At least, that has been John Kerry's most
oft-repeated assertion for the last six months.
It is no coincidence that
Kerry would use such a claim as the foundation of his campaign rhetoric. In fact,
it is enlightening. You see, campaign hacks for a challenger use focus groups
to determine their candidate's most distinguished flaw, and then tutor their candidate
on how to cast the incumbent with a greater measure of that flaw. Clearly, John
Kerry's most apparent liabilities are his lack of integrity and lack of fitness
for command -- and there is plenty of evidence for both deficiencies.
Kerry
insists, "I've never, ever used the harshest word ['lie']." But of course, that
is a lie. Preceding that remark, he said, "This administration has lied to us.
They have misled us." After it, he said, "[Bush] failed to tell you the truth.
... I believe that it is important to tell the truth to the American people."
A
charter member of Kerry's Leftist cadre, Al Franken, wrote a book a few years
back entitled, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." Apparently, Kerry adopted
it as his campaign playbook. While the "F" in JFK may stand for "fib," "fabrication,"
"falsehood," "fallacy," "feint," "forgery," "fake," and, phonetically speaking,
"phony," it also stands for "flip-flop." Kerry's strategy to paint President
George W. Bush as a liar is subterfuge to divert attention from Kerry's own extensive
record of fibs and flips. As readers of this column well know, Kerry has been
on both sides of just about every issue -- which is to say, he has lied to just
about everyone at one time or another.
In this, the last Patriot essay
before Election Day, 2004, it is worth reviewing a few of Kerry's lies -- in his
own words. We don't have sufficient bandwidth to publish all of them, but those
that follow are both representative, and typically transparent, of Kerry's mendacity.
Who
can forget these memorable recollections from Kerry's "heroics" in Vietnam:
"I remember spending Christmas Day of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border.
I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me. ... [American military
personnel in Vietnam] personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires
from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs,
[blew] up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent
of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally
ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to...the normal and very
particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
... There are all kinds of atrocities and I would have to say that, yes, yes,
I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed...."
He
is still trying to make amends for those lies: "When it comes to war and peace,
I will tell the truth to the American people.... For 35 years I have stood up,
and fought, and kept faith with my fellow veterans. [Bush has] not kept faith
with veterans across this country. And one of the first definitions of patriotism
is keeping faith with those who wore the uniform of our country."
On
the economy, Kerry lies: "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.
... This is the worst economy since Herbert Hoover. ... This president chose a
tax cut over homeland security. ... We didn't need that tax cut. ... I'm fighting
for the middle class."
On social issues, Kerry lies: "They are going
to privatize your Social Security. ... They're taking money from Social Security
and transferring it to the wealthiest people in America to drive us into debt.
... I believe it's time to stop viewing innovative approaches as anomalies or
threats to traditional public schools and begin seeing them as part of the future
of public education. ... Public schools need resources and support, and vouchers
drain them of both. ... I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion.
I believe life does begin at conception. ... I have a plan to cover all [make
that 25 of 45 million uninsured] Americans. ... I am not proposing a government-run
[healthcare] program. It is not a government takeover. The government has nothing
to do with it."
On the most important issue of the day, our worldwide
war against Jihadi terrorists, and particularly the Jihadi warfront in Iraq, Kerry
lies: "We were safer before President Bush came to office. 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. ... I sat with the French and British, Germans,
with the entire Security Council. ... I will never hesitate to use force when
it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. ...
America must fight and win two wars. The war in Iraq and the war on terror. ...
President Bush likes to confuse the two. ... In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion
from that war [on terror] and the battle against the enemy. ... I can do a better
job of protecting America's security because the [global] test that I was talking
about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere. ... If George
Bush were to be re-elected ... there is great potential [that he would re-instate
the draft]."
