MaxedOutMama
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Poor Kerry
I don't think Kerry's appearance with Tim Russert was well-timed. The transcript is here.
Yesterday, Soros said the problem was the candidate:
Today, Tim Russert kind of quietly handed Kerry a whole lot of rope and watched Kerry get tangled up in it:
Russert was also talking to Kerry about his positions on Iraq and the national security issue, and Kerry gave a pretty confusing rendition of his positions:
Yesterday, Soros said the problem was the candidate:
Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, spent $26 million in last year's campaign that he said was undermined by the candidate he supported.But Soros said he's glad he spent the money and he thinks it was important to stand up for principles. He wishes Kerry would have run more on his anti-war record.
``Kerry did not, actually, offer a credible and coherent alternative,'' Soros, 74, said yesterday in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ``That had a lot to do with Bush being re-elected.''
Today, Tim Russert kind of quietly handed Kerry a whole lot of rope and watched Kerry get tangled up in it:
And they refer, Senator, to a speech on the floor in which you said that you were there, that the president of the United States was saying you were not there, that there were troops in Cambodia. You have the memory seared in you. In a letter to the Boston Herald, you remember spending Christmas Eve '68 five miles across the Cambodian border. You told The Washington Post you have a lucky hat given to you by a CIA guy "as we went in for a special mission to Cambodia." Were you in Cambodia Christmas Eve, 1968?Kerry said he was going to sign Form 180 (full release of his military records); Kerry said he still has the CIA guy's cap, and admitted that he wasn't in Cambodia on Christmas Eve in 1968, but said he did go five miles into Cambodia and that he had photographs, that he had just jumbled two nights together. He can prove it, Kerry said.
Russert was also talking to Kerry about his positions on Iraq and the national security issue, and Kerry gave a pretty confusing rendition of his positions:
MR. RUSSERT: But you voted against Condoleezza Rice to be secretary of state. That's not finding common ground. She is qualified to hold that job, no?and:
SEN. KERRY: Yes, and I said so. But I also said that she was a principal architect, implementer and defender of a policy that has made the United States of America less secure in the world.
MR. RUSSERT: Is the United States safer with the newly elected Iraqi government than we would have been with Saddam Hussein?and:
SEN. KERRY: Sure. And I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone, and I've said that a hundred times. But we've missed opportunity after opportunity along the way, Tim, to really make America safe and to bring the world to the cause.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Iraq is less a terrorist threat to the United States now than it was two years ago?I hate to say it, but this Russert interview looked to me like fodder for anti-Kerry ads if he tries to run again. Kerry looked good, very healthy and much more rested. I wish him well, but I wish he hadn't done this interview, and especially not today. It wasn't wise for him politically, and I don't think it helped the Democratic party one bit.
SEN. KERRY: No, it's more. And, in fact, I believe the world is less safe today than it was two and a half years ago.
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MR. RUSSERT: Is the United States safer with the newly elected Iraqi government.....
SEN. KERRY: Sure. And I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone, ..
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Iraq is less a terrorist threat .............
SEN. KERRY: No, it's more. And, in fact, I believe the world is less safe today than ....
Kerry doesn't think, he answers questions without connecting facts.
It is not his first time, is it?
And he has this absolutely iritating maner to place himself in the middle of all events "let me tell you it happened to me many times".
I bet he is full of envy every time a funeral passes by because even he knows, he can't say "When I was dead once.."
SEN. KERRY: Sure. And I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone, ..
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Iraq is less a terrorist threat .............
SEN. KERRY: No, it's more. And, in fact, I believe the world is less safe today than ....
Kerry doesn't think, he answers questions without connecting facts.
It is not his first time, is it?
And he has this absolutely iritating maner to place himself in the middle of all events "let me tell you it happened to me many times".
I bet he is full of envy every time a funeral passes by because even he knows, he can't say "When I was dead once.."
I saw that interview- and I was stunned.
That Kerry continues to obfuscate his stated positions on Iraq is inexcusable. The parsing of words is one thing- after all, he is a politician- but the parsing about the truth of obvious successes in Iraq are quite another.
The bottom line is that millions of Iraqis voted.
Freely elected, democratic governments don't make war with each other, no matter what the disagreement.
Freely elected, democratic governments maintain and promotoe healthy economic policies (some more than others, but all better than totalitarian regimes).
Freely elected, democratic governments do not control ideas or news.
Freely elected, democratic governments manage to educate their citizens in ways that are more tolerant.
The list goes on, but in the end, how anyone could find fault with free elections and say we're not safer in the process, escapes me.
