Actual Analysis

[heidi]

This is something I haven't seen anywhere yet.

Here's what Cheney said last night about PM Allawi of Iraq:

Our most important ally in the war on terror, in Iraq specifically, is Prime Minister Allawi. He came recently and addressed a joint session of Congress that I presided over with the speaker of the House.

And John Kerry rushed out immediately after his speech was over with, where he came and he thanked America for our contributions and our sacrifice and pledged to hold those elections in January, went out and demeaned him, criticized him, challenged his credibility.

And as you can see in the transcript of Allawi's speech two weeks ago in front of Congress (you know, the speech that was cowritten by someone from the Bush campaign), Allawi said:

[W]e are succeeding in Iraq.
It's a tough struggle with setbacks, but we are succeeding... When political leaders sound the siren of defeatism in the face of terrorism, it only encourages more violence.

So Kerry said, regarding Allawi's speech:

The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operation and the troops all tell a different story... I think the prime minister is, obviously, contradicting his own statement when he said terrorists are pouring into the country

And he got slammed for it. He was raked over the coals by Bush in the last debate, by Cheney the next day and again last night, by Republicans around the world.


But here's what Allawi said yesterday in his first speech before the interim National Assembly in Iraq regarding the country's instability - he said it's a:

"source of worry for many people" and that the guerrillas represent "a challenge to our will."

Can a someone who thinks Kerry's statement was Really Evil or somehow Supportive Of Terrorists please explain why you think that? Kthx!

Comments

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

*makes cricket noises*

Waits....

[didi75.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was in the kitchen and I heard Cheney's accusation and I said out loud, "Yeah, because one of W's speach writers wrote the damn speech for him, duh!!!"

Why couldn't Edwards come back on that one? He seemed a little flustered at points, which really surprised to me.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

*nods* I was yelling at the TV, "Call him on it! Ask him who put those words in Allawi's mouth!"

But then, I'm sure there were so many lies that Edwards had to pick and choose which to debunk.

[hedwig-snowy.livejournal.com]

Kerry was saying that Allawi is polite. :) Hey, he's visiting someone else's home and he didn't want to spit on them while he was at the White House. The problem with lying (by Bush and Cheney) is that 'eventually' you get caught. Cheney is even better at parsing than Clinton. Impressive...

No, the Kerry comment was in-line with his campaign, that the war in Iraq is not going as rosy as the White House would have us believe (of course, all of that footage of bombs exploding in Baghdad does come from the liberal media! :)). Actually, it's not really a laughing matter. For four years I have prayed that one day the administration would have one person come forward who wasn't 1) Hoping for future political gains (Powell), 2) Standing by her man even though he's completely wrong (Rice), 3) So stubborn on his war tactics views that he has gotten people killed (Rumsfeld), and 4) Could actually prosecute more than a handful of terrorists after he makes a big publicity-grabbing press conference to announce that HE got another one only to find out the people were innocent and then have an under-under-underling announce that the Government had made a mistake (Ashcroft). They just aren't serious people. I understand that all Administrations make mistakes, but this is ridiculous and frightening. We can't afford their mistakes any longer.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

All the Bush people know is that if anyone disagrees with them on foreign policy it means that they're giving aid and succor to our enemies. Which is rubbish, of course. It sometimes seems that they're this far away from resurrecting the McCarthy trials. I truly wouldn't put it past them.

It's too bad that Edwards/Cheney pretty much degenerated into, "You're a liar!" "No, YOU'RE a liar!" No, YOU'RE a..." etc. I wish it were possible to just amass a huge pile of the evidence about how much of a plutocrat and a duplicitous liar Cheney really IS. Isn't there someone working for the Dems who could have helped Edwards get his ducks in a row a little bit better?

On the up-side, our neighbor who is a child psycologist AND a Snape lookalike (Rachel loves the idea of Snape being a child psychologist!) has written on the rear window of his van,

Kerry 1
Bush 0

I love my neighborhood. <3

[hedwig-snowy.livejournal.com]

Did you happen to notice this? Maybe Cheney's getting senile? He seems to forget that he has mentioned a connection between 9/11 and Iraq and now this...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=2&u=/latimests/cheneyandedwardshavemetbefore

It was perhaps the most surprising tidbit of new information during the debate — that Vice President Dick Cheney had never met Sen. John Edwards until Tuesday night.

Except it wasn't true.

It seems, however, the vice president's memory was a little off. Or maybe Edwards didn't leave much of an impression.

Less than two hours after the debate ended, aides to Edwards and Sen. John F. Kerry distributed a photograph from the Feb. 1, 2001, National Prayer Breakfast showing Edwards and Cheney standing side by side.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Nice summary.

Hunh, that old canard. They used to say that about anyone who objected to the Vietnam War too: If you wanted to bring the troops home now, you were undermining the war effort.

Has anyone noticed that Allawi is viewed in Iraq (and throughout the Mideast not to mention Europe) as a straw man for the Americans and has zero credibility as a leader? Hey, kids, can you say "Nguyen Van Thieu"?

[luminousmarble.livejournal.com]

:( I hope everything's okay, and that you're feeling better soon.