I’m so fed up with all the distortions, blatant lies and slander I could scream. George W. Bush and his team have no ethics and it makes me sick.
Ok, so what’s John Kerry for, and how has he voted? For a brief encapsulation:
Now, if you really, truly want to take the time to find out exactly how he voted on various issues during his Senate career, you can find that information here, at vote-smart.org. You could also visit his website at http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/ if you want to know about his “principles and beliefs.”
Basically, he’s a liberal Democrat who wants to re-establish cooperative relationships with other nations so that we don’t have to fight all our battles virtually alone; who wants to fund research into renewable energy sources and alternatives to oil in order to reduce our foreign dependency on it, not drill into the Arcitic Refuge for what would amount to 6 month’s worth of fuel; who is angry that so many millions of Americans have no health insurance coverage, and wants to create a system whereby everyone who wants to participate in the same plan that Congress gives themselves, can; who is concerned that rising healthcare costs are a big part of what’s driving so many American jobs overseas and who wants to create tax incentives for businesses to keep those jobs here; who wants to expand after-school programs, as he said in a speech I heard him give in Los Angeles last week, [paraphrased] so that our schools don’t become farm systems for our prisons; who is appalled that 45% of our nation’s rivers, lakes and streams don’t meet standards that would make them fishable, swimmable & drinkable and wants to implement a “Restore America’s Waters” campaign to repair some of the damage.
We’ve had 3½ years to see exactly how abysmally George W. Bush has performed on these issues and how he’s bulldozed over our allies and enemies alike in international affairs. If you aren’t afraid of another 4 years of a President who has driven our economy into the ground, destroyed or damaged our reputation throughout the world community, lied to us repeatedly and shamelessly on everything from WMD in Iraq to the true extent of his Medicare bill’s costs, believes (and tries to legislate) in theology over science, and wants to be the first President to put hate language into our Constitution, then I don’t know what else can be said to possibly convince you that voting for John Kerry is critically important.
Thanks Shayna, thats the kind of stuff I was looking for, something that lays out a position that can be debated from, and at least attempts to debate the points brought up by the Republicans. I’m away on travel today so I can’t sift through it all, but when I get back in town I will take a hard look at it all. Appreciate it.
Thanks also to RedFury, RTFirefly, Sam Stone and Hentor the Barbarian for bringing data to the debate.
Shayna: wow. That was one ass-kicking post. My hat’s off to you.
One other thing Kerry did that was politically risky (together with John McCain, before he was a superstar) was to investigate the whole Vietnam POW-MIA business in the early 1990s, and finally (finally!) put it to rest. This was politically risky, because the POW-MIA fanatics, though numerically small, were well-organized, adept at publicity, and refused to give up. Kerry and McCain verified one more time that it was quite unlikely that any of the MIAs survived long enough to be captured by the enemy, and we wound up recognizing the Vietnamese government.
(IIRC, various branches of the US government had thoroughly investigated the “MIAs: only Hanoi knows” claims on three different occasions in the decade after we pulled our troops out of Vietnam, and came up with the same answer every time: no reason to think a single one of them either was alive, or died in captivity. Vietnam had jungles and stuff; it’s no surprise we had a couple thousand MIAs. We had literally tens of thousands of MIAs in just the European theatre of WWII, and we had the run of the battlefields afterwards. Nobody was saying, “MIAs: only Germany knows.” Yet the Vietnam MIA issue refused to die a natural death.)
