Prior to the 1990’s revival of the GOP, it seemed the Republican party had a bottomless pit of methods for self-destruction in campaigns, and one commentator quipped:
“Never underestimate the Repulican’s ability to shoot themselves in the foot while it is in their mouth.”
It appears there is a little bit of this going around the Kerry/Edwards camp. The first statement is the widely discussed nuisance statement:
When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. “We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance,” Kerry said. “As a former law-enforcement person, I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn’t on the rise. It isn’t threatening people’s lives every day, and fundamentally, it’s something that you continue to fight, but it’s not threatening the fabric of your life.”
This will upset my loyal friends on the right, but I just don’t see what the problem with this statement is, and I agree with him. That is the goal- to eliminate the current overwhelming terrorist threat to that of nuisance level. It in no way implies that Kerry underestimates the nature of the threat (although I believe he does), it in no way means he will be weak on terrorism (although I think he will be not as good as Bush), but rather, it is clearly a statement in which Kerry is asked to project what the world is going to look like after our successful prosecution on the war on terror.
We will never eradicate all terrorism, and the goal is to get it to the level that life is tolerable. There is always going to be some idiot with some C4 or a fertilizer bomb- hell, go read Orcinus and you will find out all aboutour own homegrown nuts who are walting around the US with their own half-baked ideas.
Why, then, am I calling this a foot in mouth gaffe? Because you would think the jackass who totally demagogued Bush’s statement that we can never ‘win’ the war on terror would know better than to say the same damn thing. Of course, Kerry contradicts himself hourly and no one seems to care, so perhaps he just said to hell with it and didn’t give it any thought. At any rate, even though I agree with him, it is funny watching him get hit around hte head and shoulders with this statement.
The next gaffe from the Dynamic Duo is John Edward’s hideous statement implying that if Kerry is elected, the handicapped will walk again. Not only did he not wait until Reee’s corpse was even cold, it is a disgusting lie. There is simply no evidenmce that embryonic stem cell research will help spinal injury victims atall, and saying otherwise is worthy of condemnation.
Dan Quayle should be breathing a sigh of relief, because he seems downright Presidential compared to Edwards.
shark
“We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance
I have bolded the part of the sentance that is the problem.
“Back to where we were”- I have to assume that he means prior to 9/11 and the war on terror.
Well, people died during that period. They died because we viewed terrorism as a “nuisance” instead of something to eradicate.
This indicates a 9/10 mindset.
CadillaqJaq
None of Kerry’s verbal flubs compare with the one real reason why he shouldn’t be elected president; John Edwards.
Director Mitch
Terrorism is a “nuisance” when? Only when it is only happening to Jews overseas and not Americans?
jeff
Edwards makes Kerry sound like one of those preachers you see on TV who smacks some people on the forehead and all of a sudden they’re “healed”.
JohnO
The sad part is that Edwards would be hovering over the doctors in the event that the perfect result wasn’t achieved, ready and waiting to issue the Summons & Complaint. For him to say ANYTHING about medical progress is just astounding.
Bloggerhead
John,
I disagree with only a little of what you’ve written here. It just seems to me that the quite benign political point you’re scoring–Kerry’s a flip-flopper or hypocrite, ho hum–isn’t worth sullying your much more important point, that the war on terror likely won’t end in it’s complete eradication, and that, it follows, this is a different sort of conflict, to which the current crude dichotomy, military v. criminal (decide, damnit!), does little justice. Of course, it has been primarily war-supporters who have exploited this crudeness, crudely, and with crude on top.
Plus, Kerry was not being a complete hypocrite for attacking Bush for something that, I agree, Kerry believes. It is the President who, in the process of wrapping himself in a manly banner, has embraced the muscular military solution to the denigration of the police. So when he says something which shows he recognizes that this is not a war to end in treaties and a cessation of hostilities, it shows his hypocrisy in exploiting the military v. criminal dichotomy as well.
So both sides can be lying cocksuckers at times, manipulative and, well, political, big surprise. What’s important is who can lead us to stamp down terror and, it again follows, to clean up Iraq. So far, Bush has shown only the faintest understanding, as you appear ruefully to admit, and he back-tracks like the devil when called on anything, too. (Remember how he and his campaign had, on the very next day, to “exlain his remarks” about not be able to win the war on terror?) Kerry at least grasps the problem, and no amount of dis-contectualizing his Senate record and shrieking about his being the most liberal Senator can shake the growing impression, I sense, that he is better equipped to confront terror. You see, Bush has a record, too, and it’s really, really fresh in people’s minds.
Bloggerhead
Oh, and nice additional cheap shot attempt, linking the dubious notion that embryonic stem cells offer no hope (yeah, that’s why researchers are clamoring for them) with the relative merits of Edwards and Quayle. Admittedly, Edwards can appear to be at boy amongst men, at times, but Quayle remains a simpleton in any setting, except in one-on-one meetings with current President.
W. K.
I know that a moron like Bloggerhead will never be convinced, but I find it inconceivable that the American people could ever turn to a piece of excrement like John Kerry given his horrible record on national security matters. Consider some of the distinctive national security choices Kerry has made over the years.
April 22, 1971: The American people have never elected president someone who, while serving in the military, chose to testify (in uniform) against a war his country was then waging.
January 12, 1991: The American people have never elected president a senator who voted against an authorization for
the use of military force, in this case in pursuance of a United Nations-approved policy to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
October 17, 2003: The American people have never elected president someone who voted against an appropriation to support troops fighting in a war he had approved
September 23, 2004: The American people have never elected president someone who gratuitously attacked a visiting leader, in this case Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, after a speech to a joint session of Congress, when that leader’s government was fighting terrorists on a day-to-day basis alongside American troops.
