Reply #138: TRANSCRIPT (with link and quote) [View All]

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http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0401/23/cf.00.html

BEGALA: He never showed up. It's certainly not desertion. But it's certainly not fulfillment of one's obligation. It was your hometown paper. I mean, you must be familiar with

(CROSSTALK)

KERRY: Paul, that's not -- that's not the ground I want to fight this campaign on.

And I'm very proud of my service. I'm glad that I got the experience I got. And I'm proud of the friendships I have from it. But a lot of us decided many years ago not to make the other choices people made an issue. It was a very complicated time. It was a very difficult time. What I want to talk about now is the future, how we bring the country together over a war that has been bum-rushed at the American people.

Their -- the president did not do, I think, the diplomacy that the United States of America deserves, that the world deserves, before you take a nation to war. There's no graver decision that a president makes. And when the international community is sending you every signal in the world, slow down, let's do this in a responsible way, a president ought to listen. This president didn't.

And now the American people are over $200 billion out of pocket. Our American soldiers are more exposed than they ought to be, because they are not sharing the risk. It's the wrong way to take a nation to war. It was the right thing to do to stand up to Saddam Hussein, but he's done it in the wrong way.