Kerry on Imus (recap)

Note: the following is the "best i could do" typing what was said during Kerry's appearance on Imus ... it's probably about 95% accurate ... to those interested in suggesting that any inaccuracies are caused by biases i might or might not have, let me suggest what you can do with your keyboards ... i did the best i could ...

Kerry was "in studio" at MSNBC for the interview ...

Imus showed Kerry's Face the Nation clip so Kerry could comment ...

Imus: think these things thru before we say them
Kerry: the only people trying to make anything of that is people on the right
Kerry: when the biggest killers in Iraq are suicide bombers and IED's, it's inconceivable that we are still going into homes and scaring people

Kerry: i want to redeploy our troops

Kerry: Gen. Casey said our large troop presence feeds the insurgency and prevents the Iraqis from standing up on their own

Imus: you made it sound like our troops were going into homes and terrorizing children
Kerry: most reasonable people understand what I meant

Imus: how will it be any different if Iraqi troops do it?
Kerry: the bottom line is this needs to be transferred to Iraqis
Imus: how are we going to get them to do that? what percentage of trained troops do we need before they can do that?
Kerry: I think we're increasingly able to do that ...
Kerry: there has not been a sufficient leverage of the Sunni world to force a reconciliation

Kerry: the President actually admitted that the foreign jihadists are actually the smallest percentage of the insurgency ... the Iraqis don't want those guys there

Kerry: the real struggle on the war on terror is not a military struggle ... it's a struggle within Islam

Kerry: King Abdullah spoke in Mecca yesterday and said we are not going to tolerate this (meaning Islamic terrorism)

Imus: i don't think any of the plans make any sense ... i think there will be civil war no matter what we do

Kerry: that's one possibility ... we can ensure that the Sunnis get sufficient oil revenues ... there's a possibility this can work out but there's nothing to indicate this administration will get things right in Iraq ... they haven't gotten anything right so far

Imus: knowing what you know now, would you still vote to authorize force
Kerry: absolutely not

Imus: did bush and cheney lie about the evidence
Kerry: i think they misled ... (aluminum tubes, Meeting with Al Qaeda)
Kerry: misled ... lie ... i can't tell their intent
Kerry: we didn't know the intelligence had a different view of that
Kerry: we didn't know there were people in the intelligence community who didn't buy some of the intelligence

Imus: why did they lie?
Kerry: Wolfowitz (and others) were predisposed to war

Kerry: this was a war of choice

Kerry: Iraq was an easy target ... a lot of countries have weapons ... we didn't go to war with them ...
Kerry: the President helped lend to that belief that Saddam was involved in 9/11 ... it didn't just get there by accident ... the people we were after came out of Afghanistan ... we had Osama trapped in Tora Bora ... rumsfeld wouldn't use American troops to get him ... we outsourced that job to Afghans ... they allowed Osama to escape

Imus: should rumsfeld resign?
Kerry: absolutely ... what's happened to accountability in America? (listed a bunch of rumsfeld's failures in Iraq) ... it's been the most unbelievable set of false assumptions and yet there they are still managing this

Imus: is cheney a war criminal?
Kerry: no, where did that idea come from?

(additional brief discussion where Kerry talked about better choices that the country could be making)

Why can't he do that when he gives a speech!

I have to go to work. I'll check this thread tonight.

Kerry looks really good!

His Afghanistan comments about using Special Forces in an Entebbe type raid to get Bin Laden rather than 3 weeks of less targeted bombing was interesting. During the election, he talked of using special forces and good intelligence to precisely target the terrorists, but this makes that much clearer.

meant -- Common sense says Iraqis outta be policing Iraqis. But Wingnut Liars like limbaugh and mehlman aren't paid to be reasonable

stuck with a bafoon in the Oval Office.

but for some reason, he comes alive when he and John Kerry interact. They seem to be very good friends even though Imus is pretty tough on him sometimes.

Senator Kerry looked great. He's a pretty cool guy when he's off the clock (semi-off the clock). Sure he's all business when giving a speech, but I'm rather partial to his serious side too, but then I'm someone who reads books about the greatest speeches in history for recreation.

This was fun to wake up to this morning. Senator Kerry never ceases to amaze me. He's got so many dimensions to his personality it is difficult to understand how people could possibly call him dry and uninteresting. He's very smart and professional, but he can be kinda ordinary and can be somewhat goofy at times(love this). Then he's got a very sweet side (he really is a nice person). Sometimes when he goes on about a subject he's passionate about, Senator Kerry reminds me of everybody's dad at the dinner table. He's just so real.

In One Night, Iraqi Turns From Friend to Foe
Man Who Supported U.S. Occupation Calls Americans 'the Devil' After Alleged Raid on His House

By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 23, 2005; Page A20

snip...

