Statement of John Kerry Responding to Republican Distortions, Pathetic Tony Snow Diversions and Distractions

Washington – Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show hosts desperately distorting Kerry’s comments about President Bush to divert attention from their disastrous record: “If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did. I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have. The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor. Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.”

If it is possible for a statement to be more then 100 percent true, then Senator Kerry’s comments qualify. As to this Kerry and G.O.P. Spar Over Iraq Remarks

Then, Mr. Kerry said: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” President Bush, campaigning this afternoon in Georgia for a Republican House candidate, condemned Mr. Kerry’s remarks as “insulting and shameful.” “The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer armed forces are plenty smart and are serving because they are patriots — and Senator Kerry owes them an apology,” Mr. Bush said, according to the White House.

No Mr. Bush it is you and your supporters that owe the troops and their families an apology for lying them into a war that had nothing to do with 9-11, Al-Queda, or keeping America safe, Bush Insists ‘I Didn’t Want War,’ Overwhelming Evidence Suggests Otherwise

British Memo — Bush, Blair Agreed to Invade In Late Jan. 2003:



A memo of a two-hour meeting between [Bush and Blair] at the White House on January 31 2003 – nearly two months before the invasion – reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme. [Guardian, 2/3/06]



Richard Clarke Said Bush Pushed Him To Make Case for Iraq War: Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism director: “Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq. And we all said … no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. … The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, ‘I want you to find whether Iraq did this.’ Now he never said, ‘Make it up.’ But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this. [CBS 60 Minutes, 3/21/04]

Bush, Bush’s Congressional handmaidens, and Bush supporters have in fact been criminally negligent in how they handled Iraq ‘s reconstruction. Negligence that has contributed to the deaths of our troops and Iraqis, Unqualified But Well Connected: Bush Cronies Gone Wild

On Sunday, the Washington Post chronicled how the Bush Administration’s pattern of rewarding unqualified political cronies with jobs has hindered the Iraqi reconstruction efforts. These GOP allies were given jobs based on their political service in campaigns not their experience or expertise in the respective areas of reconstruction including security, health care and finance. This is just the latest example of the Bush Administration’s continued practice of putting their party above the needs of the American people. Over the past five years, the White House has installed Bush cronies in all corners of the government, regardless of their qualifications, with serious, sometimes harmful consequences as a result.

This what Republican Mary Katherine Ham had the nerve to say on Fox News, Fox Blasts Into Turbo-Driven, BREAKING NEWS Overdrive to Spin John Kerry’s Remarks



It’s a reflection on what we’ve come to expect from Democrats which is at best an unseriousness about national security and at worst, it seems, maybe a contempt for those who provide it for us.

Well M’s Ham thinks she and her like minded clones were very serious when they sent troops to die for a lie and then put cronies in charge instead of professionals. Are Bush supporters even capable of finding Reality Street. This is what a Republican blogger and proud member of the Bush Cult called Riehl World View wrote – Tuesday, October 31, 2006 at 01:44 PM in Politics

In a despicable and insufficient response to his comments insulting American men And women in uniform everywhere, John Kerry is attempting to turn the tables to make it appear as though it were someone else’s fault he made his pathetic statement. This is the man that the Democrat Party nominated for President in 2004. Every candidate running for office under a Democrat banner this year needs to denounce John Kerry and his disgusting comments, which betray his small-minded, elitist thinking, that American servicemen are somehow less than him and less than the college audience he was addressing.

For Riehl the truth is a lie, evil is good, bad is good, losing is winning and one of the most despicable things Riehl and his mindless clones will ever see is that reflection in the mirror. Welcome to Republican world where they don’t need no stink’n reality, Republicans in Congress Refuse to Demand Accountability in Iraq; Billions of Dollars Wasted, Our Mission Undermined

1) Halliburton billed taxpayers $1.4 billion in questionable and undocumented charges under its contract to supply troops in Iraq, as documented by the Pentagon’s own auditors. 2) Parsons billed taxpayers over $200 million under a contract to build 142 health clinics, yet completed fewer than 20. According to Iraqi officials, the rest were “imaginary clinics.” 3) Custer Battles stole forklifts from Iraq’s national airline, repainted them, then leased the forklifts back to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) through a Cayman Islands shell company — charging an extra fee along the way. 13) Halliburton actively discouraged cooperation with U.S. government auditors, sent one whistleblower into a combat zone to keep him away from auditors, and put another whistleblower under armed guard before kicking her out of the country.

Halliburton is just another name for Republican. Look at the scorecard, the actual facts, who supports the troops and who has stabbed them in the back as Riehl, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin and Bush give them nothing but lip service, Who Supports The Troops? Democrats, As It Turns Out

Bob Cesca remembers that golden memory of President AWOL inviting the Iraqis and Al-Queda to kill our troops, Remember “Bring ‘Em On,” Mr. President?

Americans, and especially military families, should never forget that their Commander-in-Chief actually encouraged Iraqi insurgents to attack our soldiers. “Bring ’em on” could be the most irresponsible gaffe in a long history of gaffes uttered by President “Get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit” Bush, and quite possibly the most irresponsible statement in the history of the presidency. And that’s saying a lot. Amongst the other not-stupid-duh-but-stupid-evil comments we find, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,” or, “And Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job,” or, “Just so long as I’m the dictator,” or, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” and the list goes on and on and on. President Bush’s “bring ’em on” remark in July, 2003 quite literally invited the deaths of American soldiers. For this one statement alone, President Bush has forfeited his right to comment on, exploit or joke about any gaffe spoken by anyone ever. EVER. Nailing Senator Kerry on his gaffe isn’t just hypocritical like, say, Larry the Cable Guy criticizing another comedian for being unfunny, or Bill O’Reilly questioning someone else’s honesty. No. President Bush gaffed up a huge puddle of blood and death.

Senator John McCain had a spine once, he was never a politician whose policies were anything but pandering to the raw meat eaters, but at least he used to have a spine. Now he has sold it based the the slightest chance the Rove political machine will let him be president, Kerry Responds to Desperate Bush Smears – Media and Blogosphere in a Frenzy

Kerry aide David Wade: “When will John McCain ask his new Republican best friends George Bush and Dick Cheney to apologize for misleading America into war and giving us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it? John McCain’s neoconservative pals are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.”

A moderate conservative, a nearly endangered species writes, Look- A Rabbit

Again, I wish Kerry had not made the remark (or phrased it better), but really, it changes nothing. The Republican party has no plan for Iraq other than rhetorical shifts, their policies are not constructed or implemented to actually accomplish anything but rather to maintain Congressional power, and we all will be better off if the GOP is swept out of power. The Republicans are corrupt, morally bankrupt, have no ideas, no principles, and are hoping upon hope that this latest distraction will help to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, the bleeding they care about is at the polls and not the bleeding in Iraq.

Meanwhile Senator George Allen’s (R-VA) staff physically attacked a Marine veteran today, because said veteran dared to ask the infallible representative of all that is White about Allen’s arrest record and allegations that Allen abused his first wife, George Allen’s thugs attack journalist

Let’s add up the score for today: The fringe right attacks John Kerry for a joke gaffe about a president whose lies, distortions, comically tragic planning and failed policies have killed thousands of Americans. The fringe right Republicans swear that Bush’s cronyism and ineptitude are a great reason to vote Republican so we can continue to have more dead troops, but swear they care about the military. They attack a Marine for asking a legitimate question during a campaign stop of a known bigot and serial liar. Sane Americas are asking why these conservative reprobates aren’t all in a padded cell eating toothpaste.

Oh, did I mention that American troops are now under the command of the Iraqis.

“Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur.” – Raymond Chandler