IPW Daily Report – Tuesday, March 16, 2004
"I'm not making anything up at all,"
John Kerry said
about foreign leaders supporting him.
Kerry continued:
"I stand by my statement. The point is not the
leaders. What's important is that this
administration's foreign policy is not making us
as safe as we can be in the world."
"At the very least,"
Vice President
Cheney said, "we have a right to know what
he is saying to foreign leaders that makes them so
supportive of his candidacy."
“But incipient [Republican Congressional] heresy
also reflects shortcomings of the Bush political
operation. Its emphasis has been on fund-raising
and organization, with deficiencies in
communicating and leadership. The president is in
political trouble, and his disaffected supporters
who should be backing him aggressively provide the
evidence.” --
writes Robert Novak.
Credibility
analysis by
Roger Wm. Hughes
Chairman of IowaPresidentialWatch PAC
"For the past three years, since President Bush
took office, we have seen a widening credibility
gap between what the administration says and what
it does," Senator Ted (Chappaquiddick) Kennedy
said.
The Michigan Survey Research Center has been doing
surveys on what characteristics the American
public wants in their elected officials. The
center is well qualified to report on these
findings as they have been conducting the same
survey in the same accurate manner for decades.
Over those decades three characteristics have
dominated the survey and have always generated
nearly the same fixed percentage of support.
Honesty has always come in at 90-95 percent;
caring at 80-85 percent; and capable
at 60-65 percent.
The Democrats have set out to attack the President
Bush’s credibility and thereby defeat him in the
next election.
To that end on Friday, six House Democrats asked
the HHS inspector general to investigate whether
Richard S. Foster "faced inappropriate pressure to
withhold information from lawmakers regarding the
underestimating the cost of prescription drugs
would have on American taxpayers.”
In another ironic twist, Democrats asked that the
ads -- required by law when Congress passed the
prescription drugs and cleared by the General
Accounting Office as being appropriate -- be
voluntarily pulled by local TV stations airing
them because they are misleading.
What is misleading? That the American public is
once again going to take wealth away from the
young and working and give it to the elderly?
The multi-front attack on the President’s
credibility is the reason Sen. John Kerry was so
quick to counter Bush’s TV ad that showing Kerry
would raise $900 billion in new taxes. Kerry
responded that he proposed lowering middle-income
taxes and creating jobs.
It is true that Kerry proposes offering a middle
income tax cut. However, this is only possible if
Kerry ends the War on Terrorism or doesn’t fulfill
his other promises of free college education and
increased funding to K-12 education, day care and
pre-school education, 100,000 of new firefighters
and 100,000 of new policeman to pay of their
endorsement and new inspectors at the ports for
more union workers and hundreds of other
proposals.
Yes, Kerry will raise taxes by $900 billion if he
does what he says he’ll do, if elected. Then
again, Kerry has hardly ever stayed on one side of
an issue long enough to do anything.
Much of the façade of the argument against
President Bush’s credibility comes over the war
and weapons of mass destruction. It is true that
these weapons have not been found as we expected.
However, the Democrats would have us believe that
we are not better off with the capture of Saddam
Hussein. And that is not true.
Because of our actions in Iraq we are making
greater progress in the War on Terrorism. Yemen is
doing more to capture Al Qaeda. Other countries in
the region -- Iran, Libya and Syria -- are now
less of a threat. In the Democrat response to
President Bush’s weekend address, Chappaquiddick
Kennedy ridiculously said:
"President Bush spoke in terms the intelligence
community never used (and) called Iraq a 'unique
and urgent threat’”, Kennedy said.
"As we now know, it was all a distraction. There
was no immediate threat. No nuclear weapons. No
persuasive link to Al Qaeda. But we went to war
anyway."
Thank God we did, and may our prayers be with all
the victims of the War on Terror. It will be a
long war, but because of President Bush we will
not have a 9-10 President like John Kerry in a
9-11 world.
Some day we will get around to talking about the
real credibility problem – John Kerry. Some day we
will discuss Kerry’s economic plan, criticized by
Allan Greenspan as isolationist and dangerous to
our economy and the world’s. Some day we will
discuss Kerry’s votes to gut our defenses and the
CIA. Some day we will discuss how Kerry wants to
ally with France and Germany who have said that
they want to reduce America’s power in the world.
Some day we will discuss Howard Dean’s accusation
that Kerry has no credibility because of his
constant reversal of positions over his long
tenure in congress.
AFL-CIO files suit against China
The USA Today is carrying a story about how the
AFL-CIO is forcing the Bush Administration’s hand
on China trade and globalization:
The AFL-CIO, which represents 13 million workers
in 64 trade unions, is filing the case in a venue
usually reserved for corporations: the Office of
the U.S. Trade Representative. In a 104-page
petition, the labor federation contends that the
Chinese government's "persistent pattern of
repressing labor rights" has created a huge pool
of cut-rate labor that has displaced as many as
1.2 million U.S. jobs.
USA Today reports that the union expects to use
the issue to campaign against Bush:
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick will
have 45 days to decide whether to take the case.
If he doesn't, says Thea Lee, the AFL-CIO's
assistant director for international economics,
"we'll make it a campaign issue." The labor
federation, which nearly always supports
Democrats, is backing Sen. John Kerry against Bush
this year.
This as Treasury Secretary Allan Greenspan warns
about the Democrats increasing protectionism and
how it will cause great harm to our nation’s
economy and the world’s economy.
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