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Last updated on July 26th, 2017 at 01:52 pm
“The major speech I delivered yesterday has generated an amazing response,” declares the latest exciting email from johnkerry.com:
As I made clear yesterday, there is no reason Iraq cannot be be relatively stable, no reason the majority of our combat troops can’t soon be on their way home, and no reason we can’t take on a new role in Iraq, as an ally not an occupier, training Iraqis to defend themselves by the end of 2006.
Now, I need your help to put pressure on Republican members of Congress to stop going along with the Bush administration’s disastrous “stay as long as it takes” approach and to start exercising their critical oversight role.
It may take months of effort and organizing by all of of us to break through. But, I promise you this, we won’t stop working until we do.
So Kerry’s going to stay as long as it takes. Most underworked staffer in the Kerry office: proofreader.
- Sorry, John, couldn’t catch your speech. I was busy watching the Astros not win the World Series.Posted by david on 2005 10 27 at 12:49 PM • permalink
- Someone needs to create a JohnKerry.com email generator (unless they already had). All you need to do is include heavy use of “important”, “major”, “amazing” to a chili recipe and you’re already halfway there.Posted by withcheese on 2005 10 27 at 12:49 PM • permalink
- Why is this guy still getting traction? Surely he should do a Gore and realise that it’s time for him to go?
Sorry, Gore’s where?
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 10 27 at 12:52 PM • permalink
It may take months of effort and organizing by all of of us to break through. But, I promise you this, we won’t stop working until we do.
I think this last line is remarkably astute for John Kerry. Eventually, forces will be drawn down as ever greater responsibility gets handed to the Iraqi’s. With the sentence above, no matter when it actually happens, John Kerry can claim his strategy worked.
Posted by tim maguire on 2005 10 27 at 01:25 PM • permalink
- That Kerry email arrived with the Subject Stop Bush’s cutting and running from the truth
Leaving aside Kerry’s fatal attraction to coordination (one word will never do), I wonder if he knows where “cut and run’’ came from.
It came from cutting a vessel’s anchor cable and fleeing the scene.
It’s a repressed Vietnam experience.
- Speech Draft: Excerpts
Italicized portions were removed while Senator Kerry was bicycling down the dock to his windsail.The time has come for the nation to come to grips with our choices in Iraq and change our course. 2,000 brave United States troops have lost their lives and their sacrifice and service serve as stark reminders of the consequences of decisions for which we elected leaders in Washington share responsibility. 150,000 more brave American men and women are still there – fighting a war in conditions which grow increasingly more dangerous every day. And by “dangerous” I mean my presidential prospects in 2008 given the successful “election” of a Constitutional Assembly in January, the writing of a “constitution”, the impending “elections” in December and the near collapse of the Sunni insurgency.
We owe our troops leadership equal to the tremendous sacrifices they are making for this country and for our long-term security. We owe it to our troops to speak truth to power [raised fist salute] and start speaking out about ways to change our course in Iraq and start bringing them home. The country was misled into this war by a President and an Administration who appear today to have put politics and narrow ideology ahead of sound honest national security policy. Oh, and forget all that silly talk I made in 1998 and again in 2002 and 2003 about Iraqi “threats” and “chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities”: that was a 12-pack of Sam Adams Light talking. And that Joint Congressional Resolution thingy: that orange suntan thingy makes me groggy.
I have been to Iraq twice in the last year. I have traveled across America, visiting and talking with troops, parents and friends of loved ones serving so far away, generals, former diplomats, experts in the region and average citizens. It is increasingly clear that the American people – most importantly, the families of the brave men and women serving in Iraq – can no longer tolerate George W. Bush’s failure to spell out an honest, reasonable, and detailed plan of action on Iraq. Other than putting 250,000 Iraqi troops in the field, building about a bazillion schools and power plants, increasing oil production and revenues beyond what was obtained under President Hussein, guiding a constitution writing process and catching my French mayor cousin red-handed with Iraqi oil concessions in his back pocket. Beyond that, zippo, nada, zilch. If the President refuses to act, we must call on Congress to take the decision out of his hands. But don’t ask me what I mean because my schtick is sonorous pontification, not “answers” or “ideas”. My chief of staff takes care of stuff like that.
And on and on and on ad infinitum.
