Rangel on Kerry and tomorrow's speech

[Mass]

Has anybody seen that? Does Rangel have some insight in what Kerry said.

http://www.browndailyherald.com/media/paper472/news/2005/10/25/CampusNews/Rep-Rangel.Targets.Poverty-1032710.shtml

Rangel's ideals extend to his views on the war in Iraq. He said President Bush - and, he added in response to a question by Boris Ryvkin '09, President Clinton and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. - misled the country to believe that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Rangel said that Wednesday at Georgetown University Kerry is scheduled to deliver what will constitute the first "apology" from a politician for misleading the nation in the run-up to the war.

[karynnj]

1. I really dislike Rangel's statement

Mislead, to me, would imply that Kerry knew there were no WMD when he voted and said he was lied to - for the last three years. I seriously doubt that was the case. There is also nothing in the Senate record to back that.

I really wonder what Rangel is up to with this statement - which equates Bush, Clinton and Kerry.

[Mass]

2. I'd like to read Rangel's quote. You never know what he may have said

I was more interested by the line concerning tomorrow's speech.

[TayTay]

4. Boy, am I ever.

You sensed this last week in the Condi hearing, as did I. I am even more intrigued now. I wonder when Fitzmas will be and if that will bury this. (I don't think this can be buried and certainly not in MA.)

[karynnj]

5. I agree with you

It may be that the writer inaccurately paraphrased what Rangel said. (As I doubt he really accords Kerry and Clinton blame equivilent to Bush's.)

I just have a hard time figuring out what Kerry could apologize for- even if he knew 100% that Bush was lying, I doubt he could have stopped the war before it started. His op-eds and speeches were pretty strong for war being a last resort.

The only thing I can think of is that he would apologize as part of a government that didn't fight hard enough to get all the information they needed and deserved to really do their oversight role. Letting Bush neutralize all the checks and balances was part of the fundamental problem.

I can't wait to read the speech. It does sound like it will be fascinating.

[ray of light]

6. Call Rangals office and ask for the quote to be clarified.

Call the author of the article and do the same.

IMO...it sounds like the statement has been intentionally been made to smear Kerry. He IS implying as that author wrote it that Kerry KNEW there were no WMD. BUT he also may have grudges against Kerry so he's taking little pop-shots at him.

[Mass]

7. I would be surprised - Rangel has in the past been fairly supportive of

Kerry - He is not the person I would imagine saying that.

[TayTay]

8. Me either. A clarification is in order

Again, 'an apology' is a pretty loaded term. I'm not sure what an apology would concern. (Kerry didn't take the nation to war, Bush did. Kerry has asked for DMS review and such that would have shown we were lied to war. He was lied to in the Senate. Lying seems to have been an integral part of the Bush White House's strategy to take this country to war. I don't get the apology angle, but I will wait 24 hours and see.)

Curiouser and curiouser.

[ray of light]

10. but if you look at the structure of that sentence,

it's either intentionally awkward thus leading one to say BOTH were liars (and done by the author) or it was said by Rengall.

BUT I'm ok with the "apology" part because I think people will actually be compassionate towards someone who feels like he made a mistake and wishes it hadn't happened that way.

I mean...Kerry is not any different from any of us who felt threatened and thus felt the pResident deserved the benefit of the doubt. We did not have as much info about the wpd, the pnac, and the character of this administratio as we do have now.

[Mass]

12. Yes, but this is not a direct quote. Who knows if the writer

did not insert his viewpoint here. We have no idea what Rangel actually said and I have seen too many Kerry's quotes transformed and taken out of context to be confident that Rangel meant that.

[whometense]

13. Agree.

See my comment at #11.

I had also meant to add that maybe the reporter had an axe to grind (disgruntled Deaniac?)

[TayTay]

14. I will conclude that tomorrow's speech

if going to be worth listening to and not sweat the details that came from a college newspaper article. (Well, we knew that based on last week's hearing with Condi.)

No major media that I can find (searching 6,000 sources) has mentioned this. No AP, no Reuters, No UPi, no Congressional sources, nothing. I'll wait and see.

(Seems to me this would be big news. Kos would be all over it, finding a way to knock Kerry with this.)

[kttmmom]

24. Rangel was very kind to JK at a Ferrer event Sunday night

Rangel introduced Kerry Sunday night at a Ferrer event that I attended. He introduced JK as "America's Senator" (or words to that effect) and said that "we all love him".

[TayTay]

25. I love Charlie Rangel

He is a great Democrat. I heard him at the convention last year and have heard him on Air America several times and I think he is fine with Kerry.

I think thw writer of the article in question might have written his article in such a way as it suggests something that Rangel might not have meant. We shall see soon enough.

