Kerry 2004 vs. Bush 2006
ThinkProgress nailed it today and was rewarded by a host of links back to their post. What did they say that caused so much interest? Just this:
FLASHBACK: Bush Said Kerry Proposal to Increase Size of Military Would Make The Country ‘Less Safe’
Yesterday, President Bush announced his intention to increase the “overall size” of the Army, acknowledging that the current forces were “stressed.” The Washington Post reports he’s considering an increase of 50,000-70,000 troops.
On June 3, 2004, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) — campaigning for the presidency — proposed expanding the Army by 40,000 troops. Bush quickly slammed the proposal as unnecessary and counter-productive.
Numerous other bloggers have commented on the ThinkProgress post and linked back to it.
Too bad Kerry didn’t win. Or at the very least, too bad Bush didn’t listen to Kerry.
If Bush had, you know, listened to Kerry we’d already have a bigger military.
Glenn Greenwald’s Unclaimed Territory
The death of another talking point
...John Kerry wanted to increase the size of the military in 2004, and President Bush insisted that his proposal would make us “less safe.”
What ThinkProgress said
Pamela Leavey at The Democratic Daily
<!So, we see once again that Bush has flip-flopped all over the map on an issue and we see once again, that John Kerry was right. Too darn bad, Bush was so bullheaded back in ‘04 that he never heeded Kerry’s proposal. It does appear that time and time again Kerry is light years ahead of Bush on so many issues, including the fact that we’re losing in Iraq.
After John Kerry proposed expanding the Army by 40,000 troops, President “Mission Accomplished” dispatched a spokeman to aver that the country would be “less safe” under Kerry’s approach. [Source] Today, though, Bush thinks adding troops is a great idea: “I want to share one thought I had with you, and I’m inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops, the Army, the Marines”.
Oops! Hey! Wait a minute! Don’t we call that a FLIP-FLOP?
So this would make us, what, 57% more unsafe?
Remember when Sen. Kerry proposed expanding the Army by 40,000 troops, and President Bush declared that would make the country “less safe”? So was Bush lying then, or is he lying now, when he says we should expand the overall size of the army, perhaps by 50k-70k troops?
As JK said during this exchange with David Gregory on the Today Show yesterday morning: [ transcript | video ]
GREGORY: Let me ask you first about headlines this morning. The president now wants to increase the size of the U.S. armed forces. A good idea?
KERRY: Well, it shouldn’t be confused with increasing the numbers of troops in Iraq itself.
Two years ago, during the campaign, I said and recommended that we need to increase the size of our armed forces for our global responsibilities by at least 40,000 troops. So that’s a good idea.
6 Comments
New comments for this entry are closed.
Echoing Marjorie’s comments to Violet from a previous blog, great work! Compiling all this past information and putting it together with current commentary has to be a job and I commend you for making it easy for the rest of us. Very valuable tools.
So many sentences can begin with:
“In 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, etc., John Kerry proposed, suggested, wrote, sponsored (co-sponsored) legislation, gave a speech, said on CNN… (fill in the blank).”
Really and truly, I think that is one of the very best ways for those of us out there trying to change (while not destroying by blame) the hearts and minds of the millions of people who supported GWB and supported the Iraq War and are now freaked out by their actions. And there are plenty of those folks around where I live.
What’s really sad is that, we can revisit all of the statements, but we can’t even begin to feel validated as Kerry supporters, because the cost of this mistake has been so huge in terms of loss of life.
Which is not to say I don’t appreciate the compilation. I still believe John Kerry is the only person smart enough and willing enough to begin to repair this situation.
Also, thanks to the bloggers mentioned above for their efforts. I’m just one of many who want to see John Kerry’s past and future plans chart the course for this great country. Hey, if it takes John becoming President in 2008 instead of 2004, I guess that’s what it takes.
Happy, safe Holidays to all.
What is not getting reported is that a so-called 20k man surge in troops is not exactly 20k reinforcements, which seems to be the conventional perception. Rather, the 20k increase could only be accomplished in the short term by involuntarily extending troops already now in Iraq and speeding up the turn around time for troops scheduled to return to Iraq much later. People need to realize that time between deployments back in the states is not about lounging in the back yard with a brewski but involves retraining and re-establishing T,O and E combat readiness at a sometimes frenetic pace with a looming ship-out date.
The troops on the ground say they need reinforcements badly, which they do, but that is not exactly what would happen. Most of the reinforcements will be troops not allowed to rotate back home.
Peter Baldwin,
That’s why 2006 vs. 2004 makes such a difference. If we really wanted to increase the size of our military, in general, it just takes time. Quite a long time (years). I have also read that the only way to do a troop surge (which was already done before every Iraqi election) is to keep troops already on deployment there longer, while bringing in their replacements sooner. It just sounds terrible for them and their families, and as Sen. Kerry has reiterated, without a political solution to the Sunni/Shi’ite conflict, our troops won’t be able to stop the violence. Not in any real long term way.
Beachmom,
I think Colin Powell made the same observation recently.
Sen. Kerry also pointed out a while ago that this is not a “real” war anyway, if one compares this occupation to let’s say the Battle of the Bulge that involved over 30 American combat divisions and an enemy of maybe 40 German Divisions. The Germans lost over 1000 aircraft.
The administration has a notion that what’s happening in Iraq is a major war. It is not. Taking on North Korea and Iran in the neocon mind is a feasible undertaking , perhaps even a cakewalk, and it is not. Seymour Hersch has warned us of war planning for Iran and now Bush is sending air and naval assets to the Iranian theatre. Gates answered in the negative when asked if the president had authority to attack Iran at this point, but he is not the decider, only a cabinet secretary. A bogus casus belli is all it will take.
The Dems in Congress need to start speaking up about its exclusive war making powers. Their silence on this unilateral action by Bush with respect to Iran is inexcusible. Haven’t we learned our lesson yet?