Will the American people choose as president someone with John Kerry’s national security record? They never have before.
TM Lutas
So, how long has it been since the bey of Tripoli sponsored a pirate expedition in the Mediterranean?
From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli!
Is terrorism any more difficult than piracy to eliminate? Why?
Mark
First: I more or less loathe John Kerry.
Second: I absolutely loathe the Bush-Is-The-Devil Crowd.
But I don’t think there’s any point to pouncing on Kerry for his “nuisance” comment. In isolation, it can be understood as expressed desire to dampen, not ignore, the threat of terrorism. Moreover, when held up next to Bush’s remark about the impossibility of “winning” the war against terrorism, it seems to be of the same ilk. Let’s not play the same “gotcha” game that Kerry’s moronic supporters (actually, Bush’s addled enemies) played when Bush made his remark.
Kerry’s remark, really, means next to nothing. However, Kerry’s history on defense and foreign policy issues — his relentless antipathy toward American power & his sympathy for dubious leftist foreign regimes and “summitry” — is the truly telling factor that should be hammered home by all those worried that the man with “a plan” might soon be running our foreign policy.
Toren
Yeah, Kerry’s so serious about terrorism that he failed to show up last week for arguably the most critical legislation on intelligence reform ever, the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. What the hell, he’s missed 92% of all Senate votes this year, anyway…what’s one more? Not to mention the fact official records show Kerry not present for at least 76% of public hearings held during his eight years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and possibly 78% (the record of one hearing is ambiguous).
Now there’s a man serious about terrorism!
And Bloggerhead…here’s some facts on stem cell research from that right wing tool, CNN:
SDN
Actually, TM, terrorism is more difficult to eliminate than piracy: it requires less infrastructure.
Consider: to be a pirate, you must obtain a reasonably sized ship, equipped with weapons and ammunition (all of which have to be built somewhere); you have to obtain a fairly large crew (to run your own ship and have extras for casualties, prize crew, etc.); and you must have a place to return to between forays to repair, reprovision, and fence the loot. All of these things can be traced.
Terrorism requires much less: Timothy McVeigh represents a fairly large scale effort, and all he needed was himself and one other person, a truck he rented at a corner gas station, and a few hundred pounds of a common substnce that he could have bought in small quantities over months from a dozen Wal-Marts.
Clear on the difference now? I can spot Port Royale on a spy satellite; Tim’s garage is a little more difficult.
Steve Malynn
A couple of historic and current facts. Piracy does not require pre-existing assets, just theft. It does not require heavy weapons, just knives. Only when the merchant ship was heavily armed, did the Pirate need more arms, usually acquired from the ship taken, because unsuccessful pirates died. Unfortunately, there is always someone willing to buy stolen goods, to reduce the incidence of piracy (like terrorism) this support needs to be reduced.
Piracy still exists, over 370 instances each year, many cargo ships are hijacked and ransacked without the use of firearms today.
A massive bibliography: http://www.nwc.navy.mil/library/3Publications/NWCLibraryPublications/LibNotes/libModernMaritimePiracy.htm
Ken
“The American people have never elected president a senator who voted against an authorization for
the use of military force”
Didn’t Lincoln oppose the Mexican War while in Congress?
It’s true that terrorism will, at best, be reduced to a “nuisance” – there will never be any shortage of idiots with a grudge. But that doesn’t mean we should let them get their hands on nukes, which is what will end up happening sooner rather than later if terror-sympathetic states (*cough*Iran*cough*) are left to develop nukes in peace.
Will Kerry stop them? Not a chance in Hell. So terror will be much more than a nuisance in the near future, and for all time.
It’s interesting that he considers prostitution and illegal gambling as something that could ever conceivably threaten people’s lives every day, but terror-sympathetic states working on WMD’s is compatible with a “nuisance” level of terrorism.
By the way, embryonic stem cells from a clone could end up blowing adult stem cells out of the water. Of course embryonic stem cells from a non-clone will be less useful than your own adult stem cells. Which major party is more in favor of a complete ban on cloning for any purpose whatsoever?
van
I, also, thought the Kerry statement was alot about nothing (as was Bush’s). When fighting a war of ideas, it is long, painful and the end result in unknowable. We fought communism. Everyone understands it is a failure, yet many here still do not get it. Jahidists are similar to communists. Both fanatical. Both prey on people’s fears. I think both will be marginalized into ineffectiveness.
I understand the Kerry comment, when seen in his voting record light, seems to be going back to Clinton-era ideas on fighting terrorism. If I take him for what he said, he means to make terrorism as important as sea pirates. A nuisance in the scheme of things.
Liberal Larry
Yes, can’t we please get back to the good ol’ days when only the Jews had to worry about terrorism?
Scott
Kerry’s ‘nuisance’ comment misses the point on the dangers of modern terrorism just as those who say there are no ‘stockpiles’ of WMDs in Iraq.
Just one vial of biological WMD can wipe out the United States. One chemical shell, like the one found in Iraq, can wipe out New York City. I.E. a stockpile of WMDs could be two vials or 4 shells. Thus one Terrorism ‘nuisance’ could destroy our nation or make a city into a mass grave site.
Kerry statements prove that he still thinks as if he is in Vietnam and living in the 70s. He hasn’t a clue about WMDs. His plan is to hire Janet Reno to re-erect the wall that Jamie Gorelick erected under Clinton. Smart Huh?
wild bird
Hey the demacrats suffer from this only they have the liberal left-wing media to cover for them and to help them take their foot out of their mouth which is no easy feat especialy when its in there pretty good
homegrown
Cool cool