Yep, that’s what we all need. I think it’s time to address this strategy of his head on. Frankly, we haven’t done a whole lot on the French-looking John Kerry here because I think he’s barely, frankly, been in the top tier, front tier in terms of poll numbers, in terms of presence. It’s just not happening. It’s not happening for any of them – especially Kerry, given expectations. Now, the overwhelming majority of Americans have never served in the military. And for those who have, we all say “thank you” a thousand times over. Your fellow citizens owe you a great debt of gratitude. I have never and will never question John Kerry’s service in the military, and nobody should. And I don’t think anybody has. But, boy, he invites it. He invites it with this constant reminder that he served. But I’ll tell you, there are other things to question about John Kerry, and that’s his service in elective office. I’m not going to look back on his days in Vietnam; they’re over and done with and that’s not an area that we’re going to criticize here, but you can look at his record as senator from Massachusetts and you can draw some conclusions. He’s a big-government Massachusetts liberal. During his time in the Senate, the single most important area Kerry has voted to cut spending for the military. That is what he is most known for, that is what his most consistent voting record shows. 
I kid you not. During his service in the Senate, the single most important area where Kerry has voted to cut spending is the military. He supported Clinton’s cuts on defense, and that means cutting spending for training, for equipment, for benefits and the like. Now, I would have thought that somebody with Kerry’s military record wouldn’t be so liberal and wouldn’t have gone along with such cuts, but he is, and he did. That’s his record as a senator. That’s no reason to assume it will change because he might become president. He can run out there and say all these things – he’s going to have the most powerful military, he’s going to have the most well-equipped, he’s going to have the most best trained. He’s voted against all that! Where are the reporters on a campaign trail reminding him of this? Senator, how you going to bring this about? This doesn’t jibe with your record in the Senate. Why aren’t you telling us with pride what you did when you were in the Senate? Why are you giving us a plan, a program that is in diametric opposition to the way you voted in the U.S. Senate? Now, are we to believe, senator, the way you voted or what you tell us you’re going to do? And why are you going to do something so drastically different than the way you voted? What’s changed, senator? Just because you’ve become a presidential candidate?
This, to me, is why he ought not be president. Right now, we are at war. There is a war against terrorism. This is it; this is a life-and-death struggle. He was an outstanding soldier, but he’s a terrible politician. He’s a not a wartime leader, and his public record proves it. And there are other things beside his record of defense cutting. I mean he has no scruples or principles when it comes to commanding the military, and here’s the proof. As a senator in 1991 John Kerry voted against the Gulf War resolution. Yet in 1998 when Bill Clinton launched some cruise missiles in Iraq, Kerry strongly supported it. Last fall he voted for the joint congressional resolution authorizing the president to use military force against Iraq, but since then he has made a variety of statements and arguments trying to downplay his vote saying it would have been different if he’d have known what he knows now, and all this has been brought about because of the attractiveness of Howard Dean’s extreme left-wing anti-war propaganda to the Democrat base. We’re not getting what John Kerry really thinks. We’re getting what John Kerry thinks he has to say to keep up with Dean. Dean is leading the pack, he’s activating and agitating and enthusing all of the liberal Democrat kook primary voters, and Kerry sees the need to keep up.
He’s all over the board here, “Yeah, I voted for the resolution last fall, but I wouldn’t have if I’d have known then what I know now.” Well, nobody could have known what was going to happen for certain. He’s not even willing to stand by his vote now. He’s got to make excuses for it, whether his audience is a bunch of labor people or a standard Democratic primary election audience. I mean to me this stuff reeks of not being a serious public figure. It’s his record in the Senate and as a candidate for president that deserves criticism, not his military service, and that’s long ago. I mean, the only thing you can draw from his military service is what I said earlier; how can he have that phase in his life and now have evolved to where he is? It doesn’t make intellectual sense. And when you examine John Kerry’s approach, you find out that intellectual sense is not the objective here. Outrunning Howard Dean getting to the left is.
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