Flippity-Flop
Flippity-Flop

The next 230+ days should be fun.

actually, kerry's position is defensible. there were TWO BILLS. Kerry's comment was about how he wanted to vote for the first bill. The bill that he voted against contained several irresponsible line items, and also provided no funding to pay for it (the first bill would have payed for it in part by repealing bush tax cuts). So to say that he voted against a fiscally irresponsible bill isn't to say that he was intending to "cut and run", but rather that he was voicing his opinion that the current bill was bad and that we should draft a better one. Not that we should vote down the current one and leave the soldiers stranded. C'mon. Isn't that what we expect our elected officials to do? To do what's right in the face of what's popular? Did Kerry think he was right to vote against the bill? Yes. Was it an unpopular vote? Yes. Was it symbolic of a desire to leave Iraq, Afghanistan, and our troops to fend for themselves? No. If you want an example of that, you should check out Bush trying to cut combat pay for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan last summer. And then accusing Kerry of voting for lower combat pay when Kerry actually wants to raise it!! Talk about flip flops, look at your boy dubya first.

Zach,
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Zach, I'll give you more slack than most probably on this. Yes, the Senate especially but legislation generally does have lots of twists and turns and there are many reasons why, say the left wing of the Dems and the right wing of the Reps may each vote against a bill for wildly diverging reasons but that is the risk one takes. He voted No but the bill passed. If it hadn't passed maybe one he would vote for would have succeeded it. Maybe. But he's on an uphill slope trying to explain that one just as any other legislator must stand by a vote on which he might have been outmaneuvered or otherwise regret raising his voice. "I voted for it before I voted against it ain't gonna fly, especially after this damaging quote that is the matter at hand. I think the real problem is that he hasn't been paying that much attention to what he has been doing, otherwise he might remember that he voted against Helms-Burton when addressing Florida Cubans. This cat just is not ready for a campaign.

Hehehe. El Chancletero strikes again!!

He voted "no" because that what the Dem primary voters wanted to hear.

Wait, I thought there was this tradition of respect in the Senate, where it was considered exceedingly bad form for a Senator to harshly criticize a member of the club in public. Senator Kerry should also be ashamed for breaking the social rules of politeness of his 100-member clique.

If you want an example of that, you should check out Bush trying to cut combat pay for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan last summer.

Zach if you have proof of this let me know, because as far as I know Bush and congress pushed through a pay raise for combat soldiers, and the only "cut" would have been if these raises were not continued.

As to your Kerry oriented points, yes there were 2 bills, and yes Kerry voted yes for the one containing the ammendment to end tax cuts, but Kerry's comment which is cited here by Rosemary is in regards to the bill even if his ammendment failed (Which it did).
So as to your point of " but rather that he was voicing his opinion that the current bill was bad and that we should draft a better one." He himself in this quote states that his own no vote should be classified as reckless and irresponsible. This is how it is regardless of post-vote intention and Kerry-apologist spin.
Once again the Sen. from Mass. has been caught talking from both sides of his mouth. Or am I just not seeing the "nuance" ?

John Kerry: more flip-flops than a battallion of Viet Cong.

"...actually, kerry's position is defensible."

So Zach lets hear directly from Kerry:

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it ... Joe Biden and I thought this: We thought, since a lot of mainstream regular folks in America were sharing a big burden of this war, that most of the families whose sons and daughters were called up in the Guard come out of the private sector where they're earning more money."

Sorry, I am not voting for Kerry.

Gosh, Rosemary, I was going to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt on this one, because I understand what he was trying to say with the "I voted for it before I voted against it". You see, I also understood what Rummy was talking about with the "Known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns." Really.

This puts it in a whole new light, because what he is really saying is "I voted for it , I said I would vote for it no matter what , and I voted against it." He's calling himself irresponsible.

and reckless...

Here another direct statement from Kerry from Wednesday last:

"The [Bush] administration stubbornly holds to failed, unilateral policies that drive significant, important, longstanding allies away from us."

So Mr. Kerry still doesn't get it. He has yet to say he actually wants success in Iraq. I suspect when he sees that as his political advantage, he will say it.

unilateral policies
God I am sooooo tired of this term.
There were others, not just us.
Argh, nothing was unilateral.

you're reading too much into his quote here. he says that no senator is going to cut and run. he *didn't* say that he wasn't going to vote against the bill, or that voting against it was akin to cutting and running. as to the point about him voting to cut combat pay, you can read this article from last summer:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/15/MN182084.DTL

Zach,

Take a deep breath. It will be okay. You can vote for him if you want.

Sweetie, seriously, you cannot expect the rest of us adults to cut him that much slack.

If Kerry was 20, I'd cut him a break. He's 60, he said it and now he needs to buck up and take it like a man. He fucked himself and he's no Bill Clinton, so he ain't gonna get away with it.

The 'blogs will seek the truth and the truth will out.

I love it!

I can't stand Kerry in any case.
I'm glad he's such a screw-up as a speaker.

Who'da thunk we'd see a candidate with even less ability to string coherent sentences together off-the-cuff then Bush?
I'm not too worried about a candidates ability to swallow their own foot occasionally, give enough speeches and anyone will. What I look at is their record, and Kerry's would have to improve to be abysmal.

Who'd a thunk we'd see a politician who'd have the courage to actually pay for an $87 FRICKEN BILLION DOLLAR war plan (just the first installment, mind you, and a plan he disagreed with) rather than pawning the cost off on our kids and future generations. Weren't you spitballers just complaining in your last tired partisan meme that Kerry hadn't cast any such votes of conscience and courage?

