Salon - In desperation, John Kerry goes too far

[pruner]

After a year of wavering and waffling on the Iraq war, the Massachusetts Democrat is taking cheap shots at front-runner Howard Dean. It isn't a pretty sight.

By Joan Walsh

Dec. 18, 2003 | Desperation isn't pretty, and Sen. John Kerry is looking increasingly desperate as he tries to stop the juggernaut candidacy of front-runner Howard Dean. On Wednesday, though, Kerry crossed a line, falsely accusing Dean of saying the U.S. needed to ask "permission" from the U.N. and the rest of the world before going to war to defend itself.

Dean never said any such thing. In his Monday foreign policy speech, which drew a bright media spotlight because it came on the heels of the capture of Saddam Hussein, Dean said he'd have gone to war with Iraq "had the U.N. given us permission." Macho hawks won't like the word "permission," and in fact Dean might have chosen a better word to characterize the consultative process that should have preceded the war. Asking permission doesn't quite become a superpower, but a little bit of humility would have gone a long way toward getting global support for rebuilding Iraq. Instead we got unilateralism, and we're mostly facing the chaos of Iraq alone.

…

There's nothing wrong with a vital Democratic debate over Iraq. Democrats can and do disagree about a range of issues: whether Saddam represented a dangerous threat to the U.S., whether and how much the administration lied about the existence of WMD to sell the war, what to do now. And I'm not saying pro-war Dems shouldn't attack Dean for his antiwar stance. Although I've loathed the Democratic Leadership Council's assault on the relatively centrist Dean as being too liberal, I think Sen. Joe Lieberman's attacks this week have been mostly defensible. Lieberman's had the guts to stick with his pro-war approach, and he's paid a political price for it. If he wants to crow about Saddam's capture, and use it to bash Dean, he's within his rights to do so.

But Kerry isn't. For more than a year the Massachusetts senator has wavered and waffled and tried to have it both ways: To pose as an antiwar candidate though he voted for the congressional resolution authorizing the war; and then to vote against the $87 billion for reconstruction after he'd authorized the war. In the days since Saddam's capture, though, Kerry's been particularly shameless, trying to share credit for toppling the tyrant after running away from his war-authorization vote for months.

…

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[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. LOL that's funny..they admit Dean said it but then recontextualize it

"and in fact Dean might have chosen a better word to characterize the consultative process that should have preceded the war."

We all criticize Bush for not thinking before he speaks, but when Dean is careless about his choice of words, well that's a fucking sacrament! :eyes:

[MIMStigator]

31. YUP. They said he didn't say it, then quoted him SAYING IT

this article is a joke

[WilliamPitt]

2. Isn't this the eighth time this has been posted?

If this isn't a pretty shameless slam piece, I don't know what is.

[pruner]

3. I don't know if this was posted before…

it's hard to read past all the "why does Dean only get 25% after campaigning for half his lifetime" threads.

[bearfartinthewoods]

43. why DOES dean only get 25% after campaigning for two years"

it's a damn good question. got a link to the disscusion?

[Closer]

4. A little testy are we?

First time I've seen it :shrug:

Just ignore it and move on, if you've seen it eight times. :shrug:

[pruner]

7. I just searched GD and this article has not been posted before

so, the answer to your question is NO.

[WilliamPitt]

10. I've seen it several times today

It got locked each time because the person posting it couldn't help but to launch into a hate frenzy, i.e. inflammatory, ergo padlock.

[Closer]

12. Good thing pruner didn't eh?

[sfecap]

9. The eighth time? It's dated today.

Looks like it's right on the money, too. LOL.

[mzmolly]

11. You've seen it 8 times and didn't ask Kerry about "Simon?"

;)

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[curse10]

16. yes, it is

it's been on here numerous times-- but don't anyone dare post duplicate articles about anyone else :eyes:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3543

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3558

[thinkahead]

17. I look forward to your more

fair and balanced interview with Mr. Kerry

[MrTriumph]

5. Kerry is not winning new friends

Such a great guy, but why has he taken to Jerry Spinger Show tactics? Whenever I see him on TV talking about Dean, I feel sad for him.

[Patriot_Spear]

33. If you get enough chicken wings- it starts to work on your head...

I think Kerry is feeling the pressure from the Clark assault in his own backyard.

[mzmolly]

6. I had not seen this,

Thanks.

[Cat M.]

8. Weird.

If Dean never said "any such thing" why does she quote Dean as saying exactly that?

