Reply With QuoteIn a word, "no."
But only because it showed him up for the jerk he really is:
Cheney Softens Comments on Kerry and Terror Threat
GREEN BAY, Wis. (Reuters) - Vice President Cheney on Friday tempered comments he made earlier this week that warned of the risk of another terrorist attack if Democratic Sen. John Kerry were elected president.
In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cheney said he wanted to "clear up" the stir created by his remarks, which he made Tuesday in the Des Moines, Iowa.
"I did not say if Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack," Cheney said in an interview with the newspaper during a campaign swing through the battleground states of Ohio and Wisconsin where he is working to bring swing voters to the Republican side.
The vice president said what he had meant was that if the United States is attacked again, he believed Kerry would fall back on a "pre-9/11 mind-set" on foreign policy instead of the "pre-emptive" doctrine pursued by President Bush.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States the Bush administration adopted a policy of pre-emptive military action to attack foes before they could become a threat.
"Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks. My point was the question before us is: Will we have the most effective policy in place to deal with that threat? George Bush will pursue a more effective policy than John Kerry," Cheney said in the interview.
Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer responded that "Sen. Kerry has been very clear in saying he will hunt down and kill the terrorists before they get us."
Cheney, at a town hall appearance in Des Moines on Tuesday, said it was essential that Americans make the right choice in the Nov. 2 president election "because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again."
"We'll get hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset if you will that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we're not really at war."
Kerry's vice presidential running mate, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, responded on Tuesday that Cheney was using "scare tactics" and said it showed "once again that he and George Bush will do anything and say anything to save their jobs."
We ALL know this is simply back-peddaling... because we all KNOW exactly what he meant when he first said it....
Hey Cheney...Go **** yourself!
In a word, "no."
In a word, "Yes". The public impact of his first statement was not what he had hoped. He then backpedaled faster than Deion Sanders.
That's what I took his statements to mean from the beginning. Just because others chose to take a more seedy interpretation doesn't mean that was the intent.
And, we're at an impasse.
At least with Kerry the flip-flopping is irrefutable and clear cut. "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it." He's concise...flip-flops in one sentence.
Doesn't really matter, what he said the first time was correct.
Clinton tried Kerry's method and see what happened, it
isn't a criminal matter it is a war matter. Even if some of
you lilly livered folks don't like it. It is time someone told
people what the truth of the matter is.
Just remember what happened on the anniversary coming
up: 9/11. That was not a criminal act, it was an act of
war. And not the first damn attack on this country, it was
only one of several. And Clinton and his liberal buddies
sit on their ass and did NOTHING!
Thank God for George Bush.
Oh I think the original statement was quite effective. The Demo (apparently now standard) response that he "crossed the line this time" and was "un-American" only gives the impression that Cheney spoke the painful truth. Edwards really needs to come up with some new lines.
How do you enter into the first presidential election since 9/11 and make your campaign about Vietnam? That's the real problem here and why Kerry's campaign is looking worse than the Duk's now.
It's about time we moved away from the general puffery and pretension of presidential camapaigns and actually address the issues with some clear, direct statements. If Kerry thinks Bush lied then say it. If Bush thinks Kerry's strategy on Islamist terrorism would increase the chance of another attack, say it.
That is not a flip flop. Kerry voted on two different bills. We voted for a measure that would have provided 67 bill for the troops and 20 bill to reconstruct Iraq and would have reversed the tax cuts for those making over $ 200,000 per year. He voted against a measure that would have provided 67 bill for the troops and 20 bill for Iraqi reconstruction. Two different bills, two different votes. Zero flip flop.At least with Kerry the flip-flopping is irrefutable and clear cut. "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
Bush on the other hand aggressively threatened to veto a bill with bi-partisan support that would have provided 67 bill for the troops and 20 bill in loans to the Iraqis. He signed a measure for 87 bill that was funded by the American taxpayer and did not impact the tax cuts. Flip Flop, not really, two different bills. However using his (and other RNC talking heads and Yoni) logic, Bush flip flopped on the 87 bill as well.
Are you a Senator?"We voted..."
The rest of your post was "blah, blah, blah pablum."
Uh a typo.
Your narrowmindedness is amazing.
I live to amaze, Ruby.
What bothers me is all the talk about Iraq when the war against terrorism is not in Iraq but in Afghanistan.
Iraq didn't attack us on 9/11. Not one of the terrorists was from Iraq but from SAUDI ARABIA!!
Osama is still at large.
Has everyone forgotten that it was Al Queda and NOT Iraq that attacked on 9/11?
Has everyone forgotten that it was Al Queda and NOT Iraq that attacked on 9/11?
You do know that Saddam's Iraq had verifiable ties with terrorist organizations, Joe, right?
Hence the war on terrorism and those who support them.