Democracy isn't perfect- we all know that- but it is a hell of a lot better than anything else out there.
That there are people that resented the Iraq vote speaks volumes about them and their utter contempt for the truths I mentioned above.
It also displays utter contempt for the millions of Iraqis who voted.
That Kerry continues to obfuscate his stated positions on Iraq is inexcusable. The parsing of words is one thing- after all, he is a politician- but the parsing about the truth of obvious successes in Iraq are quite another.
The bottom line is that millions of Iraqis voted.
Freely elected, democratic governments don't make war with each other, no matter what the disagreement.
Freely elected, democratic governments maintain and promotoe healthy economic policies (some more than others, but all better than totalitarian regimes).
Freely elected, democratic governments do not control ideas or news.
Freely elected, democratic governments manage to educate their citizens in ways that are more tolerant.
The list goes on, but in the end, how anyone could find fault with free elections and say we're not safer in the process, escapes me.
Democracy isn't perfect- we all know that- but it is a hell of a lot better than anything else out there.
That there are people that resented the Iraq vote speaks volumes about them and their utter contempt for the truths I mentioned above.
It also displays utter contempt for the millions of Iraqis who voted.
I don't know if I have ever had such an emotional reaction to an interview. Yes, I was stunned. I got so upset I turned it off and then later went and read the transcript. It looks like it just kept getting worse and worse.
SC&A,
Like you, I reacted with disbelief and then anger. Kerry seemed to have no sense of the courage and hope the Iraqis were showing. At one point I was staring at the screen wondering if the man even understood actual, real live humans were voting over there!
I agree totally with what you have written. He's not the warmest man, but I wonder if he can possibly be as callous to the fate of a nation of 25 million people as he appeared in that segment of the interview.
I am a pacifist by nature, but even I have to admit that the whole Iraqi venture is a vast improvement on the alternatives - either the sanctions failing, Saddam Hussein gaining strength, and us being forced out or forced to stand alone and being held up to the censure of the world as abusing Iraq. If we had gotten out there's no doubt that further massacres would have occurred in the south and the north as Saddam reasserted his power in the erstwhile no-fly zones. I couldn't have accepted that result.
If we had stayed, it would have been further incentive for the entire region to view us as the Great Satan, an imperialist power trying to control the region. Years before 9/11 France and other interests were portraying the sanctions and the US as being responsible for the deaths of 50,000 children a year and raising constant problems in the UN about them. We had no good options in Iraq, and it looks like the direction taken at least provides hope. Today I wondered if Kerry even understood or remembered all that.
Felis,
I understand your point. Kerry sometimes seems to be talking on autopilot, just going down a list and retailing points from memory. I could not believe that he kept speaking as he did. It was as if he did not realize the implications of what he himself was saying.
I thought he was trying to push himself as being right in essence and having some sort of middle course to offer on Iraq, but he would have had to be a lot clearer for that to work. I could not figure out what he was doing, and I wonder if he knew. Whatever it was, everyone I've spoken to who saw the interview was repelled.
By the time I turned it off I felt like I was watching one of those scenes from a horror movie where they're about to split up and search the haunted house singly, and you feel like screaming at the screen "Don't go in the basement!" Well, Kerry went. I wondered if it was really necessary to eviscerate the man that way. If it had been before the election I could have understood it.
Marty,
I can understand the hemming and hawing, but I'm not so sure about the knowing and thinking too much. It's almost as if Kerry never feels forced to come to an actual conclusion. On Iraq, the only thing I've ever been able to confirm as his real underpinning concept is that he wanted France and Germany to agree with our actions. Well, right now France in particular is not providing moral leadership I can respect on this issue. I've seen much better interviews with Kerry before, though.
As for going for bear - yes. It was as if Russert knew all Kerry's weaknesses and played every one of them. I can't call it an unfair attack, because that's the job of newsie like Russert. And Russert let him talk, and make his points. But the way Russert angled around worked on Kerry's weaknesses. And Russert kept bringing up things like Kerry's statements on SS before and his positions now, and Kerry kept going on like a robot reading flashcards, never even feeling the need to reconcile his contradictions.
I have to believe Russert knew what he was doing, and that he intended to make Kerry look like a fool. The result of the interview was to confirm every darn one of the Bush campaign's criticisms of Kerry - the interview looked like it was scripted by a Republican strategist. Maybe Russert was deliberately trying to knock Kerry out of a leadership position in the Democratic party. I don't know.
As to your last point - I've been thinking about the problems, and I don't think either party has any room to move much. We have to raise taxes and begin to put our house in order, and we have to do it on such a broad scale that pretty much everyone is going to feel the pain. Medicare/Medicaid alone takes all of the discretionary spending out of the budget within 15 years. Something has to give and all the easy solutions are gone.
