September 29, 2004, 02:10 PM
Kerry's fairy stories
In an interview for Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer, Kerry told a few fairy stories.
Even though the transcript ABC News has made public is not the complete interview, the two stories Kerry told in this clipping will put Dick Gephardt to shame.
For his first story, Kerry implies that President Bush was following the leadership he set forth, that “each step of the way”, John F. Kerry took the lead. He said:
KERRY: I am not the president today. But each step of the way, I've laid out a plan for success, and each step of the way the president had always been following — always later, never the one who is initiating the things to make it successful.
We can't be sure why Kerry said this. It's possible that he's reaching out to those people who think Cheney's really in charge. Maybe the people who believe that would believe this fairy story, but for the rest of us, it just doesn't pan out.
Of the three bills Kerry sponsored in the Senate Armed Services committee in the 108th congress, only one had a single co-sponsor, Ted Kennedy.
The leadership that it would take for a senator to singlehandedly steer the President in foreign policy would have to be tremendous. We must ask what kind of leadership Kerry's referring to when he says, “I've laid out a plan for success, and each step of the way the president had always been following.” His Senate record doesn't give evidence to this claim.
In fact, those three bills he sponsored (of 48 that session) all failed to reach the Senate floor for a vote. With that in mind, it doesn't sound like Kerry is much of a leader. Perhaps Kerry is as disillusioned about his leadership ability as Gephardt is about his billionaire friend.
The next story Kerry tells involves flip-flopping, although Kerry goes to great lengths not to mention the F word, he does talk around it. After Diane Sawyer asked him about “Bush campaign's insistence about flip-flopping”, and mentions that “53 percent of the voters in a recent poll think that you change your mind too often.”
Kerry responds to this by first admitting the success 'that word' has had:
I think their advertising, and their effort over these last months — to use that word — have been particularly successful. I give them credit for it. But it doesn't reflect truth, nor does it reflect the truth of George Bush's record.
So, after admitting that the definition of him being a flip-flopper is “particularly successful”, he continues to tell the fairy story that “it doesn't reflect truth” that he's a flip-flopper.
If that were so, and he was as consistent as he claims, the tag of flip-flopper would leave most people who hear it clueless. Flip-flop wouldn't work, it would be like calling Kerry a masterful leader — that's just not a natural assumption people are going to make.
When he supports Iraq to vote against funding it, to then claim that he “did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” the public sees inconsistency.
The public sees inconsistency when Kerry tells the public that “I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him” during the Democratic presidential candidate debate (source), to then suggest that Iraq would have been safer with Saddam when he said “we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure” in a speech before NYU last week.
The reason people come to believe Kerry is inconsistent, is because he is. Yet that doesn't stop Kerry from making the attempt to rhetorically divert attention from his title of flip-flopper by claiming that since President Bush isn't a flip-flopper, neither is he.
After saying that 'flip-flopper' doesn't reflect President Bush's record when he said “nor does it reflect the truth of George Bush's record,” he tries to paint the President as inconsistent.
Kerry said:
[George Bush] said he wouldn't go to the U.N., then he goes to the U.N., who said he didn't support homeland security and then he supports homeland security, who said he wasn't going to support the 9/11 commission and then he supports it, then he says he won't testify, then he goes to testify.
I can run down the longest list I've ever seen of switches in George Bush's position, but I think it's important for the American people to focus on what we're going to do to change their lives.
The best way for someone to prove that they are not a flip-flopper, is to show how they're consistent. By pointing to President Bush, and claiming that flip-flopper “doesn't reflect truth” to either President Bush or himself, he tries to nullify the word “flip-flopper” itself.
Besides showing how weak his defense is, he does make one critical mistake. Kerry does not understand what it is about President Bush that's consistent, or what it is about him that's inconsistent.
President Bush's leadership is consistent mostly because our President believes in truth, in right and wrong, and is guided by principles. Kerry, however, is not bound by any steady principles at all, and whether or not he believes in truth, in right and wrong, his consistent inconsistency hints that he is not guided by those beliefs.
As Kerry swims in nuances and tells stories, the only thing he has to lose is the voters' confidence. In this upcoming debate, it is more important for Kerry to connect to voters on a personal level than rhetorically win the debate by flooding the airwaves with nuances and stories such as the ones he told Diana Sawyer. Perhaps the mistakes Kerry makes, even if he's orange, will give President Bush another bounce in the polls after the debate.
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