“…In perhaps his biggest break with liberal orthodoxy, Kerry was one of relatively few Democrats to vote for the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill in the 1980s to force spending cuts to meet binding budget targets. Later he voted to give presidents “line-item veto” authority over individual items in appropriations bills…”
…As Dean pointed out in a debate in South Carolina, Kerry has few if any laws that bear his name. But neither do many other influential senators, because most bills are folded into other legislation and put in final form by committees, whose senior members are usually identified as sponsors. Kerry is a senior member of the foreign relations, finance and commerce committees but has chaired only the small-business committee – a far less prestigious panel than the others – for a brief period…
…“He’s intelligent, he’s serious, a real hard worker . . . but he’s not in the cloakroom telling dirty jokes . . . like some of 'em,” said Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), who has endorsed Kerry’s presidential bid. Hollings and Kerry disagree on many issues, including trade, but Hollings remembers how Kerry helped him with legislation to protect the textile industry during the 1980s… (Kerry and Hollings worked together to pass three different bills to help the textile workers of South Carolina. They were vetoed by Republican presidents)
Tsk, tsk. . .don’t you guys understand? Kerry’s record is bad. He didn’t do a single thing while he was in the Senate. You there, piping up about Bush fils and his lack of a record. Put a sock in it. He voted against keeping our troops safe. He flip flopped. He brought on a trial lawyer as a running mate.
I would even imagine that he doesn’t care for barbecue.
And you want to throw out such crap as BCCI and Iran/Contra. Old news! What’s he gonna do about winning the war on terror? Which is really not that much of an issue this week, but it’s liable to flare up at any time. Especially in a month or so. Or whenever. But don’t let that keep you from shopping! Gotta do your part to keep our economy chugging. I hear that either of the Dakotas are nice this time of year. Or Wyoming. You should go.
But we were talking about terror. Did you hear? I said terror! And You don’t wanna switch horses in mid-stream. Zell Miller wouldn’t want that, and doesn’t Zell look like your great-grandfather? Crazy as a shithouse rat, snuff dribbles running down his chin, a Confederate pistol near to hand. Remember? Great-grandpappy?
Oh-HO! Now we are GETTING somewhere! So Dubya’s hatred of Kerry goes back even farther than when Saddam tried to whack his daddy to when KERRY TRIED PUTTING DADDY IN JAIL, eh?
Hmmm, interesting side note. Bush has been keeping the Reagan Papers out of the public eye, based on an Executive Order and a rather flimsy legal artifice. The papers that have the real skinny on the whole Iran-Contra mishigoss.
If Kerry gets into office, we can probably assume those papers will be released, and we will get the real skinny. Not implying anything. Just sayin’, is all.
Just for future reference, FactCheck prefers that their articles be reproduced in full, without edit or emphasis of any kind that deviates from the original. It is one of the reasons that I so respect them.
Great post, Shayna. Just to point out for those who don’t click on the links, these are links to www.factcheck.org which, like spinsanity, is committed to correcting errors in fact whoever makes them. They are not partisan defenses of Kerry’s record.
At This url you can see actual photocopies of a handbill directly from John Kerry in 1984. This directly contradicts those of you claiming that Kerry’s anti-defense votes were really just votes against omnibus bills or other senatorial compromises. Here’s John Kerry’s ‘Defense Plan’ quoted directly from that material:
That backs up EXACTLY what Zell Miller said. in fact, I’ll bet you he took he speech material from this.
John Kerry was, in 1984, in favor of CANCELLING the Harrier jet, the F-15, F-14A and D, the Phoenix and sparrow air to air missiles, the Aegis cruiser, the Apache helicopter, the Patriot missile, the B-1 bomber. He wanted to reduce funding for the Tomahawk cruise missile by 50%.
ALL of these weapons systems have turned out to be highly successful, critical tools in the U.S. inventory.
And bear in mind that Kerry wanted to cancel all these in the height of the cold war. As I said, he was bitterly opposed to Reagan’s defense buildup.
Still two months ago. Maybe Kerry will find an excuse to bring up this stuff during the debates, when the whole world is watching. Assuming there will be debates – and since the Commission on Presidential Debates (http://www.debates.org/) has already scheduled three of them, in swing states where the voters might get pissed if W disappoints them by not showing up (September 30 at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida; October 8 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri; October 13 at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona; vice-presidential debate October 5 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio), I rather expect there will be debates.
We already ripped the crap out of this lame claim here..
