SenderBerl’s Assessment Town Hall Debate
October 8, 2004
www.senderberl.com
SenderBerl:
Kerry looked a little fatigued. Despite that perception, Kerry
was able to make dramatic points regarding Bush’s
credibility that should cause Bush further erosion in the polls.
Here are
excerpts from the transcript where Kerry proved deadly against
Bush and without doubt made a deep impact on undecided voters.
Following it,
we analyze some of President Bush’s remarks from the Town
Hall forum.
KERRY: The
president stood right here in this hall four years ago, and he
was asked a question by somebody just like you, "Under what
circumstances would you send people to war?" And his
answer was, "With a viable exit strategy and only with
enough forces to get the job done." He didn't do
that. He broke that promise. We didn't have enough forces. General
Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, told him he was going to need
several hundred thousand. And guess what? They retired General
Shinseki for telling him that. This president hasn't
listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council
in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all
of them to find out how serious they were about really holding
Saddam Hussein accountable. I came away convinced that, if we
worked at it, if we were ready to work and letting Hans Blix do
his job and thoroughly go through the inspections, that if push
came to shove, they'd be there with us. But the president just
arbitrarily brought the hammer down and said, "Nope. Sorry,
time for diplomacy is over. We're going." He rushed to
war without a plan to win the peace. Ladies and gentleman, he
gave you a speech and told you he'd plan carefully, take every
precaution, take our allies with us. He didn't. He broke his
word.
BUSH: I remember sitting in the White House looking at those generals, saying, "Do you have what you need in this war? Do you have what it takes?" I remember going down to the basement of the White House the day we committed our troops as last resort, looking at Tommy Franks and the generals on the ground, asking them, "Do we have the right plan with the right troop level?" And they looked me in the eye and said, "Yes, sir, Mr. President." Of course, I listen to our generals. That's what a president does. A president sets the strategy and relies upon good military people to execute that strategy.
GIBSON: Senator?
KERRY: You rely
on good military people to execute the military component of the
strategy, but winning the peace is larger than just the military
component. General Shinseki had the wisdom to say, "You're
going to need several hundred thousand troops to win the
peace." The military's job is to win the war. A
president's job is to win the peace.
The president did
not do what was necessary. Didn't bring in enough nation. Didn't
deliver the help. Didn't close off the borders. Didn't even guard
the ammo dumps. And now our kids are being killed with ammos
right out of that dump.
KERRY: After
9/11, after the recession had ended, the president asked for
another tax cut and promised 5.6 million jobs would be created.
He lost 1.6 million, ladies and gentlemen. And most of that tax
cut went to the wealthiest people in the country.
He came and
asked for a tax cut -- we wanted a tax cut to kick the economy
into gear. Do you know what he presented us with? A $25 billion
giveaway to the biggest corporations in America, including a $254
million refund check to Enron.
Wrong
priorities. You are my priority.
HORSTMAN: Mr.
President, why did you block the reimportation of safer and
inexpensive drugs from Canada which would have cut 40 to 60
percent off of the cost?
BUSH: I haven't
yet. Just want to make sure they're safe. When a drug comes in
from Canada, I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill
you. ***
KERRY: John, you
heard the president just say that he thought he might try to be
for it.
Four years ago,
right here in this forum, he was asked the same question: Can't
people be able to import drugs from Canada? You know what he
said? "I think that makes sense. I think that's a good
idea" -- four years ago. Now, the president said,
"I'm not blocking that." Ladies and gentlemen, the
president just didn't level with you right now again. He did
block it, because we passed it in the United States Senate. We
sent it over to the House, that you could import drugs. We took
care of the safety issues. We're not talking about third-world
drugs. We're talking about drugs made right here in the United
States of America that have American brand names on them and
American bottles. And we're asking to be able to allow you to get
them. The president blocked it. The president also took Medicare,
which belongs to you. And he could have lowered the cost of
Medicare and lowered your taxes and lowered the costs to seniors.
You know what he did? He made it illegal, illegal for Medicare
to do what the V.A. does, which is bulk purchase drugs so that
you can lower the price and get them out to you lower.
He put $139
billion of windfall profit into the pockets of the drug companies
right out of your pockets. That's the difference between us. The
president sides with the power companies, the oil companies, the
drug companies. And I'm fighting to let you get those drugs from
Canada, and I'm fighting to let Medicare survive. I'm fighting
for the middle class. That is the difference.
BUSH
***And so, I
don't think the Patriot Act abridges your rights at all. ***
KERRY: Former
Governor Racicot, as chairman of the Republican Party, said he
thought that the Patriot Act has to be changed and fixed.
