Kerry’s Roads Not Taken

[kerrygoddess]

Thomas Oliphant: Kerry’s Roads Not Taken
September 22nd, 2005

We’ve said it here many times, Kerry was right. While the right wing spin doctors try to paint a dark picture of John Kerry’s speech on Monday, Thomas Oliphant reminds us of the roads not taken - Kerry’s Roads Not Taken. Thomas Oliphant is right… Kerry “happens to be correct.”

WASHINGTON
SUPPOSE WE had a president, with barely seven months in office, pushing Congress to confront the energy crisis and stop the insane importing of oil from the Middle East.

That was the road not taken before Katrina, remember?

Suppose we had a president who had challenged the lobbyist-run Congress long before Katrina produced gargantuan costs that cannot be paid honestly: His veto would block the extension of those juicy tax cuts for wealthy investors that expire in a few years in order to force a reestablishment of the best Social Security reform of all — fiscal sanity.

That was another road not taken, remember?

And imagine a restoration of Bill Clinton’s simple proposition that recovery from disasters, natural or terrorist, is too important to be left to incompetent political cronies, and is led by a guy who is delightfully ignorant of patronage politics.

Still another road not taken.

As John Kerry had the temerity to say this week in Rhode Island: ‘’Today more than ever, when the path taken last year and four years earlier takes us into a wilderness of missed opportunities, we need to keep defining the critical choices over and over, offering a direction not taken but still open in the future.”


MORE & LINKS - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=637

[blm]

1. Oliphant's column is a MUST READ. Great slap back at the RW press who

railed against Kerry for criticizing Bush so brutally.

[Armstead]

2. I'm not crazy about Kerry, but I like Oliphant's style

I don't think Kerry was enough of a tree shaker, but even his modest proposals and his obviously more three-dimensional view of the world would have been a vast improvement over what we're seeing now.

Oliphant's column is a materpiece of "we told you so" backed up by reality.

[jillan]

3. Maybe Kerry was too quiet in his tree shaking before, but now he's more

like a Hurricane. Hurricane Kerry, and he's knocking down and blowing over the cover on this weak administration. He is non-stop, and getting stronger everyday.

Oliphant has always supported Kerry. He knows Kerry, seen Kerry at work, and I am so glad that Oliphant is making sure everyone knows just how right Kerry is.

[kerrygoddess]

15. Oliphant and Kerry

Go back all the way to the days when Kerry spoke to the Fulbright commission. Long history of friendship and mutual respect.

[welshTerrier2]

4. Suppose we had a President calling for an immediate end to the Iraq war

still another road not taken ...

why did Oliphant forget to mention that one ??

[karynnj]

5. He didn't - referring to Kerry's promise to talk in more detail,

Oliphant:
"Obviously the big one will be Iraq, about which he gets one more chance to point a clear way forward or out or both. "

[blm]

6. And that's why Kerry went to Iraq himself. It's the only way he could get

the unvarnished truth from those commanders on the ground there.

I am sure he's preparing something big, and I also think it's why he's been having at it with McCain in their exchanges, while spending noggin time with Hagel.

I think Kerry and Hagel are going to come out with an exit plan that the press can't let Bush ignore at this point.

[whometense]

8. That theory makes a lot of sense. n/t

[welshTerrier2]

7. "one more chance"

haunting words, eh?

tick, tick, tick ... Kerry has perhaps been wise since his return from Iraq to hold off any major Iraq policy announcement until after the hurricanes blow by ...

as an aside, the huge anti-war demonstrations are going to suffer in a very real way because of an obsessive, one story at a time, media focus on Hurrican Rita ... the timing could not be worse ...

Max Cleland has now called for an immediate end to the war ... i wonder if that's where Kerry is heading ... let's hope so ... if not, his rift with the left will become permanent ...

[blm]

9. Max Cleland is also one of Kerry's closest friends and advisors. No doubt

he spoke to Kerry when he returned from Iraq. I doubt either one of them would make a major statement like that without discussing it with the other.

Something is coming down.....I sense it.

[welshTerrier2]

10. let's hope so ...

that's exactly why i made reference to Cleland's "NEW" position ...

how do you know Kerry has been meeting with Hagel?? was this reported in the press??

btw, here's the source of my Cleland info:

source: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0919-22.htm

And Democrats, slowly, painfully, pathetically, are beginning their reconsideration. The internal strategic thinking of party leaders was summarized by one member as: “The Republicans can declare victory and leave, but the Democrats can only declare failure and be blamed.” Such reasoning leads to abdication of any opposition to the war. But that has begun to change.

One example came in the testimony of former Sen. Max Cleland at the Woolsey hearing. A Vietnam veteran and one of Sen. John Kerry’s “band of brothers” in 2004, Cleland issued a Democratic radio message only a month ago in which he said the US should have “a strategy to win or an exit strategy to get out.” But by the Woolsey hearing, Cleland had moved to a passionate call for an exit strategy, period:

“Now, however, I have concluded that the best way to support our troops is with an exit strategy from Iraq. We need an exit strategy we choose or it will certainly be chosen for us. The question about Iraq is not whether we will withdraw our forces but when.”

Cleland also testified that “according to a four-star general, there was a five-year plan for the military occupation of the Middle East” before the occupation became bogged down.

In this context, the Woolsey exit strategy hearing was an awakening from dormancy, a challenge to party leaders, and revealing of new perspectives and the outlines of a possible alternative to Administration policy.

[blm]

11. What happened between the radio address and Woolsey's meeting?

Kerry went to Iraq.

The Kerry group has folks who watch Cspan 2 and keep an eye on just about every move the camera catches, especially if they know Kerry is on the floor.

They have noted lengthy heated exchanges with McCain, and extended serious conversations with Hagel soon afterwards. Both came after Kerry's return from Iraq.

[TayTay]

14. In all honesty, I don't know

Nothing definite yet. I also believe this is because of the hurricane. I guess this means that if Rita does a lot of horrible damage that the news cycle will be on that for a couple of weeks. (As well it should. This will be horrible for so many folks.) It's sad that the media can't focus on more than one thing at a time. The horrible incident at the bidge in Iraq where so many people died was almost completely overlooked in the American media. We should be able to have info on both things.

There is a report in the Independent newspaper that Sens. McCain, Kennedy & Kerry are meeting with Cindy Sheehan's group this week but I have been unable to confirm the Independent's story. Sigh! IF that happens, I hope it at least makes the blogs. That, in and of itself, is interesting.

And there is a Hagel-Kerry-McCain connection. (And A Cleland one too!) All of these guys served in Vietnam and should know a screw-up when they see one and Iraq is one big screw-up.

[blm]

16. Did the report say they were meeting at that same time or separately?

And is the Independent a Mass paper?

[Dr Fate]

12. Kerry will be proven right for his brave "NO" vote against Roberts too.

n/t

[kerrygoddess]

13. Yes he will...

Oliphant was on the money.