Use your brain for a second and ask yourself, for example, if CANCELLING the Aegis system would yeild only $800 million, or if that is more in line with eliminating ONE Aegis Cruiser, which were replaced by Aegis Destroyers anyway. And the Tomahawk nuclear missle was ELIMINATED by GHW Bush 7 years after Kerry proposed cutting it. There are other misstatements here as well. Check the thread.
Thanks for the cite, Sam. I think it’s rather interesting, though, that this is being used against Kerry. From the paper:
Since, 5 years later, Sec. of Defense Dick Cheney actually wanted to cut the Apache program (and later, further production of Bradley fighting vehicles) due to budget constraints, I would think that Kerry actually knew what he was talking about. And, furthermore, tells me: Kerry actually has an idea of “how much military is ‘too much’”, and “how will we deal with our economic woes?”
On preview… regarding Hentor’s post:
I also see that Kerry keeps up to date with what military programs can/should be canceled, in order to cut back on wasteful spending.
Wow, indeed! Thank you guys very much for the kind praise. I’m feeling a bit embarrassed, but thrilled that I could provide information that might be helpful or enlightening. It’s so important that we get the truth out there! And I’m really glad that others have elaborated with information about Kerry’s leadership role in the BCCI and Iran/Contra scandals and his joint effort with McCain to finally put the MIA issue to rest (he actually stood with McCain in McCain’s former “Hanoi Hilton” cell!). More on that…
There’s more – it’s definitely worth registering to read, if you don’t already have a login there. I think it exemplifies the spirit, fortitude and diplomacy that John Kerry possesses, and which he would bring with him to the Presidency.
Liberal, while I do appreciate you trying to ensure that FactCheck.org’s copyright rules are followed, a careful reading of them will show that in fact, I was in compliance. While they prefer articles reprinted in their entirety, they * do allow* for excerpts to be published, and make no mention of not using emphasis, so long as those excerpts maintain the original context and integrity of the piece, which I believe you will find mine did. I chose to use excerpts, in an effort to save bandwidth for the SDMB, to make my point as succinctly as possible (that post was long enough as it was!) and because I trust Dopers to actually click through to links when they’re provided.
Not to mention that Sam points us to one bill from 20 years ago, while completely ignoring the fact that “Kerry voted for Pentagon authorization bills in 16 of the 19 years he’s been in the Senate.” (quote repeated from above FactCheck.org cite.)
Again, I must commend Mr Stone for his impeccable sources. For after perusing his latest link for a bit, I found the following, rather astonishing information on Senator Kerry. In fact, I am rather surprised Mr Stone didn’t bring it up in his very first post to this thread. Too modest I guess – for if the following bit of knowledge is not enough to dissuade you from even thinking of voting for Mr. Kerry, well, I simply don’t know what will.
Ok, ok, I give! Call me crazy, but I wanna live! Bush it is! Bush it has to be!
::::shudder::::
Thank you, Mr. Stone, for saving my life – I feel deeply indebted to you. May this post save many more. But please, don’t thank me; Sam’s the only hero here…for it was only through his amazing dilligence and objectivity that I happened upon said site.
I’m just the messenger. In the nick of time one can only hope.
You must have posted the wrong link. The thread you posted had Mr. Moto and Shodan opening up a pretty big can of whup-ass on you.
We are all speculating about just what John Kerry meant (what’s new?). Sure, it’s possible that he meant cutting just one cruiser. On the other hand, maybe he was talking about savings for the current fiscal year only. But I will concede that he was likely talking about just one Aegis cruiser.
I know a lot more about aviation than Navy stuff, though, so let’s go down that path, shall we?
First, the F-15. Given the date of the memo and the amount that Kerry wanted to cut, it looks to me like what he wanted to cut was the F-15E ‘Strike Eagle’, which became operational in 1987. Earlier variants of the F-15 were air-to-air fighters. The Strike Eagle was a radical new plane with all new avionics, radars, weapons delivery systems, and other advanced features. The Strike Eagle is superb aircraft that is still being produced 20 years after being developed, and it is planned to be in the inventory until 2030, which is an amazingly lifespan for a fighter jet.
