Mr. Kerry, why did you vote against the first Gulf War?

The fifth largest military on earth attacked a sovereign nation with whom we had long-standing relations, seemingly unprovoked, and annexed it for oil and access to the sea.

Why did you vote against it? You are the experienced hand in foreign affairs, are you not?

Although I can see some reasons, will the general public? We were duplicitious and/or incompetent during the buildup to it, but once it happened, we did the right thing, and did it in a politically sensible way.

More importantly, what will his "answer" be? It had better be crystal clear and somewhere about eight syllables or less; he'd better have it right, and he'd better have it right the first time. Does this sound probable?

This man is supremely vulnerable, and it's going to be a very contentious and underhanded campaign. He's fought back nicely and sounded resolute of late, and he's chosen to make the subject of debate of his own choosing instead of letting the Junta decide, but how will things like this play?

The next President will also have to build consensus; even if elected, how many hard shell conservatives will be able to look their constituencies in the eye while dealing with an Elite Massachusetts Limousine Liberal? They can get away with dealing with a backwoods Southern Lawyer, but can they with the epitome of New England Urban Aristocracy?

If the South is largely ignored, the quarter billion dollars (probably more) of Junior's warchest can be targeted at key states.

We have a fabulous candidate at hand (Edwards) who can pull all sorts of votes that Kerry can't, and we are on the verge of throwing it all away.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

For all my many faults, I'm a hardcore left liberal, and have been since my political awakening in late grade school years.. The use of an obvious conservative catch phrase is precisely that: calculated diction. Those are the terms they'll use against him.

Go page through my well-documented past for the last three years on the board; I may suck, but never have I been anything approaching a conservative.

This is a serious issue. Combative though my style often is, I don't use conservative rhetorical techniques like shouting down rivals or preemptive ridicule. (Rejoinder ridicule, now there I've sinned aplenty...) Hell, the number of times I've made essentially the same accusation you're using against people who call other people "whiners" is beyond tiresome.

What answer do I clearly not know? My contention is that this is a devastating broadside that will definitely be fired, and I don't think there IS a good answer, nor do I think he'll have a quick and decisive one. That's a problem.

Maybe it's smug, but I remember all the heat I got in 1980 telling Kennedy supporters that the inevitable question about Mary Jo Kopekne was something that couldn't be avoided and made him unelectable. Big questions need to be asked.

Don't you think this will be asked? Don't you think it's a serious problem? Do you think he'll handle it deftly?

Finally, what the hell is this "toss slurs at both major candidates" all about? I'm an unabashed and annoying John Edwards partisan and have been since 2001 to an irritating fault. He IS the other major candidate, right?

Oh, and Edwards was in his late thirties at the time, but you're just being silly there, right?

A University of Connecticut poll shows that President Bush would lose the state to Massachusetts Senator John Kerry if the election were today.

Kerry, who is leading the race for the Democratic nomination, would beat the Republican president by 49 percent to 36 percent.
If Senator John Edwards of North Carolina wins the presidential nomination, the polls shows a dead heat between him and Bush. Each would receive 38 percent.

(snip)

Four years ago, then-Vice President Al Gore won Connecticut with 56 percent of the vote.

more…
<http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=1679566&nav=3YeXLCXX>

He wanted to exhaust diplomacy. That time, he voted against the war and it burned him badly politically. Now he voted for this one and it burned him even worse. I prefer the former to the latter.

edit: What his real motivation was is open to debate, but I would say in both he went half politics half convictions. In the first instance the politics was to stake out a bold position, in the second the politics was to prepare for the coming campaign. Going half convictions half politics will get you every time, and that appears to be what he did. Edwards did a similar thing on the China trade agreement, and his war vote is less palatable to me since he stands wholly behind it. If Kerry's vote was political, I'm glad he recognizes his folly. If Edwards's vote was wholly honest, I wish he would recognize the war is a bad thing.

I'm with you on most of that, but there were many interim votes along the way with the China policy where Edwards (unlike Kerry) voted for such things as adding language to certify that no slave labor was used, adding provisions to take into account damage to American manufacturers and the like. (DjTj posted a very nice thread on the subject that was an eye-opener.)

I hate the IWR vote too, and Edwards' handling of it of late also annoys, but this will not be an issue in the general election.

As for exhausting the diplomacy, that was a naked aggression from someone who wasn't going to leave. Whether other pressures could have been brought is another matter; to the public, it will look very timid and odd.

I'm trying to present this through the prism of who can best win the general election, nothing more.

1) Because the Bush Administration had refused to object to Saddam's plans to invade Kuwait before the war, even after the Iraqi government revealed them.

2) Because the United States is not the world's policeman and neither can nor should intervene everywhere.