- As I made clear yesterday, there is no reason Iraq cannot be be relatively stable, no reason the majority of our combat troops can’t soon be on their way home, and no reason we can’t take on a new role in Iraq, as an ally not an occupier, training Iraqis to defend themselves by the end of 2006.
Does this make any sense at all? Iraq is stable because our combat troops are there, patrolling and fighting terrorists so that Iraqis can be trained to defend themselves NOW. Not by the end of 2006, as of this very current minute
Kerry’s Plan:
1. Pull out combat troops
2.
3. Return to a stable Iraq to train defense forces
- #9 Hellbilly makes my day.
OT, but the U.N.’s independent inquiry report fingers Galloway , beginning on page 71.
Oh how I’ve been waiting for this! The fawning smoochprints that the radio-lefties have been showering upon this thug … ooooo … They’ll be choking on this for weeks!
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 10 27 at 03:54 PM • permalink
- quotes from John Kerry:
“[WE]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.” – Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
“I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force—if necessary—to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.” – Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
BUt hey! even saddam believed he had weapons of mass destruction.
- Vasco:
Kerry’s Plan:
1. Pull out combat troops
2.
3. Return to a stable Iraq to train defense forcesUnderpants Gnomes’ Plan:
1. Collect underpants
2.
3. Profit!Coincidence? You be the judge!
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2005 10 27 at 04:33 PM • permalink
- Kery also claimed that Bush should “have listened to Gen Shineski’ and put lotsa more troops in Iraq just before he said we have too many troops in Iraq and should pull some out. To quote someone I’m too lazy to look up and give proper credit to, “he was for more troops in Iraq before he was against it.”
Remind me again why big-brain Kerry didn’t sweep to election?
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2005 10 27 at 06:44 PM • permalink
- It wasn’t enough that he bored everyone with his “I have a plan” non-plan during the 2004 campaign. Now we have the “no reason why not” underpinning for a peaceful withdrawal which is so stupidly wrong that you have to wonder how Kerry can find his shoelaces in the morning.Posted by Mr Hackenbacker on 2005 10 27 at 07:26 PM • permalink
Most underworked staffer in the Kerry office: proofreader.
Hey, it’s all the poor bastard can do to keep the bolding and caps down…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 10 27 at 07:34 PM • permalink
- I’ve been trying to find out more about the Georgetown gig – who sponsored it, how many in the audience, etc.
No idea about audience size, but according to this Georgetown event calendar entry, the speech was sponsored by the “Georgetown University Lecture Fund” which is a student group or somesuch. They can’t have considered the speech all that important though…on the Fund’s own site, the “Upcoming Events” section stops at October 7th.
- WaPo’s Dana Milbank (emphasis mine):
Kerry, for his part, is having difficulty in his bid for a political second act. A Pew Research Center poll this week found that 52 percent view Kerry favorably—putting him behind likely 2008 rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards. Kerry’s five previous speeches this year billed as “major” did not grab the national imagination, and the transcription services that rush to record major events in Washington did not bother yesterday to post Kerry’s speech.
Incidentally, apparently Kerry’s position now is that we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq at all:
History will judge the invasion of Iraq one of the greatest foreign policy misadventures of all time. But the mistakes were not limited to the decision to invade.
Note that he’s not saying that anything else should have been done about Saddam (except a useless throwaway “should’ve given the inspectors more time” line). In fact, he’s at his isolationist best when he says:
The truth is, if the Bush Administration had come to the United States Senate and acknowledged there was no “slam dunk case” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, acknowledged that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, there never would have even been a vote to authorize the use of force—just as there’s no vote today to invade North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or a host of regimes we rightfully despise.
Keep that in mind the next time a shrieking lefty asks why we’re not on the way to Pyongyang yet.
Anyway, his fundraising numbers must be down dramatically if he’s so blatantly pandering to the most moonbatty part of the anti-war left.
As I made clear yesterday, there is no reason Iraq cannot be be relatively stable, no reason the majority of our combat troops can’t soon be on their way home, and no reason we can’t take on a new role in Iraq, as an ally not an occupier, training Iraqis to defend themselves by the end of 2006.
Future speeches by John Kerry:
There is no reason we can’t
– eliminate global warming by 2007
– turn China into America’s corner take out restaurant by 2008
– make the Muslims and Jews like each other by 2009
– make the Chicago Cubs the World Champion by 2010It’s only a matter of will. And Kerry will do it.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 10 27 at 10:02 PM • permalink
OT, but the U.N.’s independent inquiry report fingers Galloway , beginning on page 71.