*yawn* shep, Kerry criticized Bush for not funding the military better, after he voted against military funding.
Not to mention $87 billion is roughly what Americans spend per year on lipstick.
By the way, as for partisan, pot, meet kettle. . he's a knee-jerk liberal too.

Sure, Kerry lobbed the "weak on defense" meme, not Bush and the RNC. Check your pot, John. It's reality that is about to boil all over your shoes, not partisanship.

>>Sweetie, seriously, you cannot expect the rest of us adults to cut him that much slack.

No, true , that would require a deeper understanding of the way the Senate works.

Does it look bad when tht quote is brought up? Yes. Is that why it's brought up? Yes? Is it bad? Not when you actually try and understand the way the Senate works.

what shep and andrew said.
voting against a bill that funds the military is not the same as opposing military funding. to assume so is a fallacy of propositional logic. i think it might be "improper transposition," but i'm rusty on my fallacies, so it might be another one.
**** total nerd alert ****
something like: let p = kerry votes for bill to increase military funding, let q = kerry supports military funding.

if p, then q. a true statement. you all argue:
if not p, then not q. but in reality, to construct a true statement, you would have to say: if not q, then not p. so, sorry, but your argument doesn't hold up.

Sam Barnes:
"Senator Kerry should also be ashamed for breaking the social rules of politeness of his 100-member clique."

Sam, please come visit us sometime and tell us what it's like to live on your planet.

Prove Kerry is strong on defense, shep, and do it without mentioning Vietnam, because he had no part in that policy, and it's his political history that has the most bearing on his Presidential qualifications.
He has voted against every major weapon system the US deploys, voted against military funding and pay increases, and has consistently misrepresented his voting record (you tired of hearing the "I voted for it before I voted against it" zinger? How about his votes AGAINST Desert Storm, which he claims he supported, and his vote FOR war with Iraq in 2002, which he now says he opposed.)
Get yourself another messiah for the left, this one tried to walk on water and sunk like he was wearing lead socks.

Ah, John? That giant sucking sound you're hearing isn't John F. Kerry. I've got bad news for ya: it's coming from the White House and Clinton is out of office.

Lead socks? Ouch! But the bigger point, as I said above, Kerry's statement is of course "defensible" as zach says and shep is of course correct that the Senate is sort of a netherworld where logic is... debatable. Maybe this is why so few Senators (nearly none) ever make it to the top job but that is what the Dems signed on for and Kerry, with a record as long as a barn door is wide, just makes too inviting a target. As our mutual friend Ara has admonished me "Politics isn't beanbag." Nor should be.

Excellent non-answer shep. You've upheld the highest principles of the far left (accuse, deny, insult, never answer directly) to the hilt.
Bt the sucking noise you hear would likely be the Oval Office char fighting to keep Bush's btt in it rather than being subjected to 'UN-veto' Kerry.
Kerry's answer is not defensible because it was given in response to his being challenged on criticizing Bush for 'failure to support the troops' when the bill that Bush supported and pushed for to do just that was voted against by that same John F. Kerry, when the Senate floor vote was taken (and he was surprisingly in attendance). He's playing "definition of 'is" with us, and I put up with that with Clinton, but Senator Kerry isn't worth the stains Billy left on Monica's dress.

Excellent non-english answer, John.

First of all, I’m not concerned with finding a candidate who’s “strong on defense”. That phrase reflects a partisan bias and one in favor of a certain primitive, macho approach to national security that’s more concerned with appearance than effectiveness. I’m looking for a president who is both smart and wise on defense and knows enough about the real threats in the world to prioritize effectively and reject recommendations on both program funding and foreign adventures that don’t make sense. John Kerry’s record shows him to have those qualities, at least in stark contrast to the incumbent.

If I though you’d actually read them, I’d send you the many “yes” votes funding the military and intelligence services of the last 16 years. But the “proof” you seek couldn’t be more obvious if it bit you in the ass (as it probably will in a few months). The military routing (with help from a few friends) of the Taliban in month and the destruction of Saddam’s army in 16 days should be proof enough for non-partisans that Kerry’s funding votes were the right ones. He helped to transform the outrageously expensive, cumbersome, backward-looking cold-war military Donald Rumsfeld admired when he last held office into the nimble, highly-effective, mission-focused military Rummy brags about now.

Try this article for a little perspective on Kerry’s actual record as well as the “weak on defense” record of folks like Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, under George H. W. Bush:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2096127/

"He helped to transform the outrageously expensive, cumbersome, backward-looking cold-war military Donald Rumsfeld admired when he last held office into the nimble, highly-effective, mission-focused military Rummy brags about now."
Hmmm. I knew this formulation looked a little awkward and now I know why. To impugn Rumsfeld as some sort of military reactionary gearing up to fight the last war, we need to go back to yesteryear when he "last held office". And when was that? 1969! Talk about fighting your last war! I thought the knock on Rumsfeld was a StarWars dreaminess; a mil-tech wish fulfillment neurosis... oh well. Another reason to Luv Google! Another eye-opener for me, sure to be seen shortly in the Dem TPM is that "strong on defense" is a partisan slogan. Well, I agree, it is as any Dem that can manage to get through a primary must by definition be "soft" on defense. I look forward to this line of argumentation in the months ahead. Your quest for a "president who is both smart and wise on defense and knows enough about the real threats" is charmingly other-worldly. I don't know who you could possibly mean besides GWB. Unless (as is probably the case) your definition of "real" is as fungible as Slickola's definition of "is".

Up yours shep :) The typos are due to getting used to a new laptop being paid for by my tax return, which is unusually large this year.
And thank you for confirming you have no clue about national security priorities.