[karynnj]

26. That's nice to hear

that has to mean that either he misspoke or the reporter did a poor job in getting what was said. Those are very kind words. (I assume that he was happy that Kerry and the Clintons and Edwards are taking the time to appear with Ferrer who will likely lose badly. I liked the short Kerry comment reported.

[sandnsea]

31. I just got a "huh?"

from Kerry's office, no idea what was meant. Will have to wait until the AM for something on the speech. *sigh*

[Island Blue]

9. That quote threw me for a loop too.

I would love to know exactly what Rangel meant by saying that Kerry mislead the nation in re: WMD. That just seemed to come way out of left field.

[whometense]

11. I'm inclined to not take the quote very seriously.

I think it's probably garbled syntax on the part of either Rangel or the reporter, and nothing more. Probably the reporter. I've read enough college newspaper articles to know that they often go unintentionally astray. It's harder to write a cogent news piece than it looks. And Rangel is a pretty solid feet-on-the-ground guy, not a bomb thrower. It doesn't sound to me like a mistake he would make.

[karynnj]

15. You're right

It happens all the time with posts. Even re-reading them it's possible to write something that says something you never meant to imply. I've done that.

It might even be that the reporter conflated the comment that Clinton, Kerry, the UN etc believed there might be WMD with Bush knowingly misleading us on the WMD - ignoring that one is simply being inaccurate and the other is a lying.

Kerry and Rangel were both with Ferrer (together ?) yesterday.

[TayTay]

3. Reporter's prerogative.

There are many ways to write this. Rangel, whom I like very much and think of as a straight shooter, might be saying that Kerry has rethought some of his stance. (There is mucho ammo for this. It's not for nothing that we have been saying that the DSM and even the Wilson stuff changes the initial equation of that IWR vote.)

I am not surprised at this. And I will definitely give good ole Charlie Rangel the benefit of the doubt over the college newspaper reporters. (Who could be very new. I don't dislike them either. They are in college to learn how to do this.) So far, this reporter has buried his possible lead.

Again, this could be a very, very interesting speech. Remember what we have learned this year. (Both in terms of how that war started and in terms of how it is being waged.) If we learned this, then imagine what info was available to Kerry that we don't even know about. It could well be that an adjustment is coming. (Adjustment =- whatever change comes.) Smart people sometimes change the way the talk about things based on incoming info.

[beachmom]

16. Relevant quote from this week's Economist

Sorry, no link, premium content:

"The waning of the imperial presidency"

(The Bush Administration) declared and conducted the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with little congressional oversight .

Everyone dwells on the IWR vote. But was that a declaration of war really? The point is that the Democrats were a majority in the Senate in Oct. 2002, and with a very weak president now, they do need to take responsibility for their appeasement of an imperial president. The press is doing that now, too, with the mess at the NY Times plain to see. Look, we can all go over the arguments for why Kerry voted yes on that resolution. At the time, they may have made sense. But with what we know now (the scandals, the lies), it was obviously a mistake to give * authority to do anything. He simply was not worthy for that trust. That whole Grand Canyon debacle in the campaign was also a major mistake. I think it best that Kerry come clean on that vote.

Did anyone watch Sy Hersh and Jack Ritter on C-SPAN2 this past weekend? Ritter (the UN weapons inspector who is also a Republican) is extremely against the Iraq War, because he said disarming Iraq was never the goal nor was democratizing the ME. They simply wanted Saddam Hussein out. Period. Anyway, there was definitely some Kerry bashing (and plenty of Clinton bashing), but his big statement was that ANYONE who voted yes to the IWR vote, should be thrown out of office. Of course, I'm thinking -- yeah!!! everybody, except Kerry. But how about throwing anybody out of office who voted yes, and is not taking responsibility and saying "I got it wrong". There were no WMD. So it was a MISTAKE to go into Iraq. Kerry should say -- I had x information, and it proved to be wrong. Therefore my vote was wrong. He may not say this, but I have to be honest that I think he made a mistake voting yes to the IWR. * was not going to show good faith. He NEVER should have been trusted. Because of this, all of Kerry's arguments go out the door, because Kerry may be reasonable, realistic, and logical BUT the * administration was obviously not. Kerry was trying to show respect for the office of the President, but since * didn't this was an erroneous way of thinking.

The imperial presidency is over. Time for Senators and members of Congress to take their share of the blame for appeasing *.

[TayTay]

17. So you want him to say this:

“This was the hardest vote I have ever had to cast in my entire career,” Kerry said. “I voted for the resolution to get the inspectors in there, period. Remember, for seven and a half years we were destroying weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In fact, we found more stuff there than we thought we would. After that came those four years when there was no intelligence available about what was happening over there. I believed we needed to get the weapons inspectors back in. I believed Bush needed this resolution in order to get the U.N. to put the inspectors back in there. The only way to get the inspectors back in was to present Bush with the ability to threaten force legitimately. That’s what I voted for.”

