Funny thing about John Kerry

[jeter]

He attacks Howard Dean endlessly.

But then always follows his lead.

What's up with that?

He attacks Deans support for guns. Then low and behold is shown with a rifle. "I have always been a hunter," says the beloved (not) Senator.

He supports the war. Then comes back and opposes it.

He attacks Dean for forgoing funding matches. And now, guess what?

The beloved (not) Senator will forgo himself.

Blah...Blah...Blah...

"I'm John Kerry. I have no idea what I am talking about."

[jeter]

1. Maybe that's why Kerry isn't doing so well

He's a follower, not a leader.

[Khephra]

2. Kerry was also the first candidate I heard swiping lines from Dean

I've read in several places that all canidates end up doing it eventually, because of their repeated close contact with each other. But Kerry was the first candidate I heard "borrowing" lines from any other canididate...and low and behold! He picked Dean to "borrow" lines from.

[blm]

7. Really... Roman Empire doesn't ring a bell with you?

.

[1monster]

3. A DU poll earlier today suggests that many don't think that those who

do use matching funds can compete with those who don't because of the matching funds restriction.

Ergo, if one candidate chooses not to use matching funds, then others may feel forced into the same position.

Kerry could be legitimately irritated by Dean not using matching funds because it takes competition out of a level playing field.

[jeter]

14. matching funds won't affect the primaries one bit

What effect will it have? The nomination will be decided by March - if you got any money in the bank you have enough to last until March. There are still individual state spending limits which all candidates, including Dean, will have to adhear to. So what's the problem?

Dean's decision had nothing to do with Kerry or any other Democrat. It had to do with Bush.

If Kerry feels very strongly about this. Then he shouldn't do it. Period. The winner of the New Hampshire Primary will advance and the loser will have to drop out. If he beats Dean in New Hampshire, it's over for Dean. If Dean beats Kerry, it's over for Kerry.

It's a moot point.

But this is just another chance to bash Dean. That's why my frustration level with Kerry is reaching maximum proportions. He is so desperate. It makes him look pathetic.

He's basically going around saying 'if I can't be President. Dean can't be either.' It's sad and pathetic.

[Cha]

4. Thanks for this post, jeter!

It needs to be said!

[HFishbine]

5. Um, you know

You are free to express your views and all, but one day not too far from now, Dean and Kerry supporters are going to have to kiss and make up, one way or another. I don't think taunting is very productinve. My $0.02.

[blm]

6. Dean started the attacks on Kerry while Kerry was off the campaign trail

following his surgery. Did that bother you?

If you are concerned with plagiarism, I suggest you read Kerry's foreign policy speech and note the date, and then read Dean's. Then do the same with Kerry's environmental policies that he has honed over the last few years and then read Dean's speech on the environment.

Then I'd like to hear an honest evaluation.

[hannah]

8. Kerry

I like John Kerry, he is a Democrat, I like all Democrats, but really get pissed off when i have to hear Democrat bashing. I see enough of this in the newspapers , hear enough on Tv and here on DU. Stop making everything so personal and support a Democrat for God sake..

[blm]

12. Dean made his name attacking the other Democrats.

Now, so many who applauded then want those same targets of Dean's to not reciprocate. Peculiar standard.

[jeter]

15. what attacks exactly?

Or some phantom attacks which allows Kerry to attack Dean.

[blm]

25. Jan.23

Dean said the others were Bushlite.

He said they supported Bush's taxcut for the wealthy when NONE of them did.

After a rousing speech by Kerry, Dean followed starting his speech by saying Kerry gave his speech and then said that people don't want Bushlite and they don't want Deanlite, either. Insulting Kerry on the spot. Then the Dean campaign started the Kerry copycat meme.

Dean also said a few months back that Kerry needed a backbone transplant.

[jeter]

28. Ha Ha Ha, that's funny

Did Deany Weany hurt your feelings?

One statement at the beginning of a speech is much different than Kerry's campaign of evil against Dean.

[blm]

30. You really have a perception problem.

Honest Dean supporters recognized early on that Dean attacked back then to make his name. They thought it was a legitimate strategy for an unknown.

[MessiahRp]

9. It's not Dean's support of guns....

that bothers Kerry, it's Dean's stand on assault weapon bans which he is giving lip service to by denying but he has openly supported previously. Also his endorsement by the right wing facist NRA should bother us all. All those guys are vehemently against what we all stand for. Assuming of course that most of us believe in at least a somewhat progressive agenda.

Rp

[jeter]

18. What bothers Kerry is that he is 20+% behind in NH polls

[sandnsea]

10. Gephardt says he's the "Deanslayer"

Deanie's don't care about that bash. Only what Kerry has to say. What's up with that? What's the obsession with Kerry? Could it be you know that Kerry is everything Dean pretends to be?

[jeter]

11. Ya Gepthardt is the other one so is Lieberman

The Washington Three, I call them.

[blm]

16. What were YOU doing while Kerry and Gephardt were working

against Reagan and Bush all those years. Then against Gingrich and his onslaught? Who exposed BCCI, IranContra and CIA drugrunning? Who put together the first antidiscrimination bills? It was guys like Kerry advocating LOUDLY for gays who cleared that path for future lawmakers.

They did it IN WASHINGTON DC.

Dean wouldn't even take a stand against IranContra. Says he has "mixed feelings" about it. NOONE has mixed feelings about IranContra. Nobody but rightwing insiders.

[jeter]

19. Get off it.

Kerry and Gepthardt could have led the fight against Bush NOW. They could've raised some arguments about the war. But neither did. They saw their political opportunity and gambled that the war would be popular - so who cares about convictions.

