Why Kerry Can’t Stay on Message

It was old Lurch! “John Kerry, December 16th, the next day, at Drake University in Iowa, Kerry asserted that, quote: ‘Those who doubted whether the Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture don’t have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.'” This is stunning. So Howard Dean says, “Wrong place, wrong war, wrong time,” wrong whatever. Kerry today, over the weekend, decides (Kerry sing-song voice), “You know what? I liiike that. My staff caaan use what old Hoooward was saying.” Kerry apparently forgot that he repudiated what Howard Dean said himself. We are smack-dab in the — I don’t care who you have on your campaign staff, they can’t square this. When anybody can go out and recite quotes from Kerry and show he him all over the map. Here is how Bush dealt with this at a campaign rally in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, last night.
BUSH: After voting for the war but against funding it, after saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisors (Crowd laughter) and yet another new position. (Crowd laughter) Suddenly he’s against it again.
RUSH: And he’s doing so in the words of Howard Dean. At Poplar Bluff, Missouri, which is just south of my hometown of Cape Girardeau, President Bush said, “‘The war in Iraq was right for America,’ rebutting Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry’s contention that it was ‘the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time,'” which again is a lifted quote from Howard Dean. “At a stop in Missouri on the traditional opening day of the campaign, Bush scolded his opponent for what he characterized as waffling on the Iraq war, took a jab at a Democratic campaign that appears troubled amid a shuffling of top staffers,” and then he said what we just aired for you. “The latest Gallup poll, CNN/USA Today, likely voters taken Friday through Sunday puts Bush at 52 over Kerry’s 45; 1% for Ralph Nader. At a campaign stop in West Virginia Kerry fired back saying the president’s ‘rush to war’ cost the U.S. 200 billion that could have been used for domestic spending initiatives that he favors.”
Boy, I’ll tell you! These wars really do put a crimp in spending, don’t they? This is an amazing thing, folks. He’s now lifting quotes from Howard Dean, after he had repudiated the very thing Howard Dean said. “Vice President Cheney, campaigning in Iowa…” Oh, also Cheney started ripping into our allies again. He said, “It’s the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and if the 40 countries that have helped liberate Iraq constitute a coalition, it’s the phoniest thing I ever heard,” quote, unquote. Cheney, who was in Iowa, said, “Those allies including Britain, Australia, and most of the former communist bloc in eastern Europe deserve our respect, not our insults.” Cheney said, “I got news for Senator Kerry. As General Tommy Franks said, ‘Every contribution from every nation is important.’ Demeaning our allies is an interesting approach for somebody seeking the office of the presidency. When it comes to diplomacy, it looks like John Kerry should stick to wind surfing.'”

Well, here’s a guy — this is another thing. Here’s Kerry ripping our allies while saying he’s going to get our allies to do things that they won’t do for George W. Bush. You know, the media will do its best just to report this and not analyze the — I don’t want to say the word “insane.” This is just impossible to follow. The Kerry statements from day to day, much less week to week, on Iraq and all these issues, are impossible to follow, and it’s impossible to see any consistency in anything he’s saying. So they can throw his staff up there; they can make all these things and they can upgrade here and downgrade there, but if you don’t have a candidate who can stick to one policy over and over and make the point and become identified with it — and he just can’t. You know, I’m beginning to think that there is a characteristic that Kerry has, and it is that he will not be tied to one position on anything. There’s something in his makeup. He wants flexibility and nuance on everything. He just doesn’t have the fortitude, guts, I don’t know what it would be to take a position and stick to it, and I think that people who do that are people that generally are not confident of what they really think about it and so they want to be able to have the flexibility to move in case events change or in case that they’re lack of confidence is born out as true and they were wrong about it.
But there’s clearly a lack of confidence on Kerry’s part, a lack of confidence about any issue, confidence about his candidacy. If he’s not confident enough about what he thinks and what he believes, if he’s not confident enough in his core makeup to tell people what it is, then you have to wonder. By the way, he says he’s going to coalesce all these allies that supposedly hate Bush and hate us, and he’s going to make these allies our best friends. These allies are going to take over all the hard work for us so that we can come home and spend money on health care and all that. How’s he going to manage this when he can’t even manage a campaign staff, when he can’t even keep a campaign staff together and keep them organized, and keep the campaign staff focused? It’s not their fault. They can’t stay focused because Kerry isn’t. They can do all they want and they can come up with all the great ideas in the world but if there’s no leadership from the top, if there’s no guiding light, no principle, no momentum, no inertia, whatever you want to call it, then you’re in trouble.
The LA Times headlines all this today by saying: “Kerry Tries to Hone Criticism of Iraq War. — He cites the costs and questions the coalition. Bush accuses him of yet another new position. Senator Kerry today toughened his criticism of the war in Iraq, calling it ‘the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time,'” and they just recite all these, Kerry’s quotes, and they point out that Kerry voted for all this, that he is against today. It’s left to Bill Kristol to find out that it was John Kerry pilfering a line used by Howard Dean and after Dean used the line it was John Kerry who repudiated Howard Dean. So, believe me, they’re wringing their hands out there in the media. They’re wringing their hands at the Kerry campaign. They’re wringing their hands at the DNC. They are wringing their hands because they jumped too soon with this guy. They can’t keep him on message because he has no message. It’s an amazing thing to watch. I think it’s kind of funny.
END TRANSCRIPT

<*ICON*>Your Resource for Combating the Partisan Media, Liberals and Bush-Haters…
(…Rush’s John F. Kerry Stack of Stuff packed with quotes, flips & audio!)