Monday, September 27, 2004
Did The President Lie About Iraq?
The FactCheck.org, an affiliate of the Annenberg Center, critiques the ad of Bush calling Kerry inconsistent on Iraq. They say the quotes are taken out of context. Their bottom line on the ad is: "But aside from the $87 billion matter(which shows inconsistency), this Bush ad is a textbook example of how to mislead voters through selective editing."
When I read the actual quotes, sure Kerry says other asides, but they do not appear out of context to me. I also think you have to look at a longer period of time than the year they looked at to see Kerry's true pattern. To really look at Kerry being inconsistent, you need to look at the last ten years or so and Kerry "Flips and Flops" all over the lot. Judge for yourself by going to the FactCheck.org's site.
While you do that research also consider the Kerry question: Did Bush lie? Read the article in Insight ON THE NEWS "Did the President Lie about Iraq?" By Buddy Eberle. You will have to conclude the president did lie!. What was Kerry saying at this time?
Let me ad this reference to an article in Commentary about "The 1997 Speech That Damns John Kerry" He concludes by writing:
Kerry gave this blistering speech in response to the fact that on October 29, 1997, Saddam Hussein kicked U.S. weapons inspectors out of Iraq. Kerry argued it was "unthinkable" that Saddam be allowed to scuttle the inspection process and defy the will of the international community.
Yet despite more resolutions by the UN Security Council AND the passage of a law by Congress making regime change in Iraq the official policy of the US government AND a four-day bombing campaign against Saddam Hussein in late 1998, weapons inspectors did not set foot on Iraqi soil again until the Bush administration forced them back in in November 2002.
In the intervening four years America suffered terrorist attacks on her embassies in Africa, on her warship in Yemen, and on her homeland on September 11.
So is it plausible for John Kerry to have believed in 1997 that Saddam was a grave threat requiring the use of significant, preemptive, and unilateral military force but to now, more than five years later and in a post-9/11 world, stand before us and argue the opposite? It is not.
John Kerry's own words both then and now damn him as a man who changes his beliefs and positions based on political expediency and nothing more.
When I read the actual quotes, sure Kerry says other asides, but they do not appear out of context to me. I also think you have to look at a longer period of time than the year they looked at to see Kerry's true pattern. To really look at Kerry being inconsistent, you need to look at the last ten years or so and Kerry "Flips and Flops" all over the lot. Judge for yourself by going to the FactCheck.org's site.
While you do that research also consider the Kerry question: Did Bush lie? Read the article in Insight ON THE NEWS "Did the President Lie about Iraq?" By Buddy Eberle. You will have to conclude the president did lie!. What was Kerry saying at this time?
Let me ad this reference to an article in Commentary about "The 1997 Speech That Damns John Kerry" He concludes by writing:
Kerry gave this blistering speech in response to the fact that on October 29, 1997, Saddam Hussein kicked U.S. weapons inspectors out of Iraq. Kerry argued it was "unthinkable" that Saddam be allowed to scuttle the inspection process and defy the will of the international community.
Yet despite more resolutions by the UN Security Council AND the passage of a law by Congress making regime change in Iraq the official policy of the US government AND a four-day bombing campaign against Saddam Hussein in late 1998, weapons inspectors did not set foot on Iraqi soil again until the Bush administration forced them back in in November 2002.
In the intervening four years America suffered terrorist attacks on her embassies in Africa, on her warship in Yemen, and on her homeland on September 11.
So is it plausible for John Kerry to have believed in 1997 that Saddam was a grave threat requiring the use of significant, preemptive, and unilateral military force but to now, more than five years later and in a post-9/11 world, stand before us and argue the opposite? It is not.
John Kerry's own words both then and now damn him as a man who changes his beliefs and positions based on political expediency and nothing more.