3) Because retoring the Kuwaiti ruling family was in itself immoral. The Kuwaitis are greedy autocrats who practically enslave most of the people living in their city state and are utterly undeserving of US protection or support.

4) It is by intervening on behalf of corrupt autocracies like Kuwait that the United States has managed to engender the emnity of the Arab world, encouraging young Arabs to join terror groups and kill us.

Hell, it was either complicity on April Glaspie's and the rest of the mob's part to let him stick his neck out so we could lop it off, or just good old fashioned Republican incompetence. (Or a smattering of both, like most things.) Sure, Hussein probably thought it was payoff for snuffing all those Iranians, and sure he probably was just on some hubristic high, but so what?

Kerry can't actually SAY any of those things. He can't say we're absolute skunks and that he's been part of keeping our skunkiness hidden from the world.

Number 4 cuts the other way, too: we were HELPING an innocent muslim regime.

Number 3 says that we're in bed with a pack of hyenas, and we have no problem with cutting them loose as we please. Not only do we support people who suck, we're not even dependable.

Number 1 smacks of wacko conspiracy theory, even though it's well enough documented to hang some people in a real democracy.

Number 2 pisses all over the triumphal ego-superiority that we are the kindly big brother who steps in to put things right.

Fair, schmare; what'll he say?

People with any brains already realize he knows it. As for the rest? They would never understand what he was saying anyway after the Rethug spin machine finished twisting his every word into something he never actually said. Oh well.

Don

What makes it especially difficult is that the reasoning behind his vote against the first Iraq Resolution and for the second are inconsistent. I haven't heard a good explanation from Kerry yet, and I think it will really hurt his credibility in the fall. People ultimately choose a commander-in-cheif they trust to make the right decisions on their behalf. Credibility is much more important than experience.

i dunno if i would have voted for it either to be honest
i would have seeked another route for change
we did after all create the man
i dunno
seems like we backed saddam when he fought iran but when he lost we turned a cold shoulder to him. *shrugs*. i mean lordy, how do i know some of those chemical weapons he used didnt come from us? so he looses a war , and iraq needs a way to rebuild itself. so theres the obvious thing, the oil. only thing is, kuwait is taking oil from southern iraq via pipeline and selling it cheaper to us and the world market, thus keeping him from getting more oil revenue. not to say he didnt have any money at all, obviously he did, he just used it on himself.
i dunno
the whole thing just stinks to me
they were both so buddy buddy for so long i hafta wonder.

Saddam is an evil guy tho, glad he is outa his dictatoring job, but it shoulda been handled differently. there were other ways i think. not this going in guns blazin' mentality. we should lead by example, not threat of brutal force. thats what america should really be known for.

at any rate
im crazy
just for the record

I think a lot has changed in how the public views foreign affairs since 9/11, so I don't know how fair it is to criticize Kerry for his belief that sanctions could have done the trick back in 91. That said, I do believe we'll be facing about $50 million in ads from Bushco saying that even though Kerry wants to give the UN a veto over the use of force (a lie), Kerry voted against the UN when they needed him most (a lie), and chose not only to keep Saddam in power, but also in control of WMDs (a lie). Whether or not Kerry can talk his way out of it or not remains to be seen, but my critique of him so far has been that he hasn't been very forceful when confronted with old votes (calling them "silly" or "labels" won't work in the GE).

Anyway, I'm in till the end and if Kerry is who we get, then Kerry is who will get my vote.

and I hope it doesn't. We've got a FABULOUS candidate at hand.

Edwards is literally the best candidate this party's had in 40 years, and this party is looking over its shoulder, wetting its finger and trying to convince itself that it's actually convinced itself, all for the sake of avoiding the hideous reality of LETTING OUR VOTERS TELL US WHO IS THE BEST STANDARD BEARER TO PUT FORWARD.

If he's nominated, I'm going to twist and dodge, protect and serve, deflect and excuse, and make sure he gets elected. Until then, I'm dedicated to making sure my beloved party of internecine idiocy snaps out of it for once before repeating the '84 election.

CNN American Morning Transcript
Location: Manchester, NH
Date: 01/27/2004
CNN American Morning Transcript
January 27, 2004 Tuesday 7:07 AM Eastern Time
http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=M000027573&keywo...

HEMMER: Senator, the war continues to be a big hot-button issue here in New Hampshire, especially between you and Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont. You voted against the first Gulf War. You voted in favor of the past war in Iraq. Howard Dean says your logic is backwards. He told Wolf Blitzer yesterday-and I'll quote him now-“Perhaps my foreign policy experience and judgment might be better in the White House than his”-meaning you-“since he seemed to have voted wrong on both wars.”

Your response to that is what, Senator?

