DaveC said:
But he (and the GOP) were exploiting it. Why else do you think the convention was held in New York?
Of course they are exploiting it, simply because on every other issue - from the polls I've seen - except fighting terrorism Kerry walked all over Bush. He even had approval rate under 50% before the convention.
He brings it up every time he can, and he used the images in his re-election campaign.
I read the main points of his speech in the newspapers here and it looks like same old stuff he's been saying for the last 3+ years.
Apart from bad economy (deficit, unemployed millions of people and people without insurance) and outright arrogance toward international organizations and treatys, I thought of some things he claimed that turned out not to be true:
- after war in Afghanistan, I remember how the administration claimed this was a "major blow" to terrorists.
2 words: Bali and Madrid. In Afghanistan, they are regrouping, production of opium is growing, and Afghanistan president is nicknamed "governor of Khabul" as he does not have any real power outside the central region of the state.
- after the war in Iraq, he said the world is safer.
2 words: Bali and Madrid. I mean, one of the main points of 9/11 was there is no such things as total safety, not in the world of horrid weapons. Is he being naive or cynical?
- he claims Iraq is better of without Saddam.
Remains to be seen; apart from chaos and fighting going on, there's several nations and religious fractions that have reach the agreement how to divide the power in country, not to mention months-long problems with such basic things as water and electricity.
- when arguing the case for war in Iraq, administration said (Powell went to Security council) "disarm or we will". They said Iraq had WMD's and had to be dealt with, as a threat. Remember the 45 minute claim from Blair?
First, UN inspectors went in, looking for just that, WMD's. Military pressure was put on Iraq, and it worked - inspectors were only 2 or 3 months away from completing the examinations. Instead, US and Britain decided there was no time left and went in. Their armies and US led inspection after months of looking found no weapons - no gasses, no huge amounts of anthrax Powell spoke of in his report. Leader of US inspection Kay even resigned, saying "we were all wrong, probably."
Interestingly, more and more the argument that "harsh regime was taken out" came up.
- he claims he's the strong, decisive leader and the right choice for US in the war on terror. the uniter.
Really? 3000 reasons at the very least that say otherwise. He had the support of the whole world right after that, but blew it by running to Iraq. (15 of 19 kiddnapers were from Saudi Arabia, but did anything happen to them?) The only real leader in that time was Rudy Giuliani.
He spent the last 3+ years saying "we will prevail" and now he says "we can't win"? The "war president"? (I mean, "peace president"?) He even admitted recently there were miscalculations regarding post-war Iraq.
Uniter? More like, the divider - 10% or so are still undecided, while the rest is roughly 50-50& at a really tight race.
As for attacks on Kerry's Vietnam service, I read at least 3 of those people who are a part of that that were supporting Kerry not that long ago. Very convenient timing, too. (Mc Cain also had a dirty campaign against him in 2000, can't Republicans play fair for once? Bush said he had nothing to do with it, and yet his lawyer admitted he had contacts with them) And as for Kerry voting for war on Iraq and later critisizing it, hey, I'm guessing a lot of people were for the war and later, due to facts not supporting the case for the war, questioned that decision. (as Steinbeck said "Not changing your opinion is not a sign of intelligence.")
I would say, before Kerry is questioned, Bush should explain where he was during Vietnam.
I also have a hard time believing Kerry would be even worse than Bush.
