QandO

September 01, 2004

American Legion cools toward Kerry
Posted by McQ

Although greeted with a standing ovation and applause at times in his address to the American Legion convention in Nashville, when Kerry began talking about Iraq, the temperature in the room became noticably cooler:

His words were received coolly by the veterans. While Kerry had been greeted with a standing ovation, and received repeated applause when he spoke of his domestic agenda and support for expanded veterans' benefits, the room remained silent as he detailed his view of what went wrong in Iraq.

You might say they don't agree with him. You might say that'd be an understatment. Of course he obviously didn't understand the audience cues when he saw them and rambled on:

"When it comes to Iraq, it's not that I would have done one thing differently. I would have done almost everything differently."

Which of course has the benefit of 20/20 hindsight to make Kerry appear, at least to those who don't look to closely or think too deeply, to know what he's talking about. Apparently the members of the American Legion have looked closely and do think deeply ... and just as apparently they don't agree.

"I would have relied on American troops in Tora Bora, the best troops in the world, when we had Osama bin Laden in our sights trapped in the mountains.

"I would not have sent Afghans up into those mountains, who a week earlier were fighting on the other side. I would have sent the best trained forces in the world to get the number one criminal and terrorist in the world,"

This from the man who would be commander-in-chief. Shades of LBJ calling the bombing targets in North Vietnam and Jimmy Carter trying to run the Desert One debacle. The translation here is "I would have determined the troop deployments and I would have chosen who would make the attacks". Screw the military commanders on the ground who know the situation best.

No thanks ... we've had those types of C-in-C's before and they were awful.

But that wasn't enough. Condescension was next:

"Now, I know that some of these things are hard to listen to," the candidate said, breaking from his written remarks to acknowledge the silence. "I know that it's always tough to talk truth to power".

What truth? We only know he claims he'd have done almost everything different. However we have no real idea what that means except his promise he'd have gotten more allies involved. That in the face of the poltical realities found in the nations he claims he'd have involved that scream even to the politically blind that it wouldn't happen then and will never happen now.

That and his naive assumption that had American troops been tromping around in the Tora Bora he'd have gotten bin Laden? Hell, we don't even know for sure if he was there. Another empty bit of rhetoric which points to his agenda's vacuity.

Kerry added that he would have given weapons inspectors in Iraq more time to search for weapons of mass destruction, not because inspectors would have found all the weapons, "but because by doing do, we could have brought other countries to our side."

It seems everyone but Kerry and company understand that this is absolute nonsense. Yet in the face of that, with clear hints from the allies he continues to insist that he can bring on board that its not going to happen, he persists in claiming it will. Its mind boggling to watch him continue to push this laughable claim as the primary fix to Iraq. Its a pipe dream.

The Bush campaign answered Kerry's claims thusly:

"John Kerry's claim of consistency is just another reason he is losing credibility with the American people," spokesman Steve Schmidt said in a statement. "This is a candidate who voted for the war, voted against the troops, said he was an anti-war candidate, and then said he would make the same vote for the war again. The only way to keep track of his position on Iraq is to follow which position benefits him politically."

Today that position is "I'd have done everything differently".

Tune in tomorrow for the new stance.

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