KERRY:

But, look, there is a very direct answer to both of those questions. I said we had to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. I said his invasion would not stand. I knew we had to use force ultimately, or might have to use force ultimately. I simply thought, given my experience in Vietnam and given Colin Powell, who was joint chiefs of staffs, reservations and other people, we ought to take another month or two to build the support in our country. And I though it was worth building that support, because when you go to war, you want to make sure the American people are really supportive if things go badly.

Secondly, with respect to this, nobody voted precisely for a war. They voted for a process. They voted to go to the U.N. They voted to build an international coalition that was legitimate, voted to have inspections exhausted, and voted to go to war as a last resort, which is what the president promised us. The president broke every single one of those promises, not to mention misled America with respect to the intelligence, which we now all know.

I stood up for the security and the common sense with respect to the soldiers who fight wars. I've been one of those soldiers. I know what it means when you lose the consent and legitimacy of the American people in a war. And as a president, I think there is a special test as to when you send young American men and women off to fight and die. I know that test, and as president, I will live up to the highest standard with respect to that.

but I kind of laughed when I read that Kerry said "I said we had to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait." Sorry, but Kerry seems to say a lot of things he professes to be his deeply held beliefs, but then votes in a contrary manner. I can't see how this WON'T be a bigger issue in the future.

This will definitely come up, and if he did say at the time that he felt waiting to build popular consensus was necessary, that's going to be a bit of a tricky sell, but it's something.

They'll hit him with the riff about real leaders not paying attention to the polls and just following what they know is right. There's a mote or two of truth to that concept, too, but more importantly: it's the way people perceive it. If you thought it was the right thing to do, but that it might be somewhat unpopular, a real leader would simply do it post haste.

Bear in mind that I actually do like and respect the guy, for all the frustrations. My take is just an absolute need to wrest control of this government out of the hands of these jackals, and with popular perception being what it is in politics, Kerry has real built-in weaknesses. Good thing he's a certified war hero, or he probably wouldn't even be up for consideration. Sadly, though, the "approachable guy", "unflinching leader", "no-nonsense man of the people" and other lowest common denominator traits all play into his weak suits.

He's gonna have an uphill battle with the anti-intellectual U.S. of A. Don't forget, too, that lots of the South still hasn't gotten over the Civil War; as my Grandmother once told me: "I was eight years old before I realized Damn Yankees was two words". (Not makin' it up folks, she was UDC, and even though she was educated and she could see the humor in it, it was no joke.)

Still, there are some fun bumpersticker possibilities if he gets the nod: "War Hero or War Zero?" or, say "War Hero or Warmonger?"

When asked why we were going to war in Kuwait, said that we can't allow the world's great oil reserves to fall into the hands of one dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Out came the "Hell no, we won't die for Texaco" signs. In case you were in grade school, Texaco was an oil company.

So then they changed their tune. It was about jobs. What?

Then, "I'm very concerned that Saddam Hussein is building weapons of mass destruction".

What were we fighting for? We were keeping the world safe for monarchy. Who knew it would be a cake walk?

Voted for:
Breaux (D-LA)
Bryan (D-NV)
Gore (D-TN)
Graham (D-FL)
Heflin (D-AL)
Johnston (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Reid (D-NV)
Robb (D-VA)
Shelby (D-AL)

Voted against:
Adams (D-WA)
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bentsen (D-TX)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boren (D-OK)
Bradley (D-NJ)
Bumpers (D-AR)
Burdick, Quentin S (D-ND)
Byrd (D-WV)
Conrad (D-ND)
Daschle (D-SD)
DeConcini (D-AZ)
Dixon (D-IL)
Dodd (D-CT)
Exon (D-NE)
Ford (D-KY)
Fowler (D-GA)
Glenn (D-OH)
Grassley (R-IA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatfield (R-OR)
Hollings (D-SC)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerrey (D-NE)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Metzenbaum (D-OH)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Mitchell (D-ME)
Moynihan (D-NY)
Nunn (D-GA)
Pell (D-RI)
Pryor (D-AR)
Riegle (D-MI)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanford (D-NC)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Sasser (D-TN)
Simon (D-IL)
Wellstone (D-MN)
Wirth (D-CO)

Edwards would get killed in the general election . . . Bush would eat him for dinner (experienced "daddy" vs. novice "kid") . . . the driving factor this primary season is beating Bush, and the voters have determined (and rightly so, imo) that Kerry at least has a viable shot . . . Edwards doesn't . . .

for the purpose of establishing permanent military bases in the region. The war could have been prevented by the US ambassador to Iraq. She instead , encouraged it. His vote against the war was the correct one. And as we saw, the so called 'fifth largest military on earth' was a paper tiger. If it hadn't been , the war would not have happened.