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, he is the chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee, said over his dead body before it gets
renewed without being thoroughly rechecked. A whole bunch of
folks in America are concerned about the way the Patriot Act has
been applied. In fact, the inspector general of the Justice
Department found that John Ashcroft had twice applied it in ways
that were inappropriate. People's rights have been abused.
I met a man
who spent eight months in prison, wasn't even allowed to call his
lawyer, wasn't allowed to get -- finally, Senator Dick Durbin of
Illinois intervened and was able to get him out. This is in
our country, folks, the United States of America. They've got
sneak-and-peek searches that are allowed. They've got people
allowed to go into churches now and political meetings without
any showing of potential criminal activity or otherwise.
Now, I voted
for the Patriot Act. Ninety-nine United States senators voted for
it. And the president's been very busy running around the country
using what I just described to you as a reason to say I'm
wishy-washy, that I'm a flip-flopper. Now that's not a flip-flop.
I believe in the Patriot Act. We need the things in it that
coordinate the FBI and the CIA. We need to be stronger on
terrorism. But you know what we also need to do as Americans
is never let the terrorists change the Constitution of the United
States in a way that disadvantages our rights.
KERRY: I believe
the president made a huge mistake, a catastrophic mistake, not to
live up to his own standard, which was: build a true global
coalition, give the inspectors time to finish their job and go
through the U.N. process to its end and go to war as a last
resort.
I ask each of you
just to look into your hearts, look into your guts. Gut-check
time. Was this really going to war as a last resort? The
president rushed our nation to war without a plan to win the
peace. And simple things weren't done. That's why Senator Lugar
says: incompetent in the delivery of services. That's why Senator
Hagel, Republican, says, you know: beyond pitiful, beyond
embarrassing, in the zone of dangerous.
We didn't
guard 850,000 tons of ammo. That ammo is now being used against
our kids. Ten thousand out of 12,000 Humvees aren't armored.
I visited some of those kids with no limbs today, because they
didn't have the armor on those vehicles. They didn't have the
right body armor. I've met parents who've on the Internet gotten
the armor to send their kids. There is no bigger judgment for
a president of the United states than how you take a nation to
war. And you can't say, because Saddam might have done it 10
years from now, that's a reason; that's an excuse.
SenderBerl
The above
speaks for itself. Now, there were a couple of Bush remarks that
we want to comment upon:
BUSH: Let me talk
about North Korea. It is naive and dangerous to take a policy
that he suggested the other day, which is to have bilateral
relations with North Korea. Remember, he's the person who's
accusing me of not acting multilaterally. He now wants to take
the six-party talks we have -- China, North Korea, South Korea,
Russia, Japan and the United States -- and undermine them by
having bilateral talks. That's what President Clinton did. He had
bilateral talks with the North Koreans. And guess what happened?
He didn't honor the agreement. He was enriching uranium. That is
a bad policy. Of course, we're paying attention to these. It's a
great question about Iran. That's why in my speech to the
Congress I said: There's an "Axis of Evil," Iraq, Iran
and North Korea, and we're paying attention to it. And we're
making progress.
SenderBerl:
We would remind Kerry that Bush called The North Korean leader
“loathsome” antagonizing him where he reinstated the
nuclear program. Bush needed multilteral talks after that: Kim
wouldn’t speak to him and after saying what Bush did say,
Bush could accomplish nothing in bilateral talks. The point is
that the nuclear threat has quickly worsened because of Bush and
his endless streams of misspeaks and misjudgements. SenderBerl
has explained why the use of nuclear weapons was imminent. Need
we say more than the N.W.O. agrees.
BUSH: First of
all, we didn't find out he didn't have weapons until we got
there, and my opponent thought he had weapons and told everybody
he thought he had weapons.
And secondly,
it's a fundamental misunderstanding to say that the war on terror
is only Osama bin Laden. The war on terror is to make sure that
these terrorist organizations do not end up with weapons of mass
destruction. That's what the war on terror is about.
Of course, we're going to find Osama bin Laden. We've already 75 percent of his people. And we're on the hunt for him. But this is a global conflict that requires firm resolve.
SenderBerl: Kerry should highlight that Bush’s own people as indicated below announced that Bush regardless of what the weapons inspectors found or determined was going to invade Iraq. However, Bush did not tell the American people that even if Saddam didn’t have WMD or pose a current threat to anyone that he was going to go into Iraq. The country would have opposed him on this basic truth. Kerry should emphasize that this president sets policy on his own and that he alone determined to take this nation to war just as he determined when he sat in Crawford in August 2001 that there was no need to tell anyone that the country faced the imminent threat of terrorism. Every death and consequence of this war lies on a primary basis at Bush’s and Dick Gephardt’s door.
