror. If elected, he will resort back to just being himself again, and will surrender our freedom and military strength to the UN and the terrorists. This is an attempt by the Dems to see how many people can be deceived into believing Kerry will be strong on national defense. He is trying, once again, to be on both sides of the issue.
How does Kerry plan to get UN approval to "take the fight to the enemy on every continent"? Or does he not plan to do that any more?
Brand X wrote:Kerry is a sheep trying to hide in wolves clothing. He needs to sound like he will be strong in fighting terrorism because he has finally realized that the majority of Americans support the war against terror. If elected, he will resort back to just being himself again, and will surrender our freedom and military strength to the UN and the terrorists. This is an attempt by the Dems to see how many people can be deceived into believing Kerry will be strong on national defense. He is trying, once again, to be on both sides of the issue.
Bah and double bah.
As to most americans support the war on terror...no kidding. Most people on earth support the decrease of terrorism.
Surrender your freedom and military to the UN!? You're not dumb, but that's a dumb statement. The US doesn't have to 'surrender' any more than any other country. And whatever it grants itself as a unilateral 'right', all other nations may grant themselves the same. Screw the ICC? Fine. Thus all other nations too.
And what does 'strong' on national defence mean? Does it mean re-establishing a nuclear arms testing and deployment regimin? Does it mean standing up like a peacock? Does it mean increasing the numbers of people in the world who want to kill you?
Frankly, I'm glad to hear him finally come around with some passion about protecting our country.
Quote:"This country is united in its determination to destroy you," said Kerry of the terrorists, in the first of a series of foreign-policy speeches timed to coincide with Memorial Day and President Bush's trip to Europe for D-Day ceremonies.
"As commander in chief, I will bring the full force of our nation's power to bear on finding and crushing your networks. We will use every available resource to destroy you," Kerry said in Seattle.
The Massachusetts senator added, "As president, my No. 1 security goal will be to prevent the terrorists from gaining weapons of mass murder. And our overriding mission will be to disrupt and destroy their terrorist cells."
The Bush campaign portrayed the speech as disingenuous political grandstanding.
"John Kerry's approach to the war on terror has been filled with indecision and vacillation," said Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt. "He has consistently played politics with the war in Iraq."
Despite the difficult situation in Iraq, Kerry barely touched on the beleaguered country, except to say that he would like the United Nations to appoint a high commissioner and have NATO more involved.
The omission of Iraq is largely driven by the increasing similarities between Kerry and Bush on the issue.
Kerry spelled out four principles that he said would guide his foreign policy: new alliances with foreign countries; an updated military; greater use of diplomacy; and freedom from dependence on oil from the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the latest CBS poll showed that Kerry holds an 8-point lead over Bush among registered voters. But that 49 percent-to-41 percent lead gets even wider if Republican Sen. John McCain is added to the Democratic ticket.
Source
Damn,change the name Kerry to Bush,and the left will start raising hell.
After all,isnt this what Bush said after 9-11
I don't what got into him talking like that, why...that could inflame the enemy and create more terrorist...
Bush used rhetoric such as that in 2001 and caused a bombing in the WTC all the way back 1993.
Kerry should be careful with those magical terrorist creating words.
!
"Kerry is a sheep trying to hide in wolves clothing."
John Kerry has killed people while in Vietnam. He is not quite a sheep. He also risked his own life to save a fellow soldier.
I could talk about GW Bush in comparison but I won't.
John Kerry has proven that he has courage. He doesn't need to prove that.
No, he doesn't. He'll do a fine job, I'm sure.
"Weak on defence" is a predictable republican charge against any opponent. It plays to the cliche (just as does 'tax and spend') and often bears no correspondence to truth.
Given the rather large disparity between Kerry's service for his country and the lack of same by Bush, what else are republicans to do now than repeat the cliche.
blatham wrote:brand
Come on now. The NY Post for god's sake.
The Bush re-election strategy for 'defining' Kerry has settled on 'flip flop'. You're easily bright enough to understand that.