So in this environment, it will be the party that attempts to deal with the problem in the most open way which will succeed. If strong leadership in the Democratic party doesn't emerge, I think it's sunk. This lalala Ted Kennedyish "we've got no problem" stuff is so wildly unrealistic it makes Bush look good in comparison.
What we need is some strong Democratic voices to really discuss what's going on and propose alternative solutions. This country really started to become economically powerful when the average person began to have the chance to get ahead. The lower third of our population is suffering. We have to craft a way to reverse that trend.
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SC&A,
Like you, I reacted with disbelief and then anger. Kerry seemed to have no sense of the courage and hope the Iraqis were showing. At one point I was staring at the screen wondering if the man even understood actual, real live humans were voting over there!
I agree totally with what you have written. He's not the warmest man, but I wonder if he can possibly be as callous to the fate of a nation of 25 million people as he appeared in that segment of the interview.
I am a pacifist by nature, but even I have to admit that the whole Iraqi venture is a vast improvement on the alternatives - either the sanctions failing, Saddam Hussein gaining strength, and us being forced out or forced to stand alone and being held up to the censure of the world as abusing Iraq. If we had gotten out there's no doubt that further massacres would have occurred in the south and the north as Saddam reasserted his power in the erstwhile no-fly zones. I couldn't have accepted that result.
If we had stayed, it would have been further incentive for the entire region to view us as the Great Satan, an imperialist power trying to control the region. Years before 9/11 France and other interests were portraying the sanctions and the US as being responsible for the deaths of 50,000 children a year and raising constant problems in the UN about them. We had no good options in Iraq, and it looks like the direction taken at least provides hope. Today I wondered if Kerry even understood or remembered all that.
Felis,
I understand your point. Kerry sometimes seems to be talking on autopilot, just going down a list and retailing points from memory. I could not believe that he kept speaking as he did. It was as if he did not realize the implications of what he himself was saying.
I thought he was trying to push himself as being right in essence and having some sort of middle course to offer on Iraq, but he would have had to be a lot clearer for that to work. I could not figure out what he was doing, and I wonder if he knew. Whatever it was, everyone I've spoken to who saw the interview was repelled.
By the time I turned it off I felt like I was watching one of those scenes from a horror movie where they're about to split up and search the haunted house singly, and you feel like screaming at the screen "Don't go in the basement!" Well, Kerry went. I wondered if it was really necessary to eviscerate the man that way. If it had been before the election I could have understood it.
Marty,
I can understand the hemming and hawing, but I'm not so sure about the knowing and thinking too much. It's almost as if Kerry never feels forced to come to an actual conclusion. On Iraq, the only thing I've ever been able to confirm as his real underpinning concept is that he wanted France and Germany to agree with our actions. Well, right now France in particular is not providing moral leadership I can respect on this issue. I've seen much better interviews with Kerry before, though.
As for going for bear - yes. It was as if Russert knew all Kerry's weaknesses and played every one of them. I can't call it an unfair attack, because that's the job of newsie like Russert. And Russert let him talk, and make his points. But the way Russert angled around worked on Kerry's weaknesses. And Russert kept bringing up things like Kerry's statements on SS before and his positions now, and Kerry kept going on like a robot reading flashcards, never even feeling the need to reconcile his contradictions.
I have to believe Russert knew what he was doing, and that he intended to make Kerry look like a fool. The result of the interview was to confirm every darn one of the Bush campaign's criticisms of Kerry - the interview looked like it was scripted by a Republican strategist. Maybe Russert was deliberately trying to knock Kerry out of a leadership position in the Democratic party. I don't know.
As to your last point - I've been thinking about the problems, and I don't think either party has any room to move much. We have to raise taxes and begin to put our house in order, and we have to do it on such a broad scale that pretty much everyone is going to feel the pain. Medicare/Medicaid alone takes all of the discretionary spending out of the budget within 15 years. Something has to give and all the easy solutions are gone.
So in this environment, it will be the party that attempts to deal with the problem in the most open way which will succeed. If strong leadership in the Democratic party doesn't emerge, I think it's sunk. This lalala Ted Kennedyish "we've got no problem" stuff is so wildly unrealistic it makes Bush look good in comparison.
What we need is some strong Democratic voices to really discuss what's going on and propose alternative solutions. This country really started to become economically powerful when the average person began to have the chance to get ahead. The lower third of our population is suffering. We have to craft a way to reverse that trend.
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