CLT
UPDATE
Saturday, September 20,
2003
Our Sen. Kennedy again a national
embarrassment:
ABC News "fact check" devastates partisan
charge
Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts has
launched a major attack on the president's war policies. He gave
an interview yesterday which certainly got a lot of attention and
today we asked ABC's John Cochran to check out what the senator
had said and whether he had his facts right....
ABC's World News Tonight with Peter
Jennings
Friday, September 19, 2003
Story: Fighting
Words
(Transcript of ABC News Fact Check)
It's finally happened. The senior
senator from Massachusetts has finally gone totally around the
bend, letting his rhetorical flights of fancy take him places no
responsible political leader should go.
A Boston Herald editorial
Saturday,
September 20, 2003
Kennedy
rhetoric goes off the charts
In an interview with The Associated
Press Thursday, Kennedy said the case for going to war against
Iraq was a fraud "made up in Texas" to give Republicans a
political boost and the money for the war is being used to bribe
foreign leaders to send troops....
"It didn't have to be
this way," he said. "We wouldn't have to be providing these
billions of dollars to these countries to ... coerce them or bribe
them to send their troops in, if we'd done it the right way, if
we'd gone to the United Nations, if we had built an international
constituency."
Associated Press
Friday, September
19, 2003
Kennedy,
DeLay Clash on Bush Iraq Policy
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
yesterday labeled Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's charge that the Iraq
war was a politically-motivated "fraud" as "a new low" and called
on Democratic presidential candidates to repudiate
them.
"It's disturbing that Democrats have spewed more
hateful rhetoric at President Bush than they ever did at Saddam
Hussein," Delay said.
The Boston Herald
Saturday,
September 20, 2003
Ted
K, GOP feud over Bush bash
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Because of the hurricane, at 6:30 last night I had
network television on in the background when to my astonishment, ABC's
"World News Tonight" with Peter Jennings blew our own U.S. Senator Ted
Kennedy out of the water. Its devastating "fact check" proved
Kennedy's recent, well-publicized charges against President George W.
Bush were utterly baseless, simply a cheap political attack.
On
the charge made by Sen. Kennedy that President Bush had "made up in
Texas" a political strategy to invade Iraq and plotted for a
forthcoming war against Iraq that would be a political boost for
Republicans, ABC News found no evidence that there was such a
plot.
On the charge that President Bush was "bribing" foreign
governments to supply troops to assist the U.S. stabilize Iraq, ABC
News quoted a Kennedy aide who'd backed off, saying he instead meant
more like encourage or entice!
On and on it went, crushing our
"esteemed senior senator" and his credibility point by point in front
of the nation.
The ABC News "fact check" found no such facts --
only an unsubstantiated and partisan Kennedy political attack -- and
to its credit, ABC News shared the accusations vs. facts with its
viewers.
I don't know about you, but I'm sure tired of living
in a national laughingstock; and some Massachusetts commentators have
the nerve to make fun of California!
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Chip
Ford |
ABC's World News Tonight with
Peter Jennings
Friday, September 19,
2003
Story: Fighting Words
(Transcript of
ABC News Fact Check)
Peter Jennings:
Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts has launched a major attack on the
president's war policies. He gave an interview yesterday which
certainly got a lot of attention and today we asked ABC's John
Cochran to check out what the senator had said and whether he had
his facts right.
John Cochran: Senator Kennedy
has criticized the president on Iraq before but never like this.
Kennedy told the Associated Press the war in Iraq was a "fraud, made
up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that
war was going to take place and was going to be good politically."
Actually, Kennedy was referring to a speech the president's
political advisor Karl Rove made not last January, but in January of
2002.
Rove said then that national security issues were good
political issues for Republicans, but Rove never said a war was
going to take place in Iraq or anyplace else.
Kennedy also
said a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office showed that
only $2.5 billion of the $4 billion being spent every month in Iraq
could be accounted for by the Bush administration.
We could
not find a CBO report that mentions such a figure. Today, a source
close to Kennedy agreed and said the senator had heard that figure
from someone.
Kennedy also said he believed that "this money
is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts
of the world, bribing them to send in troops," but, again, a source
close to Kennedy said he was not referring to actual bribery, but
incentives to countries such as Turkey to send troops to Iraq. Today
House Majority Leader Tom Delay called Kennedy's remarks "hateful
and a new low."
Sources familiar with Kennedy's reasoning say
he stepped up his attacks on the president in an effort to get the
country to pay more attention to a situation in Iraq that he feels
is catastrophic. John Cochran, ABC News, Washington.
Return to top
The Boston Herald
Saturday, September 20,
2003
Kennedy rhetoric goes off the charts
A Boston Herald
editorial
It's finally happened. The senior senator from
Massachusetts has finally gone totally around the bend, letting his
rhetorical flights of fancy take him places no responsible political
leader should go.
In interviews Thursday, Sen. Ted Kennedy
said of the war in Iraq, "There was no imminent threat. This was
made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership
that war was going to take place and was going to be good
politically. This whole thing was a fraud."
To charge that
President Bush put American men and women in harm's way in Iraq,
that lives were lost because this war would be "good politically"
for the Republican Party is so obscene, so gross that if Kennedy
can't substantiate that charge (and how could he possibly?), he
ought to be driven out of politics.
