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FEBRUARY 2, 2004
- In Thursday night's debate, John Kerry, on two separate occasions,
emphatically claimed to have never said things that he had
absolutely said. (see article here)
Now The New Republic, a left-wing
publication, is starting to leak some of the case they have against
Kerry - which they will use if he is the nominee - and the first
thing they show is Kerry caught dead on being the worst kind of
dishonest, doublespeaking politician.
As first reported
here in October of 2002 and redredged up
here
last week, during the first Gulf War, John Kerry sent two letters to
the same person within two weeks of each other, one professing to
have "unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the
crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military
deployment in the Persian Gulf," and a second claiming that he had,
"voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that
economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a
resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to
war."
According to TNR, the Kerry camp claimed
it was an accident, that the pro-war letter was outdated and
shouldn't have been sent.
Here is the text they excerpt from the
two letters:
"Thank you for contacting me to
express your opposition ... to the early use of military force
by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On January 11, I
voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that
economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a
resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to
war."
"--letter from Senator John Kerry to Wallace Carter of Newton
Centre, Massachusetts, dated January 22 [1991]
"Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support
for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have
strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response
to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our
military deployment in the Persian Gulf."
"--Senator Kerry to Wallace Carter, January 31 [1991]"
Looks pretty damning, huh?
Well, the left-wing is good at this.
We saw them try to play this game recently against General Wesley
Clark, trying to paint him as playing both sides of the fence in the
most recent Gulf War. (see
article here)
In this TNR article, the same nonsensical smearing seems to be
occuring.
If you look at the two letters, and take
into account what the Kerry camp said - that the letter supporting
the President's policies unequivocally was outdated - you can see
that the explanation the Kerry camp gave is plausible.
Nowhere in the "unequivocally supported"
letter does Kerry mention war or military action. It simply
states he agrees with "the policy goals" President Bush had
established at that time which, if the letter was from before
President Bush's policies included invading Iraq, could be
consistent with Kerry's stand as expressed in the other letter.
The, "Thank you very much for contacting
me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in
response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait," could easily be a generic
type intro line meant to make letters seem more personal.
So while it is not certain that Senator
Kerry was not playing both sides of the fence, sending two exactly
opposite letters to supporters depending on what their positions
were, contrary to TNR's claim, these two letters are in no way clear
evidence of Kerry being a doublespeaking waffler.
Kerry, in fact, has always been pretty
darn clear that he opposed the first Gulf War.
In reality, that is maybe worse than
doublespeaking, from our perspective, since the first Gulf War was
fought directly in response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait,
a just cause. But Senator Kerry, having crusaded against the
covert operations of the Reagan/Bush years - such as their horrible
Central American policies - may have opposed the invasion on the
grounds that Saddam only invaded Kuwait because we had made him
powerful enough to do so.
In any case, this is not the charge
leveled against the Senator by the TNR. The charge they make directly is that they have clear
evidence that he is a dishonest doublespeaker. In fact, they
do not. Their evidence is in no way conclusive and may show
nothing more than sloppy constituent servicing by Kerry's staff.
If The New Republic wants clear evidence
of Kerry being a dishonest doublespeaker, they should come on over
to The Moderate Independent and read our recent
debate coverage. When we make a
claim, we actually back it up with full, detailed evidence that
truly supports the claims we make. Because at M/I we know that
only hatefully un-American Bush/Limbaughians accept anything they
can use to push their side while trouncing the other, without regard
for truth, integrity, or morality. | 