They did what such campaigns always do...pour through old speeches, draw from the ammunition provided by Kerry's opponents for nomination, etc. They find some derogation which they think can be made to stick, and which their electoral base wll respond to (in this case, the convenient tie-in between 'liberal' and 'can't decide', and also the convenient contrast they hope to portray between that and Bush as 'resolute', 'strong', 'bold', etc) then they just repeat it over and over, using their proxies to do the same. You oughta at least realize when you are being so transparently manipulated.
But you're not being manipulated by the Democratic Spin Machine when you parrot their blather:
""Weak on defence" is a predictable republican charge against any opponent. It plays to the cliche (just as does 'tax and spend') and often bears no correspondence to truth.
Given the rather large disparity between Kerry's service for his country and the lack of same by Bush, what else are republicans to do now than repeat the cliche."
finn
Nah. You find me a Republican campaign over the last three decades that hasn't accused the Dem candidates of being weak on defence. It is utterly predictable. And that claim does bear little correspondence to truth.
As to the 'service' issue, what I've said is so self-evident that anyone watching as these campaigns got underway would have taken it as a given.
mysteryman wrote:Damn,change the name Kerry to Bush,and the left will start raising hell.
After all,isnt this what Bush said after 9-11
True, at first Kerry thought terrorism was a police matter not for the military, now he has finally flopped on to the correct way of thinking after how many months of campaigning.
Still amazing he hasn't gotten ridiculed by the left for his new terrorist creating rhetoric. I guess it's only Bush who magically creates them with rhetoric but, "As commander in chief, I will bring the full force of our nation's power to bear on finding and crushing your networks. We will use every available resource to destroy you," sounds a lot like "Bring it on" to me.
I don't think flip flopping business is getting as much traction as it did. They have over used it like they do everything else and it is loosing its impact. Besides most people see that bush is crawling on his belly for help to the UN when before he dismissed them as irelavant and old world. What is that if not a flip flop?
Personally I am glad that bush is flip flopping around to Kerry way of thinking and if it pleases die hard republicans to think it is the other way around, shrug, so what? It is the right thing to do and it is what should have been done in the first place.
Revel, Bush has always tried to keep the UN involved, they didn't want to because they had a gravy train going on with Iraq.
It is Kerry coming around to Bush's plan not vise versa.
From a political standpoint, it really doesn't matter who has come around to whose plan. Kerry has never proposed anything particularly radical or innovative which he can lay claim to should Bush try alternative approaches.
If, by November, the situation in Iraq is seen as improving rather then remaining in an unacceptable stasis, or deteriorating, no one is going to think John Kerry was, in any way, responsible for the improvement.
Only those on the far left of the pool of support for Kerry are going to criticize him for adopting any of Bush's rhetoric if it is perceived as helpful to him in beating Bush.
Kerry is simply working hard to cast himself as an acceptable alternative for those who have lost faith in Bush. I believe his strategy is to allow events to unfold and hope that they will maintain the downward direction they've been following of late. Should this happen, he only needs to be someone that disaffected Bush supporters can feel comfortable with as someone who can't make things any worse. Kerry will not be providing us with any magical formula for success in Iraq or in the war against Terror. Essentially his message is that he has roughly the same plan as Bush but that he will execute better.
Bush isn't dropping in the polls because people have changed their minds about invading Iraq, he's losing support because things aren't working out.
There doesn't seem to be any progress being made and things even seem to be getting worse. If the situation turned tomorrow, his numbers in the polls would steadily climb.
Kerry has not expressed an intent to pull out of Iraq or relent in the War against Terror should he be elected (quite the contrary). So what does he really have to offer? It doesn't really make any sense because there is nothing in his record to support it, but he is offering the hope that someone else (him) can get things back on track and done.
I think the flip flop label has already stuck to him. It's the core of any number of jokes on the Tonight Show and in political cartoons across the nation. Whether or not it's valid (and I think it is) he's stuck with it. I don't know that its really going to hurt him all that much though because Americans are pretty used to flip flopping politicians, and have reached a point where they seem to accept that they are going to be given a huge ration of BS during the election season.