The proposed F-14 cancellations look to me like he wanted to completely scrap the development of the F-14D (which entered service in 1988), and cancel the last procurement of the F-14A. A $1B cut would be about 40 aircraft, or at little less than 10% of the F-14 fleet.
His proposed cut to the Apache looks to me like a complete elimination of the program, or at least a drastic scaling back. In 1984 the Apache was in production, but wouldn’t be delivered for two more years. It was undergoing early production teething problems, and I remember a number of Democrats demanding that it be scrapped. Of course, the Apache went on to become one of the most useful weapons systems in the entire U.S. military, doing yeoman service in Panama, the first and second Gulf wars, and all over the world. It has been a real workhorse.
Kerry wanted to cut the Apache by 1.4 billion in 1984. By 1984 only 65 Apaches had been built. Over the next five years, about 450 more Apaches were built - 1.4 billion dollars would have represented a significant fraction of those. I can’t remember how much the Apache cost in 1984 dollars - An Apache today costs about 18 million - in 1984 it was probably in the range of 3-4 million, as a guess. In essence, a 1.4 billion cut would have gutted the program.
Likewise, the Patriot cut would have been a complete elimination of the program. And the Patriot HAS been an effective weapons system. Its mixed results in shooting down SCUDS in the Gulf war has caused critics to say it was a waste of money, but they forget that the Patriot is actually a ground to air missile designed to shoot down aircraft - the reason it was pressed into service against SCUDS was because it had exceeded its design parameters substantially and it was felt that it was good enough to shoot down missiles. And in any event, the Patriot was very valuable in the Gulf war as a psychological weapon.
Are you aware that the nuclear-tipped Tomahawk was only one minor variant? In fact, the Tomahawk has been one of the most successful weapons systems the U.S. has built. Seventy of them were fired at Taliban targets in Afghanistan. Four hundred Tomahawks were fired in Desert Storm, in Bosnia, and in Iraq in 1996. The Tomahawk was extensively used in the last war. It can be fired from ships, aircraft, and submarines. The existence of the Tomahawk gives the U.S. a stealthy, powerful, precision attack system that can sneak through enemy forces and deliver blows to command and control facilities, factories, etc.
That list above only touches on the opposition to the military presented by John Kerry in the 1980’s. He opposed almost all of Reagan’s strategic military moves. He advocated a nuclear freeze. He opposed the MX missile. He opposed the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. He opposed the anti-communist insurgency funding wherever Reagan wanted to engage in it.
1984, Sam? 20 years ago, Sam? Wow, guess we’re lucky he didn’t vote against the Gatling gun.
But seriously, Sam…if a decidely right-wing non-partisan like yourself, who famously reserves judgement in these matters… if the best support for your charge of undue non-vigilence is twenty years old…doesn’t that seem to you, well, a bit weak?
The Patriot missile, its fair to say, has been amply discussed in these pages. Mr. Miller’s legendary spitballs are equally effective, and don’t cost a gazillion bucks apiece.
Activities of the House Committee on Governmental Operations
And not to forget the B-1 bomber. A strategic weapon in a street-fight world, its capacity to evade camel-borne anti-aircraft radar is the stuff of legend. Had the Taliban an air force, or if Saddam had an air defense system that wouldn’t have been bitch-slapped by the Flying Tigers (in original equipment)…perhaps then the B1 might have proven its crucial importance to national security.
(Did the B-1 see action against Grenada?..)
Maybe we should look at them as part of the Republicans Raytheon/Boeing Full Employment Initiative (a good way to keep retired generals off the welfare rolls!) Or as ongoing support for small businessmen and entrepreneurs. Can’t really say they are small business. Damn sure entrepreneurs. Gotta give 'em that…