And there's much more from Kerry on the war: "Osama
bin Laden escaped in the mountains of Tora Bora. We had him surrounded. But we
didn't use American forces, the best trained in the world, to go kill him. The
president relied on Afghan warlords. ... We are 90 percent of the casualties in
Iraq. ... The war costs -- $200 billion. And it's in Iraq. And Iraq is not even
the center of the focus on the war on terror. I don't think any United States
Senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows
as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible. ... My position
on Iraq has been consistent. ... I actually did vote for the $87 billion before
I voted against it.... That's not a flip-flop. That's not a flip-flop. ... I have
no intention of wilting. I've never wilted in my life. And I've never wavered
in my life. ... Let me tell you straight up: I've never changed my mind about
Iraq."
On the flip-side, Kerry has said of the war in Iraq: "Saddam
Hussein has used weapons of mass destruction against his own people.... I think
we ought to put the heat on Saddam Hussein. I've said that for a number of years.
I criticized the Clinton administration for backing off.... I think we need to
put the pressure on, no matter what the evidence is about September 11. ... I
think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally. This doesn't
end with Afghanistan by any imagination. And I think the president has made that
clear. I think we have made that clear. Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge.
And it is absolutely vital that we continue, for instance, Saddam Hussein. I agree
completely with this Administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq. ... Saddam
Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of
his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991. ... If Saddam Hussein
is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order,
then he will have invited enforcement...even if that enforcement is mostly at
the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council
fails to act. ... The president always reserves the right to act unilaterally
to protect the interests of our country. ... I do not regret my vote [in support
of the Iraq war]. ... I think it was the right vote based on what Saddam Hussein
had done, and I think it was the right thing to do to hold him accountable. [My
position] can't be clearer."
And Kerry's lies keep piling up.
In
old news that was slated to be recycled by CBS talkinghead Dan Rather this Sunday
(leaving too little time to debunk it), the latest, and perhaps last Kerry prevarication
of this campaign (concerning some quantity of HMX and RDX explosives missing at
al-Qa Qaa weapons installation south of Baghdad) was printed by The New York Times
ahead of schedule. "Our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became
clear that it wouldn't hold," said Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday
"60 Minutes" said.
Memo to CBS News President Andrew Heyward: Have you
no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
And speaking of decency --
or the egregious lack thereof -- Kerry was quick to spin the "story," blaming
our military forces in Iraq, and their commander in chief, with dereliction of
duty. Of the latter, Kerry said: "Now we know that our country and our troops
are less safe because this president failed to do the basics. This is one of the
great blunders of Iraq, one of the great blunders of this administration. The
incredible incompetence of this president and his administration has put our troops
at risk and put our country at greater risk than we ought to be. After being warned
about the danger of major stockpiles of explosives in Iraq, this administration
failed to guard those stockpiles -- where nearly 377 tons of highly explosive
weapons were kept. The missing explosives could very likely be in the hands of
terrorists and insurgents, who are actually attacking our forces now 80 times
a day on average."
Unfortunately for Kerry, et al., it only took a few
hours to debunk this feeble crack at an October surprise.
As The Patriot
previously noted in October, 2002, our well-placed sources in the region, and
intelligence sources with the NSA and NRO, estimated that the UN Security Council's
foot-dragging provided a large window for Saddam to export some or all of his
deadliest WMD materials and components. At that time, we reported Allied Forces
would be unlikely to discover Iraq's WMD stores, noting, "Our sources estimate
that Iraq has shipped some or all of its biological stockpiles and nuclear WMD
components through Syria to southern Lebanon's heavily fortified Bekaa Valley."
In December of 2002, our senior-level intelligence sources re-confirmed estimates
that some of Iraq's biological and nuclear WMD material and components had, in
fact, been moved into Syria and Iran. That movement continued until President
Bush finally pulled the plug on the UN's ruse.
Indeed, Kerry and his
Leftmedia minions have it all wrong -- again. The NRO released photos of heavy
trucks loading materials from the bunker in question at al-Qa Qaa Explosive Storage
Complex on 17 March 2003, three days prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq [http://federalistpatriot.us/news/alqaqaa.asp].