Kerry is bringing up some salient points about Dean that need to be addressed. He DID say that Iraq was a threat to the United States; he DID say he would have supported the Biden-Lugar amendment authorizing Bush to go to war without congressional approval; he DID say he believed unilateral action might be necessary of the UN refused to go along with us.

It's DEAN who went too far when he accused Kerry of not being qualified to handle the foreign policy of this country because Kerry had endorsed the resolution. And Dean did this in an ad.

Sorry, Joan Walsh, but I have ZERO sympathy for Dean on this one.



http://www.americansforclark.com

[mzmolly]

18. Oh boy no offense but...

I think Clark supporters should avoid the issue of who said what and when? EEK!

[Cat M.]

26. Do you now?

Well, I can think of ONE time when Wes Clark said he "probably would have supported a resolution..." and the VERY next day, he immediately corrected himself and said that this did not accurately reflect what he felt.

And all it takes is a trip to the archives of the Armed National Services Committee speech he gave on September 26, 2002, to see he's right. Son of a gun. Right there, he says he supports a resolution that threatens force but that it is not necessary at this point to authorize it.

So...out of the entire campaign, there was a period of about eight to twelve hours where it appeared Clark supported the resolution authorizing the president to go to war.

Dean, however, has disavowed statements that he is on record as saying.

Sorry but Dean has made enough waffles in this campaign to open a House of Pancakes.

Clark admits that he "bobbled" that question, and he's exactly right. He should have known better than to trust the media to understand a nuanced opinion and to actually go back and check the record and see what Clark's position on the war and the resolution had been all along--consistent.

[mjv135]

29. Yeah!

What she said!

Go Cat.

[Myra]

37. You sure you want to open that can of worms mzmolly?!

What with Dean's frequent...contradictions and vulnerabilities on so many issues?

-Vowing to take federal matching campaign funds, then refusing them,

-Sealing his records in 2002, then refusing to unseal them and dumping
the issue on a judge in a blatant stalling maneuver followed by his
flip declaration that:
"I'll unseal mine if he (Bush) unseals his,"

-Getting a medical deferment for a back injury then skiing for a
year and blurting out yet another flippant dismissal:
"I took a physical, I failed a physical. If that makes this an issue, then so be it."

-His deep misgivings about his party's revamped nomination process which he now seems to love:
"In the past, when we've done this, settled on somebody quick, then you have buyer's remorse,"
he told The Boston Globe, "We've become a sitting duck for that."

He sure seems to be one of the more vulnerable candidates on the issue of who said what and when.
EEK!

[KittyWampus]

48. Don't Forget Dean Saying Both Yes & No When Asked RE: Right To Work Laws

Dean said both yes and No during the same darned interview...

You know the one?

Where Dean also called Russia the Soviet Union 4 times and couldn't venture an informed opinion about whether OSama should be tried in the Hague.

[sandnsea]

13. Dean really said that???

lol. I didn't even read this the other 8 times it was posted. But Dean really used the word "permission". Oh my god.

I know DU is all very world peace and love and no war. But people, please, the President does not use the word "permission" and UN in the same sentence. Ask Wes Clark.

[bearfartinthewoods]

46. i wish his use of the word permission made me laugh.......

to quote the doctor"why do i keep doing things like that"

good question doc....

[slinkerwink]

14. ahhh, poor kerry

[sfecap]

15. Will Kerry start attacking Clark?

As he continues to slip in the polls? How desperate is he?

[Julien Sorel]

19. Ridiculous. But it offers insight into how Dean will be spun now.

Dean has the advantage of consistency; he defended his antiwar views before it was fashionable, kept it up as others joined the bandwagon, and stayed on message this week even as the right -- and some fellow Democrats -- insisted Saddam's arrest would doom his candidacy. We won't know for months whether this week marked a lasting change either in Iraq or on the domestic political landscape, but we'll know where Dean stands regardless. No one can say the same about John Kerry.

So he might turn out to be wrong, but he's consistent! And even that's a lie, as he flip flops at every opportunity. The only reason he didn't flip flop on Iraq is because it would be suicide to do so.

This is really a disgusting piece of journalism. I always like slanted language: 'craven;' 'desperation.' And gushing about Dean's 'Teflon,' as if he's the first politician to ever have it. But this was my favorite:

Meanwhile, operatives tied to Kerry and Rep. Richard Gephardt have teamed up behind a shadowy front group, Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values, to launch an underhanded attack on Dean.