That's what bothers me most about that. Both men say they are "anti-war" and have been in the past. Both men opposed the first Gulf War, where you had a clear violation of Internation law by Saddam Hussein. A clear objective. A clear exit strategy.

Yet, when there was no such violation. When their was no plan and no exit strategy. They support the war.

Tell me that wasn't based entirely on politics.

The last person on Earth who should be crying about flip flops is John Kerry.

[blm]

23. It wasn't and if you used greater comprehension of the whole picture

you'd know it yourself.

Kerry worked with Clinton in 97 and 98 on an Iraq strategy that included removing Saddam. He was being consistent not political, and if you were more cognizant of the issue back in 98, you'd know that.

Kerry and Gephardt also negotiated and got a better bil than the real blank check Bush wanted. Of course if you think the UN should have been dissolved as an international institution involved in the process, and if you think that Iran and Syria should have been invaded, then by all means stick to your way - Kerry and Gep SHOULD NOT have gotten that better bill and paid for it with their votes.

[jeter]

24. Oh Ya, Kerry was a real hero

Keep on spinning blm, let's see how dizzy you get.

[blm]

27. That's your answer? What do you know about recent history

and the entire Iraq issue of the last few decades?

If you call what I said spin, then you do not have a grasp of the facts.

[jeter]

33. Which facts?

Okay you want to debate this...let's go.

I'm not some pot smoking peacenik over here. I supported the first Gulf War. I supported the Kosovo campaign. I supported Clinton's attacks on Iraq during his impeachment. I even supported the war in Afghanistan.

But this is how I see it. September 11th, we were attacked by Al Quada and Osama bin Laden. We declared war on them. We began a larger war to "root out terrorism."

Then all of a sudden we started fighting someone else under the auspices of terrorism, which the lying President has since admitted had no connection.

I remember the day after Sept 11, when those Anthrax spores were first circulating. I remember hearing about Iraq having spores. I remember watching asshole republicans going on Cable news shows talking up how evil Saddam was. And that's when I realized it. That these bastards were going to use what happened on September 11th to go to war against Iraq.

To me, this is the equivilant as if after being attacked at Pearl Harbor, and having Germany declare war against us, we decided to attack the Soviet Union. Couldn't all the arguments made about Saddam be made against Stalin? Wasn't Stalin a brutal dictator who killed his own people? Didn't Stalin have WMDs? Wouldn't he have used them? But we didn't attack them. Why? Because FDR wasn't a fucking moron the way Bush is. We had a war to fight. AGAINST THOSE WHO ATTACKED US.

That was it. If I knew this. How could Kerry not know that these idiots were willing to throw away the coalition in the war against terrorism. Were willing to get us distracted on this stupid war against a two-bit dictator. Who, as it turns out, didn't even have WMDs.

That's why I opposed the was against Iraq. Because it was the most reckless act by any US President in my memory.

That Kerry supported it only shows one of two things:

a) he has no judgment
b) he's a political opportunist.

Either way, I don't want him as my President. So don't give me this bullshit about 1998. What happened in Iraq had nothing to do with that.

[Padraig18]

26. Kerry abdicated his constitutional duty, plain and simple.

Congress, not the President, has the power to declare war. If Kerry understood the Constitution and had been loyal to his oath of office to protect and defend it, he would not have voted for the IWR.

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'" --

--- Congressman Abraham Lincoln, 158 years ago

[blm]

29. Yet Dean was fine with IWR with the Biden-Lugar amendment

which meant Bush would STILL have had his war and Dean would be lumped in the prowar category.

[Padraig18]

32. The issue is *Kerry's* abdication, not...

... some theoretical 'what if' to do with Dean. The one is fact, while the other is speculation.

[sandnsea]

34. 200 years of history says you're flat out wrong

The President has either been given authority by Congress to conduct military operations as he saw fit during times of international tensions, like Washington and the Quasi War; or hasn't sought Congressional approval at all, like Jefferson using forces against the Barbary Pirates. You are holding one man to a higher level than any other U.S. Congressman or President has been held in 200 years.

[Padraig18]

36. Not at all.

This was not a defensive action, nor was it (like the Korean War, Desert Storm, etc.) a UN-sanctioned affair, which makes it 'legal' under US law. Kerry cannot abdicate the mandates of the Constitution.

[Cha]

17. kerry is nothing but disappointment.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/7209567.htm

"How John Kerry gambled and lost"by Cynthia Tucker

"Kerry's malaise can be traced to one act, one decision, one vote: his support of the resolution giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq. Had Kerry voted "no," he'd be the Democratic front-runner right now, bringing credibility on foreign policy because of his military service while also easily upstaging Wesley Clark on domestic policy.

Even now, a year later, Kerry has trouble giving a cogent rationale for his vote to go to war. You'd think a man like Kerry - a decorated Vietnam veteran who later became an outspoken critic of that war - would have a succinct, indeed passionate, explanation for his vote. But Kerry stammers, sputters, doubles back, never able to give a short and simple response. Perhaps that's because Kerry's vote was based on politics, not principle."

[Cocoa]

13. for a long time he refused to mention Dean

reporters were begging him to respond to Dean's attacks, and he declined. It caused a rift in his campaign staff.

[jeter]

20. what attacks?

[Cocoa]

21. I don't remember

I just remember seeing him on some NH street on C-span with a pack of reporters asking him to respond, and with a chuckle he said he'd rather talk about his own programs, and rather criticize Bush than his fellow dems.

[jeter]

22. Well I can't respond to phantom attacks

[Cocoa]

31. fine

keep believing Kerry attacks Dean endlessly.

All I know is what I remember, regardless of whether you respond.

[Skinner]

35. I'm locking this thread.

It's unnecessarily inflammatory.

Skinner
DU Admin