Oh how I’ve been waiting for this! The fawning smoochprints that the radio-lefties have been showering upon this thug … ooooo … They’ll be choking on this for weeks!
BWAHAHAHAHA!
Snoop, do you honestly believe these assholes will waver in their opinion of him one bit?
“It was a frame job!”
Being a leftie means never having to admit you’re wrong.
Besides, their heroes also include Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. What’s a little graft to these moral Helen Kellers?
- If we deconstruct the speech we get to the Senator’s main idea, turn Iraq back over to the British. Or if they don’t want it then the Ottomans might be interested.Posted by Pat Patterson on 2005 10 27 at 11:02 PM • permalink
- John Kerry. Important only unto himself.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 10 27 at 11:56 PM • permalink
- #35 Then there will be ample reason for Iraq not being stable. The troops will be gone.
I think you’re missing the point of Kerry’s brilliant policy. If we withdraw the troops, Iraq it wont be a ‘quagmire’ any more…it will just be yet another massacre of brown people perpetrated by other brown people that barely makes it on to the nightly news or the left’s radar screen.
Problem solved, leftie style.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 10 28 at 01:59 AM • permalink
- PIMF – sorry for the surplus ‘it’. Wronwright, can you add it to the emergency letter supply cabinet?Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 10 28 at 02:00 AM • permalink
- Hmmmmmm? Doesn’t ‘host’ mean a great many? Perhaps John ‘Rambo’ Kerry would like to identify just a few of all those others who make up this “host of regimes we rightly despise”? I’ll bet the host would like to know who he thinks they are. And are they on the ‘Axis of Evil’ or the ‘Axis of Weasels’ or what?Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2005 10 28 at 02:30 AM • permalink
- Byrd:
It may take months of effort and organizing by all of of us to break through. But, I promise you this, we won’t stop working until we do.
I think this last line is remarkably astute for John Kerry. Eventually, forces will be drawn down as ever greater responsibility gets handed to the Iraqi’s. With the sentence above, no matter when it actually happens, John Kerry can claim his strategy worked.Sigivald:
wonder what Non-President Kerry’s reaction would be if he was told that we’re training Iraqis to defend themselves right now, before even the end of 2005?
It’s almost as if President Bush was co-opting his plan, a year in advance!
It is really obvious. When Bush eventually conforms to something along these lines (which I imagine is pretty close to the plan anyway – that is draw down troops into late 2006), good ol’ John kerry can pop up and say ” Good on you for finally listening to me, but hey, you’re doing it wrong, though”.
- 33 Dave S
Snoop, do you honestly believe these assholes will waver in their opinion of him one bit?
Well, no, but it makes easier my vocation of mocking them.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 10 28 at 12:02 PM • permalink
- #22 Debo: You can find a video of the speech at C-Span.org, under their recent programs listing, about three pages in.
Boring, typical Kerry, painful to watch.
He suggests we should’ve listened to Gen. Shinseki who claimed we would need a larger occupying force, then Kerry quotes Gen. Casey’s recent Senate testimony—who stated that we need to reduce the size of our footprint (occupying army) in Iraq, as our large size imhibits the ability to transfer responsibility for security operations to the Iraqis.
So, typical Kerry, he’s in favor of both a larger occupying force, and a smaller one, too! Pathetic.
- Forbes—Maybe a smaller force of bigger soldiers…?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 10 28 at 07:55 PM • permalink
- Well, technically Kerry’s in favour of more troops having been there back in 2003, and fewer troops now. That’s not yet a logical contradiction, but once you think through it chronologically, this means he would have been in favour of a large-scale (100,000+) removal of troops in the intervening two years, something he will obviously never assert directly.
Of course, his thinking must be that a larger invading force would have crushed the insurgency right from the start, but given how there’s ample evidence that these guys (particularly the imported jihadis) know how to lay low and wait for their opportunities, that’s merely wishful thinking. So, what his grand plan amounts to is: Move in with tons of unneeded troops, fall into a false sense of security because there’s little terrorist activity, then withdraw 100,000+ troops early and while the training of the new Iraqi troops is not yet finished, all but announcing to the terrorists that now’s the time to strike.
Such nuance by the Senator. By which I mean, “typically half-baked liberal idea that assumes that everything will go perfectly”.