Operatives? They used to work for them, and they're 'operatives tied' to them? A little underhandedness of her own.

[quaker bill]

21. Agreed

Shots from Lieberman are fair. But the Kerry camp has been trying to say for months that he and Dean were basically on the same page, you know the Biden-Lugar line.

Now that we have Saddam, Kerry's vote for IWR shows the 'mature judgement on Saddam needed to be President'.

Lieberman never tried the anti-war rhetoric.

Dean has had the guts to not abandon it.

Kerry vacillates.

[slinkerwink]

22. that's true----he's vacillated alot on IWR

[mjv135]

27. Guts?

Dean didn't have to vote for shit. Kerry put his ass on the line and made his choice. If Dean did have to vote for it, I'd really like to know what it would've been, he supported B-L.
Now, once again Dean, who started the first attacks in this campaign, is crying the loudest. Clark made an offhand remark about the vote, the first day out as a polition, and he's had to eat it ever since from Dean, among others. Now Dean supported it too? This is too much! Can we say "Irony"?


Dr. Deans word of the day - "rationalization"

[dansolo]

41. Kerry didn't put his ass on the line

He very publicly tried to have ti both ways. He publiched a very eloquent objection to the IWR in the NY Times, and then he turned around and voted for it, assuming that he could place the blame on Bush if it went wrong if the wrong choices were made. The problem is that by voting for the IWR, Kerry abdicated the choices that should be made by Congress, effectively condoning *any* choice that Bush would make.

[Cat M.]

23. My Letter to Salon on this one

Kerry has been bringing up salient points about Dean that the media neglected to examine until this week. Dean has positioned himself as the only candidate to have opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, running ads with this claim, much to the surprise of Kucinich and Clark, both of whom were on record as being opposed to the war prior to the October 2002 resolution.

Dean is the one who went too far, including when he criticized Kerry as not being qualified to handle US foreign policy because unlike Dean, Kerry made the "wrong" decision by voting for the Iraq resolution. Yet in October Dean said he would have voted for the Biden Lugar resolution, which he later acknowledged authorized Bush to invade Iraq without getting UN or congressional approval. The only distinction between the amendment that passed and the Biden Lugar amendment as far as Bush's ability to wage war was in Dean's imagination.

Recently Dean stated that he never claimed Iraq was a threat to the US; thanks to Kerry, we now know this is not true and that Dean said just that in an interview before the war.

Thanks to Kerry and Kucinich, we also know that in February Dean said he believed Saddam Hussein had WMD and that unilateral action might be necessary if the UN refused to go along with the US. Now he's saying he only would have gone to war with UN permission? I hear Vermont makes good syrup for those waffles, Howard.

It seems the anti-war candidate wasn't so anti-war until he decided to disavow his record as a moderate and reposition himself as a liberal.

To take Kerry to task for mischaracterizing Dean while allowing Dean a free pass to continuously mischaracterize his own record for political expediency is one more example of the media doing its best to select the democratic nominee before a single vote has been cast.

Sorry, Joan Walsh, I have ZERO sympathy for Waffle-Powered Howard on this one.

[WilliamPitt]

24. The world of Joan Walsh

http://dir.salon.com/topics/joan_walsh/

Hmmm...a pro-Dean story...another pro-Dean story...and another, and a bash Kerry story...and a bash Clark story...

...but then there's this story...

Give 'em hell, Kerry

The presidential candidate -- and decorated war veteran -- fires back at his GOP critics. Will the rest of the Democratic Party take his lead and fight fire with fire?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joan Walsh

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/04/04/kerry_regime/index_np.html

April 4, 2003 | Watch closely, people, because this is how it works: A Democrat says something vaguely controversial. Last March, for instance, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle asked President Bush about his goals in Afghanistan. In October, former Vice President Al Gore criticized the push for war with Iraq. And just a few weeks ago, Daschle again -- the poor sucker -- suggested that Bush's failures of diplomacy made war inevitable.

And they're off! The GOP's snarling attack dogs slip their leashes and take their victim down. They go for the soft white meat of the throat. They won't be happy until he's politically dead or at least maimed, silenced for a good long while. Republicans said Daschle's questions about Afghanistan gave "aid and comfort to the enemy," and the party sponsored TV ads linking the South Dakota Democrat to Saddam Hussein. They smeared Gore as a "San Francisco Democrat" (that's where he gave the speech), and Bill Bennett insisted his remarks were "political suicide." Daschle got off easy last time -- instead of comparing him to the Butcher of Baghdad, Republicans merely called him French. And in all three instances, other Democrats were mostly silent in the face of the attacks.

