Daily Kos previews Kerry's Sat. radio 'response' speech - Dyn-o-Mite!

[TacticalPeek]

Mods, if this is not like 'pre-Latest Breaking News', I can just post it in GD. :)



Kerry's Saturday Democratic radio address
by kos
Fri Mar 5th, 2004 at 21:51:43 GMT

Does anyone listen to those radio addresses? You know, the president's and the
opposition party's address on Saturday morning?

In any case, Kerry will do the Democratic address tomorrow, and it looks really good on
paper. Here's a teaser:

"We cannot let the strongest armed forces in the world be weakened. America's greatest
military strength has always been the courageous, talented men and women whose love of
country and devotion to service lead them to attempt and achieve the impossible everyday.
We must resolve that America's leaders will never let them down.

"Yet we hear reports that - in dangerous parts of Iraq - our helicopters are flying missions
without the best available anti-missile systems.

"At the same time, un-armored Humvees are falling victim to road-side bombs and
small-arms fire. The Bush Administration waited through month after month of ambushes
and only acted to start manufacturing armored door kits three months ago.

"The Army's 428th Transportation Company, headquartered in Jefferson City, Missouri,
shipped out to Iraq two weeks ago. They had to ask local businesses to donate the steel
to armor their vehicles. When the Bush Administration heard about this, their response
wasn't `never again.' It was `good idea' - they emailed instructions to other units letting
them know how they could use homemade armor to protect their own Humvees from
attacks. I believe our soldiers deserve better.

"Even more shocking, tens of thousands of other troops arrived in Iraq to find that - with
danger around every corner - there wasn't enough body armor to protect them. Many of
their families on the homefront - mothers and fathers, husbands and wives and children -
were forced to raise the money to buy it for them. They went to their neighbors for
donations - and dipped into their savings to give their sons and daughters the equipment to
save their lives - which the Army should be providing. Last month, a young newlywed in
Virginia even gave her husband body armor for Valentine's Day as he prepared to ship out
to Iraq.

"Families should be sending pictures and care packages to Iraq - and the Department of
Defense should be sending the body armor. Today, I call on President Bush to support a
law now in Congress to reimburse each and every family who had to buy the body armor
this Administration failed to provide.

more (well, a little)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/3/5/215147/3254

(tipped at Eschaton)

[TacticalPeek]

1. Kick?

[Octafish]

2. Incredible! May Kerry's message be heard across America!

Kerry itemizes gross negligence, incompetence and dereliction of duty on the part of the chimp-in-chief.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. The Kerry campaign...

REALLY needs to talk to newspapers about running the text of this as a guest op-ed.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

4. Using 'support the troops' against * is quite effective.

Kerry introduced that bill for reimbursing families for the cost of purchasing body armor a while ago.

Smart move.

But what is he gonna say about the US coup in Haiti?

[stevedeshazer]

5. I love Kerry's message here...hard-hitting

But I hate the bastards that made it necessary.

About time that Kerry is responding rather than Daschle or Pelosi.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

6. Kerry needs to run this as an Op-Editorial in the big papers.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. Great thread there following

y'all should check it out.

[JoFerret]

8. This guy is coming out swinging.

He will counter punch every attack and he will look mighty good in a tank.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Good God, NO!

No tanks. NONE. Do we really NEED to open up an avenue for obvious comparisons to Michael Dukakis? I don't think so...

[Nlighten1]

11. What we need is for him to go to a rifle range...

show off his Infantry roots...stay the hell away from the mech crap...Queen of Battle...fix bayonets sir!

[Guaranteed]

15. Wasn't he in the Navy? nt

[Guaranteed]

14. I think it would work great...very tongue in cheek...

Maybe not a tank, but something else...maybe a boat of some kind...show him taking her for a spin.

[grasswire]

10. where has all the money gone?

Where have the hundreds of billions of dollars gone? Certainly not to the safety of the troops.

WHERE'S THE MONEY GOING?

Bush needs to be grilled. Cheney, too!

[Voltaire99]

12. Sounds like an ad for the defense industry.

The real issue is why the U.S. is engaged in an illegal, immoral, and futile occupation of Iraq - not whether the troops sent there to take oil and kill Iraqis are going to get more guns and things.

Teddy Kennedy properly blasted the Bush administration's unjustified war yesterday. Kerry should be doing the same thing, rather than trying to out-hawk Bush.

[Malva Zebrina]

13. I agree

but hesitated to say it for fear of raining on someone's parade. I was a little disappointed in that address--it is a weak response to invading a country on lies and doing so in a rush. Kerry needs to stress that war is the most serious undertaking any country can do. He needs to stress that Bush was irresponsible in his rush to war and he needs to stress the numbers of people who lost their lives due to Bush lying--although no one is brave enough to say he lied, about Saddam's WMD. That is where the focus should be.

But, since he voted for the war, I guess he is a little limited. Kerry is playing the Washington politics game and that was my objection to him, so I voted for someone else in the caucus. He is too entrenched--and maybe he should take his clues from Kennedy who seems to have had a great awakening lately.

People, on the whole, will make excuses for the equiptment not being up to par. Things are never perfect in a war, they may reason , and other things like that. They cannot gloss over treasons however.

[Wickster]

16. Maybe Kerry got this email too...

This morning I received the following infuriating email so I came to DU to calm down and find rebuttal info (bless you DU!) because this is only the first volley in this Rovian-like smear business. Anyway, if anyone has any facts I could use to refute this, please point me to them.

"When Sen. John Kerry tells us he is strong on defense, we should take a look at
his voting record:

He voted to kill the Bradley Fighting Vehicle
He voted to kill the M-1 Abrams Tank
He voted to kill every Aircraft carrier laid down from 1988
He voted to kill the Ages anti aircraft system
He voted to Kill the F-15 strike eagle
He voted to Kill the Block 60 F-16
He voted to Kill the P-3 Orion upgrade
He voted to Kill the B-1
He voted to Kill the B-2
He voted to Kill the Patriot anti Missile system
He voted to Kill the FA-18
He voted to Kill the B-2
He voted to Kill the F117

In short, he voted to kill every military appropriation for the development and
deployment of every weapons systems since 1988 to include the Battle armor for
our troops.

He also voted to kill all anti terrorism activities of every agency of the U.S.
Government and, further, to cut the funding of:
the FBI by 60%,
the funding for the CIA by 80%,
and the funding for the NSA by 80%.

But then he voted to increase OUR funding for U.N operations by 800%!!!

And then Sen. Kerry has the gall to lie to the American people about his
sterling defense record.

In short, Sen. Kerry's record speaks for itself; he wants to gut our ability to
defend ourselves, and turn control of actions like the war in Afghanistan and
Iraq over to the U.N. And this man wants to be YOUR Commander-In-Chief?

With Kerry as president our Army will be made up of naked men running around
with sticks and clubs.

Is THIS the way YOU wANT to keep America strong and defend herself against all
threats, foreign and domestic? Is this the President YOU want?

In November, when it counts, please vote for a strong America, please vote NO!
for John Kerry."

Well, that's it - it is from a woman whose son made it back alive from Iraq and will never admit that he should never have gone there in the first place. But I can no longer let this stand. Help and thanks.