Kerry Press Conference Symposium roundup
I’ve gone through the entry’s Hugh Hewitt’s online symposium and pulled what I think are the best quotes so far. The argumentative power harnessed by Hugh is quite remarkable, and bloggers have picked the carcass of Kerry’s abbreviated press conference dry, then boiled the bones and made soup from it. Mmmmm… inconsistency soup… Anyway, read on to get a sense of it.
If a madman possesses a pound of nerve agent he is a threat. A madman who possesses both the knowledge and ability to create a nerve agent is an even greater threat.
In a single answer to a single question, kERRy asserted his “consistency” 5 times. This is a man who is at his wits end with all of his postion changes he has been called on… When asked about his change of characterization of Saddam ( “You just said [Bush] fictionalized him [Saddam] as an enemy. Now you just said he’s dangerous?”) he began to filibuster when a one-sentence answer would have sufficed. This is the mark of a man covering his tracks. The truth is simple; a lie must be weaved, continuously.
Kerry seems to be saying that since we didn’t have to invade the Soviet Union we shouldn’t have had to invade Iraq. Give me the old time deterrence, it’s good enough for me.
“Don’t you understand I am well bred, so I can be President. I didn’t spend all those years in swanky foreign boarding schools, then romance rich women for no reason. This is the reason. This is my moment with destiny! I have to equivocate Iraq with Russia and China, you see that’s part of the nuance. Fictionalized, but dangerous. Nuance. You don’t understand the nuance. Thank you, Good bye.”
Kerry’s vanity is monumental. Does he believe that it is actually sufficient to assert, without more, that “I have a plan” [for addressing Iraq]. . . “I know that my plan has a better chance of working” . . . “I will make sure that we are successful, and I know exactly what I am going to do and how to do it” ? In John Kerry’s world, does such boasting actually pass for a policy?
…
The judge for whom I clerked once noted that, when an appellant or appellee stated in oral argument, “It is clear that . . .” the use of the phrase was a signifier that the following proposition was anything but clear.
Does he expect any of the generals he has just called self-absorbed cowards to suddenly trust him?
Kerry is a one-cookie kid. Many years ago there was an experiment where they gave small children (say around 5 years old) a cookie. The children were told that they could eat the cookie whenever they wanted, but if they waited for five minutes, they would be given a second cookie. Of course, a fair number of children promptly put the first cookie in their mouth and started chewing.
In 1971, he said this:“we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.”
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Today, Kerry said this:There are 60 countries around the world with al-queda cells in them. Many of these countries have clearer ties to alqueda than did Iraq. Did we invade Russia? Did we Invade China?
Now, to my mind what Kerry was trying to say was obvious. What Kerry said in that little line was the 2004 version of his 1971 defeatist statement.
“Kerry: I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, and I will make sure that we are successful, … ”This is simply an empty statement. It says nothing at all beyond a strange sort of wishful thinking completely incompatible with Kerry’s previously expressed pessimistic attitude. What terrorists? Without a “who, when, where or how”, he can say anything here and it has absolutely no meaning whatsoever.
John Kerry wants to be Diplomat in Chief, not Commander in Chief. Even if he could be Diplomat in Chief, he would suck at that also. Case in point: when the President of Poland slaps you around, you’ve got no chance.
“Being handed Lebanon” communicates a hopeless situation where withdrawal becomes the only solution — which would result in a disastrous collapse of our tactical and military credibility in the region and around the world.In fact, it is the clearest communication yet from Kerry that he intends on surrendering, and quickly, once in office.
Kerry does not answer questions—he swarms them with misdirection and doubletalk in the dark thickets of his self-obsession. It’s a matter of utter and extreme self-preservation–Kerry’s own.
Further along in his answer (and boy does he go on and on) he talks again about his “plan” for Iraq. The one that he has so clearly laid out that no one can seem to cite specifically. What is this plan? It seems to be: everything the President does is wrong. I’m not going to offer anything, I’m just going to point out that from the time the President wakes in the morning until the time he goes to bed at night, everything he does is wrong. He brushes his teeth the wrong way. He uses the wrong fork with his eggs. He smears jam on his toast improperly…..Everything is just wrong, wrong, wrong.
What’s startling about this comment, much like his “global test” gaffe, is that it starkly communicates his true passion: the trappings, the process, the pageantry, and the global-chic of diplomacy as an end in itself. Process over results, form over substance, appearance over taste.