Joe, you do realize the war against Iraq was over in about 21 days, right? It's been a war against terrorist insurgents, Ba'athist remnants, and Islamic extremists ever since the statue fell."What bothers me is all the talk about Iraq when the war against terrorism is not in Iraq but in Afghanistan."
They all belonged to an organization that had numerous contacts and connections with a regime that willing to pay Hamas to commit terrorist acts in Israel. Face it, the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein was a terrorist organization with a national flag."Iraq didn't attack us on 9/11. Not one of the terrorists was from Iraq but from SAUDI ARABIA!!"
Osama is dead."Osama is still at large."
Has everyone forgotten Iraq unconditionally surrendered in 1991 with the cease fire being contigent upon complete compliance with U.N.S.C. resolutions?"Has everyone forgotten that it was Al Queda and NOT Iraq that attacked on 9/11?"
WTF!? Again with the "Mission Accomplished" theory.
Uh, the war in Iraq is NOT over.
And those "verifiable" ties you talk about did NOT make Iraq an "imminent" threat, at least not in my eyes.
Osama and Al Queda are in Afghanistan and that is where we should be concentrating at fighting Al Queda.
Did he kick the inspectors out? No. Dubyah did.Has everyone forgotten Iraq unconditionally surrendered in 1991 with the cease fire being contigent upon complete compliance with U.N.S.C. resolutions?
Were any WMDs found? Other than the ones secretly airlifted in black helicopters to Syria? No.
I've seen a lot more disregard for the UN by the Bush43 administration, and the NeoCons here than by Saddam. The UN is evil, unless it's a case of the current admin trying to justify stepping on their s by invading a country under false pretenses.
The war in Iraq is over.
We are, unfortunately, smack in the middle of the beginning of a Shi'ite-Sunni civil war.
I know you saw this coming. So did I, which was one of the reasons I was AGAINST the invasion. Most of the people that were so brutally oppressed under Saddam were pretty much the same ones killing US troops now. WGAF about them?We are, unfortunately, smack in the middle of the beginning of a Shi'ite-Sunni civil war.
Better the devil you know than the one you don't. The Shi'ites should eventually win by sheer force of numbers, that is, unless after we leave, Syria decides to wade in to protect their Ba'athist buds, or Turkey decides to squash the Kurds, or...????
That's great, but the underlying assumption is that a Hussein left alone is not a threat. And that's not an easy argument to accept, given the resources at his command and his increasing support of Islamic terrorism, at least rhetorically.
He hates the US & Israel. Well guess who else does?
Of course the counterargument has always been that bin Ladin despised the secularist Hussein. Well did bin Ladin love the US when it was assisting the mujhadeen in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan?
As for the WMDs, senior elected and appointed officials in both parties here in the US thought he had them as did every other major foreign intelligence service. He certainly had demonstrated that he had no compunction in using them before and I don't see it as a stretch that he would actively seek to develop and procure them again.
The world is better off that his regime has been destroyed and he is behind bars.
This right here is an interesting point. Perhaps the Bush administration should have gone along with the movement of other American "allies" and started to do business with Hussein again. I mean, if the US was really about getting Iraqi oil on the market and did not care about other issues such as terrorism then why not just leave Hussein in power and set the framework for increased investment in exploration and extraction in Iraq?Better the devil you know than the one you don't.
The oil was only part of it. Saddam had switched selling oil from dollars to Euros prompting other Middle East countries to contemplate doing the same. This would have undermined the legitimacy of the dollar on foreign markets and there was no way the powers-that-be in Washington were going to allow that to happen. Now, with the U.S. back in control of oil exports in Iraq, the limited amount of oil coming out is sold once again in dollars.This right here is an interesting point. Perhaps the Bush administration should have gone along with the movement of other American "allies" and started to do business with Hussein again. I mean, if the US was really about getting Iraqi oil on the market and did not care about other issues such as terrorism then why not just leave Hussein in power and set the framework for increased investment in exploration and extraction in Iraq?
Um no.
Try again.
As a matter of fact, Bin Laden thanked the current Ambassador to Saudi Arabia for bringing the Americans to help the Mujahadeen against the Russians. Bin Laden was on the CIA payroll until at least 1990.Of course the counterargument has always been that bin Ladin despised the secularist Hussein. Well did bin Ladin love the US when it was assisting the mujhadeen in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan?
Indeed.
Doesn't mean that Saddam and Bin Laden had common motivations, just common goals. Saddam despised the Islamics because they threatened his stranglehold on power in Iraq just as they have done in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and there was no way Saddam and his sons were gonna put up with any of that. If anything, Saddam supported terrorists causes in Lebanon as a way of stifling Islamics criticism of his own regime. Much like many of the governments in most Middle East countries used to use oil money to support terror against other countries, as long as it wasn't domestically.
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