Kerry seeks advantage on security issue

[papau]

Like Bush, he'll be strong. Unlike Bush, he'll be smart

http://www.jsonline.com/news/nat/jul04/247222.asp

Kerry seeks advantage on security issue
By CRAIG GILBERT
[e-mail]
Posted: July 28, 2004
Boston - John Kerry's convention speech tonight will cap a weeklong effort to convince voters of his strength and toughness and take an issue that has sometimes bedeviled Democrats - national security - and turn it against President Bush. <snip>

"John Kerry will be just as tough and just as strong as George Bush when it comes to the al-Qaida threat," Kerry foreign policy spokesman Jamie Rubin told reporters Wednesday. "But he will be far, far smarter, far, far wiser getting the support of friends and allies around the world to fully defeat not only the terrorists but to isolate the Islamic extremists rather than isolate ourselves."<snip>

"American foreign policy doesn't actually change that much from administration to administration," said Rubin, who was State Department spokesman under President Bill Clinton.

The Kerry adviser went on to suggest that the big disagreements between Kerry and Bush are not so much about America's foreign-policy goals and objectives but the best means to those ends.

"The basic goals are not that different," Rubin said. "George Bush and John Kerry want to eliminate al-Qaida. George Bush and John Kerry want to establish stability and democracy in Iraq; George Bush and John Kerry want to prevent the threat of weapons of mass destruction. . . . The big difference is the way you go about doing this in the world. John Kerry will get the rest of the world working with us to achieve those goals."<snip>