Kennedy followed that
charge with one that is just as grotesque. He said a recent report
by the Congressional Budget Office showed that only about $2.5
billion of the $4 billion being spent monthly on the Iraq war could
be accounted for by the Bush administration. Then he added, "My
belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these political
leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in
troops."
Bribing them? As in money under the table? Or did
Kennedy mean the sort of congressional tit-for-tat bribery that the
senator has raised to an art form during his political
career?
Unlike the Democratic presidential candidates who
must ultimately be held accountable for their rhetoric on the Iraq
war and its conduct by the Bush administration, Kennedy obviously
feels free to give vent to any looney-tune accusation or conspiracy
theory that comes to mind.
There is responsible political
criticism at a time when American troops are still engaged on
foreign soil, and then there is the kind that Kennedy has indulged
in. In doing so he has done a grave disservice to those troops, to
his party and to the people of Massachusetts he purports to
represent.
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Associated Press
Friday,
September 19, 2003
Kennedy, DeLay Clash on Bush Iraq
Policy
By Lolita C. Baldor
House Majority Leader
Tom DeLay lashed out at Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy for his
criticism of President Bush's Iraq policy, describing the comments
as a "new low" and calling on presidential candidates to repudiate
the remarks.
In an interview with The Associated Press
Thursday, Kennedy said the case for going to war against Iraq was a
fraud "made up in Texas" to give Republicans a political boost and
the money for the war is being used to bribe foreign leaders to send
troops. Those words drew the wrath of Texas Republican DeLay.
In a statement released Friday, DeLay said Sen. John
Kerry of Massachusetts and other Democratic presidential hopefuls
should "have the courage" to repudiate Kennedy's remarks, which he
called a "new low." And he said it was "disturbing that Democrats
have spewed more hateful rhetoric at President Bush then they ever
did at Saddam Hussein."
After a day's silence on the matter,
the White House also responded to Kennedy's comments.
"This
is the kind of charged political rhetoric here that obscures the
real policy debate, which is how we make America safer in a
post-Sept. 11 world," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
"Sept. 11 taught us we need to confront new threats before they
reach our shores."
Responding to DeLay's call for
Democratic presidential candidates to disavow Kennedy's comments,
Kerry fired back - at the Texas lawmaker.
"Tom DeLay is a
bully," Kerry said. "He tried to bully Democrats in Texas and we're
not going to accept his shrill partisan attacks or allow him to
suggest that patriotism belongs to one political
party."
Kerry was referring to DeLay's role in redistricting
the state's congressional boundaries to benefit
Republicans.
Kennedy dismissed DeLay's comments, saying that
once again GOP leaders are avoiding questions about Bush's policies
"by attacking the patriotism of those who question
them."
Kennedy also elaborated on his comments in an
interview on CNN Friday, saying the administration is announcing an
$8.5 billion loan to Turkey, and that country will then provide
military assistance in Iraq.
"It didn't have to be this way,"
he said. "We wouldn't have to be providing these billions of dollars
to these countries to ... coerce them or bribe them to send their
troops in, if we'd done it the right way, if we'd gone to the United
Nations, if we had built an international
constituency."
McClellan called the funding charges "more
political rhetoric that have no basis in fact."
DeLay didn't
defend the administration's policy, preferring to put the
responsibility on Democrats to take sides. But the Democratic
drumbeat against the Bush administration's Iraq policies has only
intensified in recent days.
Earlier this week, House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a senior
member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, called on
Bush to fire advisers who helped set U.S. policy in Iraq because it
has been riddled with miscalculations over armed opposition and
rebuilding.
Return to top
The Boston Herald
Saturday, September 20, 2003
Ted
K, GOP feud over Bush bash
by Steve Marant
House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay yesterday labeled Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's
charge that the Iraq war was a politically-motivated "fraud" as "a
new low" and called on Democratic presidential candidates to
repudiate them.
"It's disturbing that Democrats have spewed
more hateful rhetoric at President Bush than they ever did at Saddam
Hussein," Delay said.
But Kennedy dismissed Delay's comments,
saying that once again GOP leaders are avoiding questions about
Bush's policies "by attacking the patriotism of those who question
them."
"This is the same crowd that accused (former Georgia
senator) Max Cleland of being unpatriotic and he lost three limbs in
Vietnam," said Kennedy.
And Kennedy's colleague, Sen. John F.
Kerry (D-Ma) called DeLay a "bully."
"We're not going to
accept his shrill partisan attacks or allow him to suggest that
patriotism belongs to one political party," Kerry said.
The
White House was more tempered in its reaction, characterizing
Kennedy's comments as "charged political rhetoric."
Kennedy's
comment "obscures the real policy debate, which is how we make
America safer in a post-Sept. 11 world," said White House spokesman
Scott McClellan. "Sept. 11 taught us we need to confront new threats
before they reach our shores."
Asked if he is questioning
President Bush's integrity, Kennedy said, "No, I question his
policy, which is bankrupt."
Kennedy again raised questions
about Bush's rationale for invading Iraq, saying that no link has
been proved between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and no evidence has
surfaced of weapons of mass destruction or nuclear
weapons.
"They represented to us in the Senate that they'll
never have to come to Congress because there's enough oil revenues
there for reconstruction, and they're wrong," said
Kennedy.
He said the administration's $8.5 billion loan to
Turkey in return for military assistance amounted to a "bribe" that
could have been avoided if the administration had "built an
international constituency."
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