MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Iraq has become George W. Bush's Vietnam, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Monday, slamming the president as deceitful and, for the first time, comparing him to former President Nixon, who resigned in disgrace.
Saying that truth has become the biggest casualty of the Bush administration, Kennedy said Bush misled the public about the war, the economy, health care and education, eroding the nation's reputation at home and abroad.
"As a result, this president has now created the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon," Kennedy said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. "He has broken the basic bond of trust with the American people."
The senator said the government has cut unemployment benefits, failed to pay for education overhaul and is spending $134 billion more than expected on a Medicare plan.
Kennedy has been taking on Bush as one of the most fervent supporters of John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator who is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
The attack on the administration's domestic agenda comes after several high-profile speeches in which Kennedy called the war in Iraq a "fraud" and said the plan to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was devised to help Republicans in the 2002 and 2004 elections.
Bush "is the problem, not the solution. Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam, and this country needs a new president," Kennedy said.
He said the military campaign also diverted attention from "the administration's deceptions here at home."
The pattern of deception and the administration's efforts to dismiss any critics, he said, has polarized and paralyzed Congress and is undermining the public's trust in government.
"Saying whatever it takes to prevail has become standard operating procedure in the Bush White House," said Kennedy. "In this administration, truth is the first casualty of policy."