Don't expect to see anything new and bold out of Kerry. His campaign strategy is going to be to paint himself as a moderate, and then hope for Iraq to implode.
blatham wrote:finn
Nah. You find me a Republican campaign over the last three decades that hasn't accused the Dem candidates of being weak on defence. It is utterly predictable. And that claim does bear little correspondence to truth.
As to the 'service' issue, what I've said is so self-evident that anyone watching as these campaigns got underway would have taken it as a given.
Whether or not the Republicans employ a spin machine and hackneyed attacks on their opponents has no bearing on whether or not you are voicing equally predictable Democratic attacks.
In any case, according to your analysis, the relative service records of the two candidates should have nothing to do with the tried and true Democrats are weak on defense attack.
finn
Pretty much in agreement with your post on Kerry above. Other than a real contribution that Kerry (or anyone else) could make in getting this particular crowd of people out of power. This administration is a disaster in more ways than even the most pessimistic of us thought possible.
As to latter post, again, you're being undiscerning. In all elections for the next thirty years, Republicans WILL charge that the dem candidate is weak on defence. It's hardly so 'predictable' that democrats will, for the next thirty years, suggest that:
- the president is an incompetent
- that he's a liar
- that the doctrine of unilateral pre-emption, as understood by this administration, is insane
etc
Important qualitative difference here.
But I am going to charge you with something I continue to notice presently, coming from folks who tend to defend this administration. You've pretty much given up on specifics (WOMD, cakewalk war, resolute leader, compassionate conservatism, no child left behind, etc) because none of those is any longer defensible, and that's become apparent to everyone but the few who believe Ronald Reagan was the second coming of christ on earth, and that Dubya somehow fits in this divine trinity.
Now, the move being made, and you do it here again, is to argue that some species of complaint is bound to be forwarded...that anyone who might normally vote democrat can be expected to say negative things...therefore, what they say is merely and only a consequence of partisanship.
It's not an enviable position, and I'm somewhat sympathetic.
brandx
Bush was forced into going to the UN in the first place, once there he went out of his way to be abrasive and didn't wait for the UN to complete the mission of the weapons search but just dismissed the UN in a completely arrogant way and went ahead with the invasion of Iraq.
Now Bush is asking the Germans and anyone else for help with this disaster. Do you not recall Rumsfield remark of "old world" when he was dismissing the UN?
Kerry has been saying all along that Bush aught to try again and keep trying to get the international community onboard and do it in such a way that other countries won't be so put off by the high handedness of US that they will want to help because a failed Iraq will be bad on everyone.
This administration is real good about saying all the right words mixed in with the real words that they want to get across so that later they can claim that they "tried..." They make "slick willy" look like an amateur.
Calling people partisan in this board seems a little silly. We all are partisan or else we wouldn't be in a political board. I freely admit that most of my views a proudly leftist and I support anyone that will fight for the democratic agenda with the exception of abortion. I also didn't approve of a lot of democrats stand on Iraq and their stand on same sex marriages. But you got to deal with what you got and the democrats are for social programs and more of the things that I am for so I vote for them, it is not about the person but about what they fight and vote for.
Nevertheless Bush is a liar and sneak and the chances are he will actually be elected this time. IMHO
Talk shows will go on about anything that will get them a laugh, they do plenty on Bush as well. I don't think they have had as much as material since the whole monica and tripp debacle though. I even ended up feeling somewhat sorry for tripp the way they made fun of her looks to the point where she had plastic surgery. I really don't like the talk show where the whole point is to make fun of people, that is just not my type of humor.
However, I don't think the flip flopping thing is getting as mileage anymore in the news other than fox.
As for the gravy train, I imagine that there are some in the US that are just as guilty, if not, we have worse crimes. After all we are the one who supplied Saddam Hussien with weapons in the first place that he used on his people.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace