"Kerry: McCain's foreign policy made us 'weaker'" video included.

[wisteria]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/03/kerry-mccains-foreign-policy-made-us-weaker/">link

"Sen. John Kerry said fellow veteran John McCain’s military background doesn’t necessarily mean he would be a good commander in chief."

[Inuca]

1. Did you see the update?

Reply from the RNC. Also, I scrolled through some of the top comments (there are many), until I could not take it any more. Sickening.

[karynnj]

2. Those comments are sick - between the RW freepers and the Clinton freepers

I'm not sure who is worse!

[wisteria]

11. Some of the comments are bad, but then you have to consider the source.

They don't want to hear the truth, the probably didn't even listen to what Kerry was saying. They are just in attack mod and Kerry is the target. The Clinton supporters are the worse I think. They seem to think Hillary was entitled to everyones support and if you don't support her you are disloyal. LOL. I support a progressive Democrat Party. The Clinton's represent a step backwards.
As for the RW freepers, I like how they ignore the fact that McCain had representatives approach him about a VP spot. And, they conveniently forget that McCain has publicly considered leaving the Republican Party.

[karynnj]

12. Exactly

One of the Republican themes that are there are worth looking at because it will likely be the McCain counter here - that is that McCain was NOT with Bush 100% of the time. McCain has positioned himself as having argued against Bush on things like not having a big enough force there to maintain stability - as Kerry did quoting Shinskeski. He also did speak against torture, though his bill, unfondly known here as "the torture bill" does give Bush the role of deciding what is torture - thus as Kerry said, this bill allows torture.

This is like Vietnam, where sfter the loss, the RW spun it as we didn't fight hard enough even though we dropped more bombs than WWII and killed around 3 million Vietnamese. (The bomb them back to the stone age crowd has surprisingly many supporters even now.)

[MBS]

3. that was a fine interview, thanks!

and the CNN summary doesn't do the interview justice.
Neither do those stupid comments, either, of course. Too bad the comments were closed by the time I saw it.. I had plenty to tell those idiots.
:grr:

[TayTay]

4. Good, this is the fight going into the fall.

Sen. McCain's military service is unquestionable and should be honored as such. That said, his advocacy of the Bush policy in Iraq of "stay as long as it takes" is wrong. It is this judgment, this assessment that we don't need to do anything differently in Iraq or in our foreign policy in the region that does question his capacity to lead as Commander in Chief.

The Republicans and some Democrats don't want to debate the War because they have no standing on it. They know that the American people favor a policy that will begin to withdraw our forces in Iraq. Republicans, and sadly even some Democrats, would rather launch personal attacks against Sen. Kerry than debate the policies that have left US troops in Iraq without a real plan for five+ years.

The RNC attacked Senator Kerry personally and did not address the merits of what he actually said. That is because they have no defense against the failed policies of George Bush which Sen. McCain wants to continue. Sad, but true: they attack this way because they have nothing else.

They are attacking Sen. Kerry because he is an effective spokesman for Sen. Obama and has consistently advocated for a better foreign policy for the Middle East that emphasizes diplomacy. Sen. Kerry, in effect, calls the question on Iraq: Why are we there now 5 years later, what is the goal of the occupation, what do we hope to accomplish there, how long will it take, what resources, personnel and money will we be spending to support this mission and how will it end? The Republicans can't answer that, they can only mumble vague platitudes about how things are now going well and they need more time to accomplish some unstated goal.

The attacks are going to get a lot worse. This is going to get real ugly as the year goes on.

[MBS]

5. Oh. I totally agree!

"they are attacking Sen. Kerry because he is an effective spokesman for Sen. Obama and has consistently advocated for a better foreign policy for the Middle East that emphasizes diplomacy. Sen. Kerry, in effect, calls the question on Iraq"

This is excellent, Tay! Perfect!

Alas, I also agree with your last sentence, too. But I know that JK is ready. He really was in fine form with that CNN interview.

[TayTay]

6. It's true MBS

The American people do not support the continuation of this War. That has not changed even though the War itself is rarely in the news and on the front page lately.

The whole rationale for Sen. Obama's candidacy is that he is making the right judgment calls on foreign policy. He was right about opposing the War in 2002 and is right now to call for a troop withdrawal. The hearings this week in the SFRC give plenty of reasons as to why the US needs to start to withdraw it's forces. The Republicans will privately or in hearings agree that we need a big change of course in Iraq, but won't vote that way. Now, they are going to line up with McCain and his plan for another 100 years of occupation.

McCain and the other "stay the course" people need to actually talk about the War in Iraq as it actually is, not the way they imagine it to be. They are substituting personal attacks and attacks on the patriotism of others for real "straight talk." Again, this is because this is all they have.

[Muttocracy]

7. I think Obama needs to use quotes from those hearings in some ads

Even if C-span won't let him use the video, can he use the text? There were some amazing quotes there...

[karynnj]

8. Especially at this point, it might be better if those points were

exposed by people like Biden, Kerry, Dodd, Levin, Reed etc - from the SFRC and the Armed Services Committee and retired military people (I think if they're not retired they are limited in what they can say outside places like the Senate. Coming from Obama (or HRC) they would come across as partisan politics. (At least until we get a nominee.)

The other hard thing is to avoid using just the most sensationalized stuff - it's almost like we need "teach-ins" again. But even here - I wonder how many people in GD-P we got to see even a short clip - like the Biden one today - much less watching the whole SFRC one.

[Muttocracy]

9. True. I wonder if Biden will stick to not endorsing as he said earlier.

In some ways it's more powerful what he has to say without an endorsement. On the other hand, it might shut up some people about the "experience" thing.

If nothing else, the fact he hasn't endorsed Clinton is telling. What are the stats on the SFRC? Dodd, Kerry, Feingold all endorsed Obama. Boxer only for Clinton because of sticking to CA's results. Hagel all but endorsed Obama.

[karynnj]

10. Casey is for Obama and Menendez is for Clinton

I've heard nothing of Webb or Cardin.

I would think that anything any of these people said of the current situation or what to do going forward could be done as a Democratic position, not the candidate they support. (Here Kerry was addressing the CIC issue more than Iraq itself) I've heard Kerry several times add HRC when contrasting Obama to McCain - when he could state their similar positions rather than the smaller nits they disagree on.

I think Biden endorsing would be one of few big endorsements left - if he endorses Obama. Like Kerry, Kennedy, Leahy, and Daschle he would be another person with Gravitas giving his blessing. (Gore seems to have made it clear he is neutral and the Edwardses attacked both HRC and Obama enough that I'm not sure what he could bring.)