Findings mirror campaign views in '04, he saysBy Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | December 9, 2006
WASHINGTON -- In the heat of the 2004 presidential campaign, Democratic nominee John Kerry declared that President Bush "should convene a summit of the world's powers and Iraq's neighbors" to help stabilize the country.
"Second," Kerry urged on Sept. 20, 2004, "the president must get serious about training Iraqi security forces."
Shortly thereafter, the president derided Kerry's call for a regional summit, saying, "I've been to a lot of summits. My friends, a summit is not a plan."
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Republicans, not surprisingly, disagree with Kerry's perceptions and the notion that the Iraq Study Group represents any sort of vindication for the 2004 nominee.
"John Kerry proved incapable of taking a coherent position on Iraq during his failed presidential bid and was benched in the final days of the '06 elections for insulting our troops," said Danny Diaz, spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "Needless to say, he is simply not credible when speaking to the war on terror's central front."Snip...
"I think Kerry is relatively inarticulate," said Jeremy Pressman , a political science professor at the University of Connecticut. "His ability to express things in a concise way is not so good."Still, Pressman said, Bush had an inherent advantage in 2004 in being able to portray the Iraq war in patriotic colors.
"There is something inherently easier to portraying the pro war, jingoistic picture," said Pressman. Kerry, he said, had to argue that he was "against the war but not pro-Saddam Hussein. He had to argue that the war is wrong and is being fought incorrectly, but not be against the troops."
But even Pressman noted that parts of the blueprint Kerry laid out in his bid for the White House have now become standard talking points about the war.more... By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2003; Page A10
Republicans jumped on Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday in the wake of reports that the Democratic presidential candidate had told a New Hampshire audience that "we need a regime change in the United States."
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"What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States," Kerry said.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) led the chorus of GOP critics who attacked Kerry for challenging Bush during wartime. "Senator Kerry's remark, equating regime change in Iraq with regime change in the United States, is not what we need at this time," Hastert said. "What we need is for this nation to pull together, to support our troops and to support our commander in chief."
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Kerry spokesman Robert Gibbs responded to GOP criticism by saying: "Clearly, Senator Kerry intended no disrespect or lack of support for our commander in chief during wartime, but the point of this campaign is, obviously, to change the administration of this government. And unlike many of his Republican critics, Senator Kerry has worn the uniform, served his country, seen combat, so he'd just as soon skip their lectures about supporting our troops."
more...MSNBC
SCARBOROUGH: Earlier, I asked Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry about the report and whether or not this is still a White House in denial.
KERRY: Well, listen, you know what I think we ought to do today is take this study group and see if we can find some common ground with the president. If he says it's not far from his policy, then let's talk about how we're going to really implement it.
But this study group does not do as much of the job as I think we still need to get done. You know, looking forward to 2008 is not going to satisfy a lot of Americans. Additional training is not going to resolve the problem of Iraq. As I said, it's a problem of motivation. If the army itself is predominantly Shi'a, and those Shi'a are members of a militia and they are controlled by people who still have a different interest from the federal government, you've got a problem.
So this fundamental, I think, divide, is over what are we trying to now achieve diplomatically and politically, and that's where I think the president may be either -- you know, either in denial or not yet ready to admit that he's got to move in a new direction. But I hope ultimately, he will.
SCARBOROUGH: Your testimony in 1971, the end of that testimony now seems prescient and applicable to Iraq, that, you know, no man should be the last man to die in Iraq because of a failed policy.
KERRY: I believe that.
SCARBOROUGH: Do you sort of feel reverberations of 1971 all over again in this report?
KERRY: I feel reverberations in the sense, Joe, that the policy is a failed policy which was based on a lot of misleading and even in some cases untruths. And I think that a lot of the American people are very upset about that. But we care about those service people. I mean, they are extraordinary. They deserve our support. And the best way to support them is to get the policy right now. And I think that's the foremost thing. I think the study group has really moved the debate, and that's important for all of us as Americans because we need to get this policy right.
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