Kerry Doesn't Back Down From "Foreign" Support Claims He Didn't Make

[TheStateChief]

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) is not backing down from his claim that some foreign leaders privately support him against President Bush (news - web sites), dismissing suggestions by the White House that he is lying if he is not willing to identify the leaders.

"I'm not making anything up at all," Kerry told The Associated Press in an interview Monday. He accused Republicans of "trying to change the subject" from jobs, health care and other issues.

In a telephone interview, the Massachusetts senator and presumptive Democratic nominee said "it's no secret" that some countries are "deeply divided about our foreign policy. We have lost respect and influence in the world."

He 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."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=694&u=/ap/20040316/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_14&printer=1

[w4rma]

1. Nice. (n/t)

[stldemocrat]

2. Rule #1

When in a hole, quit digging.

[emulatorloo]

5. Repug Mean Machine (RMM) is hoping for a "flip-flop" or "Gore Lie"

RMM is keeping this alive and talking about it over and over to see if they can make a nasty stick. The Boston Globe guy now saying "many leaders" has RMM hoping that Kerry will now back down, which they will then call a "flip-flop" or worse yet a "Gore Style Lie." Go Kerry for saying RMM is trying to divert from GWB's record.

[stldemocrat]

6. Kerry

I think Kerry's initial statement, while true, should never had been made. He should just quit talking about it now. You're right he should be talking about GWB's rotten record instead.

[fob]

7. Huh????

That advice is for the crooked, lying repugnicans, right?

Shirley you can't be inferring that KERRY is in a hole by the alleged "foreign leaders" statement, can you?

[Monte Carlo]

8. But there was nothing wrong about what Kerry said.

It was not a gaffe or a misspeak, though the Republicans are trying desperately to make it into one. "Foreign leaders want Bush gone"? Well duh. Kerry shouldn't back off of the statement. He should not overemphasize it, but he should back off of it, either.

[rock]

3. Sweet

Kerry's really in there pitching

[fob]

9. In memory of GrovelBot...

DONATE TODAY!!

Give $86.43 to signal the intent for Kerry to 86 43(w*)!!

[JI7]

4. "more" leaders can include foreign leaders

and when kerry made the statement he probably meant mostly foreign leaders by it. i'm not sure what he is trying to get at here. it seems like something that would hurt him in america considering the crap you saw against france. maybe he WANTS it out there that others really do not want bush and thinks it will actually help him(kerry). an example may be troops in iraq. suppose more troops are needed in iraq, but most americans don't want to send more americans there, and if they know other leaders have a problem with bush they vote against bush in the hopes that a different president would fix relations and try to get others to join in the effort of iraq and help bring home some americans.

[Nicholas_J]

10. Well the new socialist leader of Spain has said

That he is not worried about relations with the United States regarding Iraq, as Jiohn Kerry will be the new president and that Kerry's policies would be more in line with the policies of the news Spanish government.

03/16/2004 05:26 PM


Incoming Spanish Prime Minister Blasts Bush, Endorses Kerry
Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero, leader of the Spanish Socialist Party and victor in the recent national elections, has given his endorsement to John Kerry's US leadership bid, saying "I think Kerry will win. I want Kerry to win."

"We're aligning ourselves with Kerry. Our alliance will be for peace, against war, no more deaths for oil, and for a dialogue between the government of Spain and the new Kerry administration" the Spanish leader said.

Zapatero has recently increased his anti-US rhetoric following the bombing of the Madrid train network by suspected Al Qaeda terrorists, calling the Bush government" the most reactionary American administration in recent times".

http://www.shortnews.com/shownews.cfm?id=37889&u_id=56352&CFID=724542&CFTOKEN=76197326

Though the original source for this in English come from Newsmax, there are a number of sources in from Spanish Newspapers as well as a Swwdish Paper that also has validated that the new Spanish Prime Minister has endorsed Kerry.

Of course, Republicans are trying to very quickly state that the decision to replace Aznar was an action that supports Al Qaeda, but the E.U. is now having meeting to determine whether any of its members should be supporting Bush's unilateral policies on Iraq, and that the events in Spain prove that lacks of WMD's plus lack of any Iraq/Al Qaeda link, plus David Kays final report that Iraq had not WMD's but only possesed the capacity to make them and was waiting until the U.N. dropped sanctions and the U.S. and British ended overflights of Iraq to start making them provides evidence that the containment stragegy that existed prior to the war was effective and was preventing Saddam from developing programs to produice WMD's so the correct decision would have been to allow UNMOVIC an IAEA to continue the inspections until June, as the rules governong inspection dictated, and until then, it would have been more logical to utilize the resources and troops that were sent to Iraq to try to capture the Al Qaeda leaders hiding at the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Right now the Right is trying to spin the events in Spain as playing into AL Qaeda's hands, but the results of the European Union meeting on terror should result in condemnations of the war in Iraq as having done nothing to restrain AL Qaeda actions.