Often, soldiers on raids find illegal weapons, ringleaders and vital information that can prevent more attacks. But often, the raids turn up little and leave hard feelings among civilians who resent foreign soldiers bursting into their homes, breaking doors and gates and pointing guns at their heads. They resent these men catching their wives and daughters in their bedclothes. They resent them barking orders, telling them to get on the ground, invading their homes, emptying drawers and turning over mattresses.

On the night of Jan. 5, Imaad and his mother, Um Imaad -- both of whom declined to give their full names for fear of retribution -- were watching a movie in the living room. As in most other parts of the capital for the past two months, their Adhimiya neighborhood has electricity about two hours a day. So the generators outside were humming at about 9 that night, and the television was turned up so they could hear.

Imaad said they were startled by a loud banging at the door. He went quickly to open it. When he did, Imaad said, there were about a dozen U.S. soldiers standing with their guns pointed at his head.


snip...

The soldiers went to search his bedroom. He heard laughing, and then they called for him, he said. Imaad went to his room and saw that the soldiers had found several magazines he kept hidden from his mother. They had pictures of girls in swimsuits and erotic poses. Imaad said the soldiers spread the magazines on his bed and put his Koran in the middle.


snip...

"It was a nightmare," he said. "I will never forget those bad soldiers when they put the Koran among the magazines."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29400-2005Jan22.html


Like Kerry stated, it's also a cultural thing.

Sen Kerry did a great job today. And except for the inevitable questions about Hillary and '08, Imus gave him time to explain the issues he was there to discuss.

And you did a wonderful job capturing it.

You did an excellent job with the last one as well.

I liked the idea of trying to emphasize that we are involved in a war with violent religious extremists. (Iraq was a diversion from this. We all know that 'war' is the wrong word, because it connotes ientifiable forces and conventional military strategies that don't apply here, but it is the common term and is understood by the intended audience.)

There was a news story out yesterday that said that Sen. Reid is deploying Democrats to various locations to talk about selected issues. Do you think Kerry did his job of filling in more spaces about what Dems believe, what the real 'war on Islamic extremism' is and how we should fight against the people who truly do wish us harm? (Should Sen. Reid be happy with what Kerry said between yesterday's formal talk and today's informal one? Was he a good Dem spokesperson on this issue?)

but i'm still studying his remarks so i'm not able to provide much feedback yet ... keeping 30,000 - 40,000 troops in Iraq to guard Halliburton's oil (my words, not Kerry's) is absolutely unacceptable ...

as for today's interview, i think Kerry did fine with his emphasis on the real war against bin Laden ... if that was the mission Reid asked him to fulfill, i think the points he made were effective ...

as for the idea that Reid is deploying Democrats to talk about selected issues, i think that's NOT an effective political strategy ... getting our message out is great ... no problem there ... but our message needs to be repeated over and over and over and over and over by all, or at least most, Democrats who are making public appearances ... we cannot just have one person speaking on one topic and one person speaking on another ... a better strategy would be to define a set of core talking points and then have all our messengers hammer on the themes ... if we continue to "play as individuals making an ad hoc pitch" instead of as a team, we will never succeed ...

This is a two-part conversation. It is past time to deal with Iraq, as it is past time to deal with the fundamental Bush economic policies that are contributing to destroying the poor, destroying the middle-class and dismantling the social structures of the nation. But we have to plan to take power back. That is the only real way to change things. As strategy, I don't think this is bad, but I also think it's a very early strategy. These things have to be done in an organized fashion. (And there will be, and should be, a great deal of disagreement on strategies here. We are Democrats after all. We loudly disagree with each other. It's how we work out our differences.)

Sen Reid's letter yesterday said these Dems were sent out to do these things:



It seems to me (and I could be wrong) that Sen. Reid is trying to get common purpose here for the Dems. I wouldn't be surprised to see Sen. Reid speak on Iraq, but use the points that Sens. Reed (RI) and Kerry have been making. (It's a pretty good case.) I think you get my point, have these Dems initiate the conversation, establish the baseline Dem agreements and then they can articulate these points as they talk to the press and to constituents. (I see it as a start, and not a bad one.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9877442/

But this post was a good recap to whet the appetite. Thanks!

i hope all will now use the official record ...

my recaps are only an effort to get the information out as quickly as possible to those who are interested ...

I'm not an Imus fan, so I didn't see it, but I did catch portions of Kerry's appearance that were aired later.

I hope Kerry continues speaking out like this.

I had to go to work so I only got to watch the first couple of minutes of the interview.

Why can't Kerry look that laid back and relaxed when he gives a formal speech? It reminds me of Al Gore, a very witty man in private but very stiff in public.

if only they didn't have to RUN for president.