SenderBerl
noted the following before the invasion:
MR. PERLE: I
don’t see how you can take Saddam Hussein at his word. He
may say, “Come in and inspect.” But we know very well
that he’s already moved everything that is movable. We know
that some of his facilities, biological and chemical
laboratories, for example, have been made mobile. They’re on
large trucks. There’s simply no way we can inspect, and I
think the graphic that you were showing, which shows what is
laughingly considered a palace under this arrangement, gives us
an important lesson. The United Nations, responsible for
inspecting, agreed, agreed to allow those palaces to be exempt.
We’ve not had a serious inspection regime, and we’re
not going to get a serious inspection regime, and I’m
sorry to say that even if we had complete, full, unfettered
access with teams the size we’re talking about and the
capabilities they have, in a country as vast as Iraq, the
likelihood that we will find things is exceedingly small.
SenderBerl: Perle is affirming that Bush will roll no matter what
the language of the Congressional resolution or the UN
resolution. Moreover, the predicate threat proffered by Perle has
been an existant dynamic for a decade. What is the predicate for
an attack now? The truth is seen by President Bush's
own mouth and doctrine per the National Security Strategy, to
take over the Middle East and mold the Islamic countries into the
image of the new world order.
Recommended
Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1121-08.htm
SenderBerl also
noted the following prior to the invasion:
We close by
highlighting that when a President pursues a just course, he
doesn't face global opposition and he doesn't need to spend
untold billions to bribe, coerce, cajole and threaten world
leaders into joining him in a coalition and/or permitting the use
of their country as a staging area. His father had no trouble,
but he does, for there is another agenda, as we have relayed
today, in play, but to the world it seems to be a legitimate
global opposition, masking the deeper nefarious plan. However, no
matter how clever the opposition, President Bush and his cohorts will
attack for many if not all the reasons he needs to do so,
to serve an agenda and course that we have explained is
outrageously Machiavellian, one never before seen, to implement
world domination and control, not to the benefit of the United
States of America, but to those, the limited few, the true
beneficiaries thereof deploying our country, its people and its
wealth, to serve themselves and their elitist centrix group and
families.
BRONSING: Senator
Kerry, we have been fortunate that there have been no further
terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11. Why do you think
this is? And if elected, what will you do to assure our safety?
KERRY: Thank you
very much, Ann. I've asked in my security briefings why that is,
and I can't go into all the answers, et cetera, but let me say
this to you.
SenderBerl: We
take it you understand that this secret ties into what we
discussed on the Rense.com show in May 2002.
Audio Link: No
Further Domestic Terrorism (May 23, 2002 – SenderBerl on
Jeff Rense Show):
http://www.senderberl.com/audio/audio5.wma
Futher
Recommended Audio Link (BUSH BOXED OUT OF SYRIA AND IRAN –
Jeff Rense Show, June 9, 2003):
http://www.senderberl.com/audio/audio1.wma
Otherwise,
here below are additional transcript extracts that you may find
of interest.
KERRY: Now, the president has presided over an economy where we've lost 1.6 million jobs. The first president in 72 years to lose jobs. The world is more dangerous today. The world is more dangerous today because the president didn't make the right judgments. This president rushed to war, pushed our allies aside. And Iran now is more dangerous, and so is North Korea, with nuclear weapons. He took his eye off the ball, off of Osama bin Laden.
KERRY: The goal of the sanctions was not to remove Saddam Hussein, it was to remove the weapons of mass destruction. And, Mr. President, just yesterday the Duelfer report told you and the whole world they worked. He didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Mr. President. That was the objective.
And if we'd used smart diplomacy, we could have saved $200 billion and an invasion of Iraq. And right now, Osama bin Laden might be in jail or dead. That's the war against terror.
Senator Richard Lugar, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that the handling of the reconstruction aid in Iraq by this administration has been incompetent. Those are the Republican chairman's words.
KERRY: Senator
Hagel of Nebraska said that the handling of Iraq is beyond
pitiful, beyond embarrassing; it's in the zone of dangerous.
Those are the
words of two Republicans, respected, both on the Foreign
Relations Committee.
***
KERRY: If he'd let the inspectors do their job and go on, we wouldn't have 10 times the numbers of forces in Iraq that we have in Afghanistan chasing Osama bin Laden.
Meanwhile, while Iran is moving toward nuclear weapons, some 37 tons of what they called yellow cake, the stuff they use to make enriched uranium, while they're doing that, North Korea has moved from one bomb maybe, maybe, to four to seven bombs.
For two years, the president didn't even engage with North Korea, did nothing at all, while it was growing more dangerous, despite the warnings of former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who negotiated getting television cameras and inspectors into that reactor.