Lebanon was a volatile place when we got there. We went in as a dampening rod with a sever[ely] defensive position with a small force. We thought we were breaking up a school yard fist fight and got stuck with a knife. In Iraq we came ready for ANYTHING including chemical weapons. And we have policies to deal with anything as well, not with a French veto hanging over our heads.
And, of course, yours truly…
Of course, John Kerry also wanted to treat Iraq like Russia and China back in ‘91 – after all, we didn’t intervene when China took Tibet, Manchuria, or chunks out of India, nor did we move when Russia essentially annexed all of Eastern Europe. In 1991, Kerry would have treated the piddly army of Saddam Hussein the same way we treated the Red Armies at the height of their power. In 2003, Kerry would have treated the sanctions-weakened Iraq in the same way.
UPDATE: Since Hugh has been kind enough to link to this, I’ve added excerpts from the latest round of symposium entries. Hugh is right, though, the originals deserve to be read in their entirety. I didn’t even include excerpts from all of the entries, and their absence is not reflective of their quality, but on my ability to pull original excerpts from them. My goal is that these excerpts will give a sense of just how devastating this analysis is, and how terrible Kerry’s press conference was in so many ways.
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October 8th, 2004 at 3:30 pm
Kerry is a winner (in his own mind) if he buys time, lives to spin another day, or prolongs a topic that he feels is a topic that favors him. The goal is TIME not logic or furthering a belief. We who read Kerry (listening is far to painful) are amazed at his lack of shame when he changes a position, but his goal is to last longer than the others, time is the only currency he recognizes.
October 9th, 2004 at 11:49 am
Kerry has no Pla n,no Credibility & no Shame.In this he epitomises the tendencies of the Democratic Party since Jimmy Carter -those tendencies were howeve only too evident during the so-called McCarthy era but are now ripe for fruition.
However Kerry’s personal saga took wing in that Annus Miserabilis
1968 -Pentagon Papers,LBJ,LBJ,How many kids have you killed Today?,the Assassination of RFK ,the Riots and the Dems Chicago Conventio twhich (not coincidentally) coincided with May 1968 in Paris
-Now what was that about?
Exactly the same as the vast comspiracy against the USA (in the person of GW Bush) promoted by Marxist academics (since the 2000 election but planned long before) amonst their students with the support of the Leftist Media and the Leftist mentality installed in Government institutions.
What is astonishing is that every fresh reminder of the Left’s nefarious intentions ,signalled in one major emergency after another,
is forgotten instantaneously ,as if noone knew that each of these “evenements”was nothing else but the track of the Left’s “long
march through the Institutions”,accomplished successfully in so many countries & only restrained,curtailed and rebuffed by the will
of the U.S Government.
John Kerry epitomises this “Long March”,it is the inevitable apogeee of his career since 1968,tho’ it may be that he is merely a totally unscrupulous opportunist,in the manner of Francois Mitterand,willing to inflict untold damage on his countrymen but
not actually ,preparing to betray it outright to foreign assault.
But Mitterand had the luxury of US Military protection,including Nato which de Gaulle had spurned,while the US is the avowed target
of the Islamicist Terrrorism and the Left,led by American Leftists,
has ranged World Opinion against America itself ,with John Kerry as it’s candidate for President .
Thus the parallel with Mitterand seems apt but the consequences
far greater.
Not only is Kerry the most ridiculously inapropriate candidate,but
even on the best reading of his besmirched character,he must be the most inappropriate person to deal with the present War.
On the other hand ,it is very probable that in the event of a resounding win by GWB, a rapid reassessment will occur in all the
Chancelleries of the Worldand the Bush Doctrine will be established
at the UN itself
A vista of “broad sunlit uplands” indeed but so it may be internally
-in the USA-itself.This time noone should be alowed to forget what
the Left is up to.The Augean Stables must be cleansed -sooner or
later-& if not at so opportune a moment ,it may never be done-witness the performance of Academia ,the Media the so-called Ombudsmen-have none of them heard of The Communist Internatinale?Do not Time,Newsweek,the NYTimes & Wash.Post etc etc have splendid archives-yet they have moved steadily leftward for 50 years and have treated this President with a contempt that is
plainly incompatable with the Constitution(much they care for that ) and that leaves unsaid the monstrosities of News Reporting inflicted
nightly by the T.V. Monarchs of the Glen,these King-Makers,who seem to believe that they are on the threshold of siezing Power once & for ever,for whichever Clown or Fiddler their fancy falls upon.
Never Forget !! The Trojan Horse is within the Gates -ther’s no
doubt about that !