QandO

September 02, 2004

Kerry wants it both ways on defense
Posted by McQ

Sometimes while reading a column or commentary you come across a line that is a real zinger. Ralph Peters, in today's NY Post has one. Discussing what he felt was a "disgraceful" speech yesterday to the American Legion, he had this to say:

Kerry's so shameless that he once again tried to associate himself with John McCain, a true American hero, in his remarks. He almost made it sound as if they'd been in a North Vietnamese prison together. But Kerry's brother-in-arms isn't Sen. McCain. It's the naval hero of Chappaquiddick.

Zing.

Of course Peter's theme is Kerry wants to have it both ways on defense. Not a new point but one that Peters makes well:

Kerry's speech to the veterans was condescending in other ways, too. It assumed that vets are so stupid they can't do basic math. Kerry claimed he'd reduce the deficit, while expanding the military and buying every weapons system in sight, increasing veterans' benefits, bringing health care to all Americans and, of course, creating millions of new jobs that pay phenomenally well.

I remarked yesterday about Kerry's condescension. Peters also notes the promises which don't add up if you look at them fiscally. As someone pointed out, in all his spending programs, Kerry is promising a little less than 2 trillion in additional spending but his plan to pay for it all, by taxing the top 2% at a higher rate, will only yield 600 billion. Any guess as to where the difference must come?

Specific promises Kerry made were outright nonsense. He claimed he'd double the size of our special operations forces. Sounds great. But to do so would rob regular line units of critically needed, experienced NCOs and officers, fatally compromise the high standards of our special operators and take at least a decade — unless he means to ruin special ops entirely.

And Kerry's going to increase our ground forces by 40,000 troops. Good idea. But he's not going to send them to Iraq, you understand.

Having it both ways again.

Kerry said we should never go to war without a plan to win the peace. Agreed. But where was he 18 months ago, when such a criticism could have made a difference?

Back then, he was voting for the war. Before he opposed it. Before supporting it again. Now he's against it again. Although he supports our troops, of course.

Does Kerry have no shame at all? No spine, whatsoever? Is it possible to be nothing but a bundle of pure ambition, with no shred of ethics? Is Kerry so hungry for office that he'll change any position to buy a vote?

I sometimes wonder if Kerry just doesn't understand the different reality running for national office brings vs. running for what is essentially a local or at least state office. In the new reality, everything you say or do or have said and done is on the table and examined with a microscope. Every misstep, misstatement, flip or flop is highlighted and compared to what you said or did before.

Yet, in spite of this being obvious to all the the terminally stupid, Kerry presists in trying to have it both ways. He seems not to understand that while it may have worked in Kennedy country, it doesn't (and isn't) working in his run for the presidency.

I don't know. I've heard Bush called everything from a idiot savant to dumber than a box of rocks, but as I watch the campaign unfold its not Bush who appears unable to understand how this all works.

Its Kerry.

Kerry's the guy who, at the beginning of August, stated that we need to withdraw troops from Germany and South Korea. Then, as soon as President Bush announced a plan to do so, Kerry thundered against the idea. Confronted with his own remarks — made only two weeks earlier — he claimed that, well, yes, he thought we should withdraw troops, only not the way the president proposed to do it.

The guy is an eel in a vat of olive oil.

Yesterday, John Kerry tried to pander to America's heroes, conveniently forgetting that he'd trashed them for political gain, then shortchanged them throughout his Senate career. Suddenly, Kerry was the man who had fought for benefits for his fellow Vietnam vets, the man who felt their pain (Kerry makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity).

The only veterans' benefit young John Kerry fought for was the right of vets to be spit upon in public.

Pretty harsh, but to the point. The Kerry record is now going to become public, but not in the way the Democrats would have prefered it be presented. That's their fault. People are going to be asked to compare what he promises to what he's done. He doesn't come out well in such a comparison.

As Zell Miller said last night:

Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.

Methinks the Kerry campaign fascade, so carefully constructed during the Democrat campaign, is about to come tumbling down, and the harsh reality of what Kerry is "deep inside" will be exposed for what it really is.

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