We were safer before President Bush came to office. Now they have the bombs and we're less safe.
***
Our Guard and reserves have been turned into almost active duty. You've got people doing two and three rotations. You've got stop-loss policies, so people can't get out when they were supposed to. You've got a back-door draft right now.
And a lot of our military are underpaid. These are families that get hurt. It hurts the middle class. It hurts communities, because these are our first responders. And they're called up. And they're over there, not over here.
***
Now with respect to the deficit, the president was handed a $5.6 trillion surplus, ladies and gentlemen. That's where he was when he came into office.
We now have a $2.6 trillion deficit. This is the biggest turnaround in the history of the country. He's the first president in 72 years to lose jobs.
He talked about war. This is the first time the United States of America has ever had a tax cut when we're at war.
Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, others, knew how to lead. They knew how to ask the American people for the right things.
One percent of America, the highest one percent of income earners in America, got $89 billion of tax cut last year. One percent of America got more than the 80 percent of America that earned from $100,000 down.
***
Now, when it comes to the issue of the environment, this is one of the worst administrations in modern history.
KERRY: The Clear Skies bill that he just talked about, it's one of those Orwellian names you pull out of the sky, slap it onto something, like "No Child Left Behind" but you leave millions of children behind. Here they're leaving the skies and the environment behind.
If they just left the Clean Air Act all alone the way it is today, no change, the air would be cleaner that it is if you pass the Clear Skies act. We're going backwards.
In fact, his environmental enforcement chief air-quality person at the EPA resigned in protest over what they're doing to what are calling the new source performance standards for air quality.
They're going backwards on the definition for wetlands. They're going backwards on the water quality.
***
KERRY: Not necessarily be in power, but here's what I'll say about the $87 billion.
I made a mistake in the way I talk about it. He made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is a worse decision?
Now, I voted the way I voted because I saw that he had the policy wrong and I wanted accountability. I didn't want to give a slush fund to Halliburton. I also thought the wealthiest people in America ought to pay for it, ladies and gentlemen. He wants your kids to pay for it. I wanted us to pay for it, since we're at war. I don't think that's a bad decision.
END
|
One of the uncommitted voters in the audience sensibly asked
President Bush to name three mistakes he'd made in office, and
what he had done to remedy the damage. Mr. Bush declined to list
even one, and instead launched into an impassioned defense of the
invasion of Iraq as a good idea. The president's insistence on
defending his decision to go into Iraq seemed increasingly
bizarre in a week when his own investigators reported that there
were no weapons of mass destruction there, and when his own
secretary of defense acknowledged that there was no serious
evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
Even worse, the president's refusal to come up with even a
minor error - apart from saying that he might have made some
unspecified appointments that he now regretted - underscores his
inability to respond to failure in any way except by insisting
over and over again that his original decision was right.
Unfortunately, for long stretches of the evening, the format
did not lead to such telling responses. On occasion, the
arguments were impossible to follow. Heaven help any citizen who
relied on last night's debate to understand what is going on with
North Korea or who tried to understand the fight about tax cuts
on Subchapter S corporations.
Mr. Bush was deeply unpersuasive when asked why he had not
permitted the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from
Canada. He claimed that the reason was "I want to make sure
it cures you and doesn't kill you." Mr. Kerry cleanly
retorted that four years ago in a campaign debate, Mr. Bush had
said importing medicine from Canada sounded sensible.
And the president was utterly incoherent when asked about whom
he might name to the Supreme Court in a second term. His comment
about how he didn't want to offend any judges because he wanted
"them all voting for me" was a joke - but an
unfortunate one, given the fact that the president owes his job
to a Supreme Court vote.
Mr. Kerry was weaker when he had to respond to a woman who
wanted to know about spending federal money on abortions. Social
issues seem to bring out the senator's worst tendencies to paint
a word picture in shades of gray and equivocation.
Both men seemed overly defensive at times, as if they were
fighting shadow opponents that were not even in the hall. Mr.
Kerry seemed intent, without much prompting by Mr. Bush, on
countering the attack ads run by the president's campaign and by
other Republican organizations. Mr. Bush sometimes seemed as if
he was trying to make up for his weak performance in Debate No.
1.
Mr. Kerry demonstrated, at the very minimum, a stature that
was equal to the president's. If Mr. Bush was hoping to recover
all the ground he lost last week, he failed in his mission.
The president seemed to fall back frequently on name-calling,
denouncing his opponent as a liberal and a tool of the trial
lawyers. "The president's just trying to scare," Mr.
Kerry said. It will be another few weeks before we see how well
that works.