Transcript: John Kerry on CNN's "Your World Today"

[fedupinBushcountry]

CNN

SPEAKERS: SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MASS.
JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR

CLANCY: Well, Democratic senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry says the president's speech did not address all of the core issues that face Iraq. We asked him earlier if he thought that the president had accepted responsibility for the situation in Iraq today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KERRY: First of all, last night, the president said mistakes had been made. He didn't say they were his. And he accepted responsibility for those mistakes. He didn't say I made mistakes. So there is a distinction.

Secondly, what was absent from the president's speech last night, regrettably, was the political solution, the diplomatic political solution that is critical to ending the violence. The president, the secretary of state, the former secretary of defense, our generals, have all said, that this can not be resolve military.

And yet all you heard last night was really the military piece of this. If you don't resolve the question of oil revenues, if you don't resolve the federalism issues between Sunni and Shia, you don't have a hope to end to this sectarian violence. And unless the principal leaders, Mr. Hakim of the SCIRI Party, Muqtada al-Sadr and Mr. Maliki, et cetera, all come together, this is not going to end. The violence won't end, and our additional troops will be put at greater risk, become a bigger target, and we'll have been down this road before.

You're putting forward a bill, which would demand that the president get Congress' approval to increase these troop levels. Doesn't it just face an obvious veto? What would be the effect?

KERRY: The effect is to make it clear that we're exercising our constitutional responsibility and our responsibility to troops, frankly. You know, these young people are amazingly courageous. Their lives are on the line. We owe it to them to have the best policy for them. And I don't think we want them being sent out on missions that are preordained to fail, or to put them at a higher level of risk without resolving the fundamental problems in Iraq itself.

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http://www.johnkerry.com/news/articles/newsarticle.html?id=111

[Mass]

1. It is globally a great interview.

A very small regret though, that is common to most interviews that I read. Democrats seem to be so afraid of being labelled weak in defense that they weaken their answers themselves.

In this interview, Kerry makes very clear that attacking Iran is a bad idea and this is great. However, he finds necessary to defend himself by stating the obvious: that we should defend ourselves if attacked. While I would not be afraid of this with Kerry, Gore, or most other Democrats in power, the problem is that there is no guaranty that the present administration would not use such a scheme as a pretext to provoke. I was happy to see Hagel make the point this morning and would have liked to hear more Democrats state that. Except that, good interview.

Same thing with the surge. It is clear that Kerry is more than against a surge. Somehow, though, his phrasing could make think he could support more troops in some hypothesis (and may be he does). However, while the fact that he can think about different options and situations is one reason why we like him, for most people, it weakens his argument. The point should be that he does not support the escalation(no if).

[sandnsea]

2. MSNBC too

He said we had a right to go over borders if we were after someone who had attacked our troops. On the one hand, it opens the door to Bush using those words to justify phony excursions into Iran. On the other, if he doesn't add it, then too many people would be ready to attack, including our own Dems. Bush's saber rattling at Iran and Syria was the scariest part of his comments last night, and if we don't want that to happen, we better draw that line clearly. The military knows their rules of engagement, and nothing more needs to be said about hot pursuit scenarios.

[Mass]

3. I was not aware he had been on MSNBC. When was that?

[sandnsea]

4. He spoke to Andrea Mitchell

This morning some time. Sounds like he said the same basic stuff you heard. I don't remember if she said the interview was taped just before he went into the hearing or just after he came out. Sorry I don't remember more, my doctor keeps telling me my thyroid medication is going to help this memory stuff some day. :(