It's happening again right now, and almost nobody's trying to stop it.

...more, if you want to waste some cash...

Joan Walsh loves John Kerry! I guess flip-flopping is not reserved for Dean alone.

:)

[sfecap]

30. I love it when writers attack...

...other writers.

[dajabr]

32. Almost as good as a "Rapper Battle"

Kool Moe Dee vs. Busy Bee!!!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

47. East coast ventriloquists vs. West coast ventriloquists.

[Patriot_Spear]

34. Her writing style reminds me of yours, Will...

Do you guys know each other?

[flpoljunkie]

45. More praise from Joan Walsh on Kerry complete with photo...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/04/04/kerry_regime/index.html

I took a shot at Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry three weeks ago for declaring, on the eve of war, that he'd mute his criticism of President Bush while troops were in harm's way. When he finally spoke out Wednesday -- telling New Hampshire Democrats, "What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States" -- I wondered why he immediately tried to backpedal from using the term "regime change."

Now I know. It's starting to look like I was wrong, and Kerry was right: If Republicans have their way, criticizing the president during wartime may turn out to be political suicide. Kerry's candidacy is lying in an alley right now. The usual suspects have worked him over: Tom DeLay ("desperate and inappropriate"), John Podhoretz ("It's unfair, it's ugly and it's disgusting"), Andrew Sullivan ("Kerry is now indistinguishable from the most hardcore anti-war leftists" -- Really, Andrew? Even "million Mogadishus" Nicholas De Genova?). The normally shrewd Keith Olbermann wondered aloud on MSNBC Thursday night whether Kerry's run for president can be saved. Yet Democrats aren't thundering to defend him.

Luckily the decorated Vietnam war veteran is defending himself. After first seeming to back away from his "regime change" quote, when Republicans came after him, Kerry came out swinging. "I'm not going to let the likes of Tom DeLay question my patriotism, which I fought for and bled for in order to have the right to speak out," he told a teachers' group. (That's a veiled reference to the fact that Delay not only sat out Vietnam, he blamed minorities for taking up all the available places in the military.) And in an interview with AP on Friday, Kerry kept it up: "The Republicans have tried to make a practice of attacking anybody who speaks out strongly by questioning their patriotism. I refuse to have my patriotism or right to speak out questioned. I fought for and earned the right to express my views in this country." Finally, a Democrat who has the guts to fight back!



The Democrat with the guts to fight back!

[bread_and_roses]

25. Desperate? Unlikely, I think

I would guess Kerry's been through enough campaigns to know there's a way to go yet in this one. I oppose the war and the occupation, but I think Kerry is a better man than he's been on this issue, based on his long record.

[Patriot_Spear]

28. Is this true? what's wrong with Kerry's Handlers? Stop him for God's sake.

They need to get Kerry back on message- he's a good guy. He needs some better people around him to reign this stuff in- for his own good.

[Scott Lee]

49. Kerry will stop himself - from being a candidate, soon.

Nobody is a greater liability to Kerry's campaign than John Kerry. An ordinary politician in extraordinary times.

[Kanola]

35. Kerry is going to have to struggle to beat Clark

in NH.

[tsipple]

36. That's Unfortunate

Kerry usually has been quite careful not to mischaracterize even his Republican opponents' issue positions. (I think it has to do with his years of senatorial debating, where even opposing senators are cordial with one another.)

I don't know why he's doing this. There are plenty of other ways to run a campaign that don't risk the ire of the press corps. Of all press organizations, Salon you'd think would be in his corner.

There's still time for him to take the high road, though, despite recent lapses.

[pruner]

38. he should take the high road back to his Beacon Hill mansion…

before it's not his anymore.

;)

[unfrigginreal]

39. Interesting article

Thanks for posting pruner :)

[zulchzulu]

40. Lazy journalist proves again she's a lazy journalist

Someone pass me the dog food.

[robbedvoter]

42. Like Tweety, Joane Walsh is advocating for *D - quite unprofessional

and the reason of my not supporting Salon, in spite of Smokin'Joe.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

44. I almost feel sorry for Kerry..then I remember his vote for war.

His pathetic attempts to justify his vote while attacking those who opposed it would be laughable if it weren't such a portrayal of a man who will do anything to be a bigshot.