NH JJ Dinner - Kerry Cspan2 - Democratic Underground

sandnsea

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Fri Oct-13-06 07:30 PM
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NH JJ Dinner - Kerry Cspan2

I am a terrible live blogger, hopefully some others will jump in. And here's some expected excerpts:

They tell us we’re making progress in Iraq and that there is no civil war. That is a lie. There is a civil war and it is costing American and Iraqi lives every single day and we must change course in Iraq.

They tell us the Congressional Page scandal is a Democratic plot to win the mid term elections. That is a lie. This issue is here because of a Republican cover-up. And those from the Party that preaches moral values that covered this up, have no right to preach moral values any more.

They say we must support the war in order to support the troops. I say the best way to support the troops is to oppose a course that squanders their lives, oppose a course that dishonors their sacrifice, and oppose a course that disserves our principles. They say we would dishonor the lives that have been lost by changing course in Iraq. How immoral and shameful to use lives already given as an excuse to take even more. How immoral to say that more must die because others already have. When soldiers suffer and die on the altar of an Administration’s stubborn pride, when they lose limbs because of the incompetence and arrogance of mere politicians, then the only patriotic choice is to take back the moral authority abused by those in high office – take it back and throw them out.

In New Hampshire, Congressmen Bass and Congressman Bradley have failed to ask the tough questions, failed to demand the answers, and rubberstamped a willful president’s wrongful course. That failure demands the independent voice of New Hampshire be represented by the independent voices of Paul Hodes and Carol Shea Porter!

Let me tell you, presidents and politicians may worry about losing face, or losing votes, or losing legacy – I believe we ought to worry about young Americans who are losing their lives.

It’s immoral for old men to send young Americans to fight and die in a conflict without a strategy that can work – on a mission that has not weakened terrorism but worsened it.

Well I think Americans see through this charade. Americans now know the truth:

We have a Katrina foreign policy –blunders and failures that have betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it.

We deserve leaders who know we have “nothing to fear but fear itself” not politicians who have nothing to offer but fear itself.

No Democrat should be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan, a do nothing policy in North Korea and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq. We need to stand up to them because staying the course isn't far-sighted; it's blind. Leaving our troops in the middle of a civil war isn't resolute; it's reckless. Remember: half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion.

We need to once again start treating our moral authority as a national asset that does not tie our hands but extends our reach. We must never excuse an Abu Ghraib or a Guantanamo. And let me say it plainly: No American president should be for torture before he's against it.

So more than anything, we need to make America, America again –we need to restore America’s moral authority in the world and the United States needs to make some friends on this planet.

There are more Katrinas. Take health care – health care is a slow-motion Katrina that’s ruining lives and bankrupting families all over the country. In the almost six Bush years, health insurance premiums have gone up 73 percent.

You want a test of family values? Here’s a really simple test: Instead of people earning a million dollars a year getting another tax cut, give every child in America health care – now!

So our job as Democrats is to fight until we stop allowing the richest country on the face of the planet to be the only one that doesn’t have health care for every man, woman, and child. The Democratic Party must stand for health care for all Americans—or we don’t stand for anything at all.