And Kerry and company may have gotten additional facts all wrong. U.S. forces
did find conventional weapons in the bunker in question but did not find what
the UN's IAEA estimated to be three tons of HMX and RDX -- not 377 tons as claimed
by Kerry.
Of course, 6,000 pounds of HMX and RDX is significant -- it only
took one pound of this substance in the hands of Libyan agents to bring down PanAm
103 in 1988. Of course, we all know by now how accurate these weapons estimates
have been -- and the UN was one step removed from the best intelligence available.
President Bush responded to Kerry's allegations, "Now the Senator is making
wild charges about missing explosives, when his top foreign-policy adviser admits,
quote, 'We do not know the facts.' Think about that: The senator is denigrating
the actions of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts...."
Which brings us to the greatest of Kerry's lies this campaign season:
"It is vital for us not to confuse the war, ever, with the warriors. That happened
before."
Indeed, it did happen before -- Vietnam. Swift Boat Vet Robert
Elder notes, "It is a fact that in the entire Vietnam War we did not lose one
major battle. We lost the war at home, and at home John Kerry was the field general."
(Kerry's extensive and well-documented record of anti-American activities over
the past three decades are covered in "Aid and comfort to the enemy: The Kerry
record..." and "John Kerry: More aid and comfort..." at http://FederalistPatriot.US/alexander/)
Again,
as President Bush noted, Kerry is "denigrating the actions of our troops and commanders
in the field without knowing the facts...."
Kerry can't have it both
ways. There is a direct correlation between his undermining of U.S. and Allied
resolve in the war against terrorism -- specifically on the Iraqi warfront with
Jihadistan -- and American and Allied causalities on that front. Those forces,
including countless Iraqis, are being injured and killed in larger numbers because
of the political dissent Kerry and his ilk are fomenting.
A few weeks ago,
John Edwards unwittingly provided the evidence for this very correlation: "We
lost more troops in September than we lost in August; lost more in August than
we lost in July; lost more in July than we lost in June."
As Kerry's
use of the war for political fodder has increased in tenor, so too has the spirit
of our Jihadi enemies. As noted recently by Mohammad Amin Bashar, a professor
at Baghdad's Islamic University, "If the U.S. Army suffered numerous humiliating
losses, Kerry would emerge as the superman of the American people." Abu Jalal,
an Iraqi resistance leader, added, "American elections and Iraq are linked tightly
together. We've got to work to change the election, and we've done so. With our
strikes, we've dragged Bush into the mud."
The net effect can certainly
be felt in greater attacks on American and Allied casualties. Those casualties
equal more votes for John Kerry. This was, and remains, the unavoidable consequence
of Kerry's reckless campaign rhetoric. The blood of those American Patriots (like
the blood of his "brothers" in Vietnam, after he used that war as fodder for his
1972 congressional campaign), is on John Kerry's hands. To be sure, this is the
harshest of all condemnations. But it is also the truth.
Both Kerry and
Edwards know the consequences of their actions. Fact is, they think the
lives of American military personnel on the warfront with Jihadistan are second-rate
to their political ambitions. He should be held accountable.
As for
Kerry's claims, "I've met with foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly.
But, boy, they look at you and say: 'You've got to win this. You've got to beat
this guy. We need a new policy.' Things like that."
Indeed, Saddam Hussein,
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il, Mohammad Khatami, Moammar
al-Ghadafi, Hu Jingtao, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan are all
rooting for John Kerry to beat George W. Bush on Tuesday. What does that tell
you, fellow Patriots?
A vote for John Kerry is a vote for a lie
-- a fraud. It is a vote against liberty and freedom. But if the Democrat Party
has been fully co-opted by Kerry's deceit, that assertion may be purely academic.
And
a final note. Election seasons are always hard on The Patriot's editorial staff
and contributors -- we are doing double time, covering both the news, policy and
opinion outlets we always cover, plus all the election news. But one feature section,
"The BIG Lie," has been easy to fill every week since John Kerry won the Democrat
primaries last March. The challenge with that section has been choosing which
of Kerry's comments in any given week constitute the BIGGEST lie!
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