“The way Powell, Eagleberger, Scowcroft, and the others were talking at the time,” continued Kerry, “I felt confident that Bush would work with the international community. I took the President at his word. We were told that any course would lead through the United Nations, and that war would be an absolute last resort. Many people I am close with, both Democrats and Republicans, who are also close to Bush told me unequivocally that no decisions had been made about the course of action. Bush hadn’t yet been hijacked by Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney and that whole crew. Did I think Bush was going to charge unilaterally into war? No. Did I think he would make such an incredible mess of the situation? No. Am I angry about it? You’re God damned right I am. I chose to believe the President of the United States. That was a terrible mistake.”

Followed by this:

The most revealing moment of the entire event came as it was breaking up. Kerry was slowly working towards the door when he was collared by Art Spiegelman. Though Kerry towered over him, Spiegelman appeared to grow with the intensity of his passion. “Senator,” he said, “the best thing you could do is to is to just come out and say that you were wrong to trust Bush. Say that you though he would keep his promises, but that you gave him more credit than he deserved. Say that you’re sorry, and then turn the debate towards what is best for the country in 2004.”

Kerry nodded, bowed his head, and said, “You’re right. I was wrong to trust him. I’m sorry I did.” And then he was gone.

But louder, on C-Span and with full media followup. Okay, I'm with you on that.

http://www.liberalslant.com/wrp121003.htm

[beachmom]

19. Gosh, Tay Tay, I read that thing a long time ago and forgot

about it. And I'm kind of a policy wonk nerd. Pretty pathetic. I guess the problem is that maybe Kerry should have imitated * in one way: repetition, repetition, repetition! And even though I read that Kerry didn't hear the question right in the Grand Canyon, goshdarnit (god damnit), they should have corrected that error, to hell with flip flop. That really was a campaign mistake, as opposed to a policy position mistake. I think that gaffe cost him more votes than bloody hell SBL which was happening at the same time. Maybe even more than OBL. And that was his mistake. He can't blame anyone else for that. I mean I'll take my share of the blame for not getting myself educated on the SBVT lies and to get those facts out at a barbeque where I was among a bunch of Republicans and ONE swing voter (who swung to *). I didn't defend him. I stayed quiet, so that was my big gaffe, also in August.

[karynnj]

21. I wonder if there wasn't more to the GC comment

I do believe he misheard it - because his answer was exactly the answer he gave a million times to the question he said he thought he was asked. But I think once the mistake was made, the level of attention that would be drawn to it if Kerry (himself) or a spokesman put out a retraction would have been unwelcome - and would immediately have raised the question of whether that meant that Kerry wanted Saddam to still be in power. The danger to Kerry was appearing too weak against Iraq=terror rather than too war-like. So, I think they strategically left it uncorrected. (Knowing that if the press brought it up to Kerry, he could then show surprise and say he had misheard it. Much lower key - and if you remember the press corrected several Bush gaffes themselves.

Instead, Kerry implicitly addressed the question many many times in September and October - in the debates and elsewhere. Saying that Iraq was more dangerous than before the invasion and saying that war should only have been a last resort and Bush rushed to war etc - all of which imply the answer. Even allowing once, that yes Saddam might still be in power because without WMD he would not have gone to war.

August is a dead month and you also had the SBL at that time - I think most anti war people realized he misspoke because there were so many oft repeated things that implied he wouldn't have gone to war, Teresa said he wouldn't have gone to war, and there was his whole history. Very few people voted for Cobb or Nader. I doubt anyone thought Kerry was more pro-war (or even equally pro-war) when compared to Bush.

The Republicans jumped on it saying that he and Bush were the same, but they dropped it because they couldn't both argue that Kerry was as war-like as Bush AND that he was a dove who would be too weak on terror. Kerry was lucky here (that it didn't fit the Rove themes), because otherwise it would have been repeated more.

The last week before the election when the stories of the unguarded munitions broke and Kerry was blasting Bush on the conduct of the war, saying that these munitions (as parts of IEDs) were now being thrown at our "kids", his numbers were rising. If this would have continued (no BL tape), Kerry would have won. It broke the Rove theme - Kerry would have more successfully fought the war - challenging Bush as being stronger. (Incidentally, I thought it was jarring, then brilliant that Kerry usually said "kids", not troops or soldiers - it suggested a level of care and anguish for the soldiers that Bush by not giving them armour and not controlling these areas for many weeks didn't have.) I really think if the election were a few weeks later of if there were no BL tape, Kerry would be President.

I've heard the comment mentioned more since November than before. Only on DU and in LW accounts was this said to lose votes - but they can't say where those votes went. If you passionately hated Bush and the war - you almost had to vote for Kerry. (Not voting or voting for the minor candidates were seen as helping Bush by most people after 2000.)

This had to be an embarrassing mistake, but given how much talking he did, how willing he was to answer guestions, and cover different material at each stop coupled with a schedule that gave him very little time to sleep or relax, it's amazing he didn't make more errors. (Here it may have even been almost going on automatic pilot to answer the question. It kind of surprises me that no one with him thought to say, "Senator, even if you knew there were no WMD."

[TayTay]

23. I didn't post that as a definitive anything.

I was thinking about your post and I remembered this article that Will Pitt wrote and realized that this is what I want him to say tomorrow. As Karyn wrote I think Kerry was the anti-war candidate. He was beginning to break through and if the OBL tape hadn't come out, he might be in the Oval office today.

I know that Kerry has said this before, heck we have it in print. But that doesn't mean that everyone beyond core supporters knows he said it. (And he said it rather well too!) I was thinking about the speech tomorrow and it occurred to me that he has said what I wanted him to say. (Brief interlude: I was angry about that vote. I wanted Kerry to vote against IWR because I off-the-wall hated * and didn't trust him to do anything, never mind go to war. Yes, I am sometimes a little Miss Know-it-all. But I was angry about that vote. And this article convinced me during a set of postings earlier this year on this forum that Kerry was lied to. I can forgive an honest mistake, and am willing to do so because I truly do believe it was an honest mistake.)

I was also thinking about the mentions in that article about Scowcroft and other people who have turned against * and exposed his foreign policy as disastrous. If they can do it, then Kerry can. (Gawd, he has even more of a right to do so. They lied to him. They lied to his face. They interfered with his ability to make a judgment for the good of his constituents and the nation. I get angry at *, but Kerry must be just livid. For Gawd sake, they kept things from a co-equal branch of government. * lied, his crony friends lied and Powell and the other people who were supposed to be the safety net in this Admin lied as well.) I just want to hear this repeated, not because I think it will be new, but because it is still very, very relevant.

[LittleClarkie]

32. I should have that quote on my notepad or something

I pull it out so often.

"Kerry never apolgized" my ass!

But hey, if he wants to say it again, then go for it. I'll bookmark that too.

[blm]

18. Scott Ritter is partly to blame for the Dems who wanted Iraq accountable.

Scott Ritter gave testimony in 1998 to Kerry in a hearing that Saddam had WMDs and wanted nuclear capabilities.

There had been no weapons inspections since that testimony. Ritter was hopping mad at the time and helped the right attack Clinton on being weak towards Saddam at the time.

That is why Kerry and other Dems wanted Weapons Inspections. To make sure.

[karynnj]

20. That makes Ritter's comments earlier this week

that the Clinton administration helped foster this view (in addition to Bush) despicable - It also may explain why Kerry didn't give much weight to him comments in 2002 that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

[whometense]

22. I saw the very end of the c-span segment.

It brought me up short just the way hearing Ritter's comments on Morning Sedition did yesterday.

Not that I blame him, considering what he's witnessed, but Sy Hersh is pretty bitter these days. There was a blog post Crooks and Liars linked to: http://lawandpolitics.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_lawandpolitics_archive.html#113012070139480751

QUOTE OF THE DAY
__________

So I was riding the train back from Boston to DC earlier today and I was listening to two Amnesty International workers at the table beside me (I was doing work in the cafe car) talking (loudly) about torture and their latest efforts, etc. One of them was essentially saying that she had given up and become totally cynical that Americans would ever care. The other tried to reassure her and explain why action was necessary. So this particular part of the conversation goes on from Wilmington to Baltimore.

At Baltimore, Sy Hersh gets on the train and sits with them at their table in the cafe car (I couldn't tell if he knew one of them or not). Anyway, after a few pleasantries, they asked him about his views on this particular question and whether there was something or someone giving him hope. Hersh replied, "We're fucked."

I should be back to regular posting tomorrow.

// posted by publius @ 10/23/2005 10:15:00 PM Comments (12) | Trackback (1)

But that gives you an idea of where he's coming from. Like I said, I'd probably feel even more despairing if I'd seen what he has, but I don't think it's a particularly helpful attitude.

Ritter??? I don't know - TayTay seemed to know more about his loose-cannon-ness. I think the radical nature of the Bush presidency has unhinged a lot of reliably thoughtful people.

[jillan]

27. Kerry . . . .

I'm hiding this in here.
Check out the greatest page

[Island Blue]

28. That's the best

ever.

[jillan]

29. I like it alot

and this is really pissing me off that we have to talk like this.

[Island Blue]

30. Really.

I hope everyone else here finds it. It's a shame we have to speak in code.

[Luftmensch067]

33. newbie

can someone pm me and tell me where to look?

[TayTay]

34. Sure.

Click here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5169352

Great pic!

And welcome aboard!