According to 2004 Presidential hopeful John Kerry

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/06/kerry-mccain-unfit-to-be-president/

Quote :

"John Kerry said Sunday Republican John McCain doesn’t have the judgment to be president."

well ..

Quote :

"If that’s the case, then it’s probably a good thing McCain rejected overtures from Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, to form a bipartisan ticket and run with Kerry as his candidate for vice president."

is this new?

7/6/2008 7:59:34 PM

Quote :

"For the record, Kerry is not among those being mentioned as possible running mates for McCain."

7/6/2008 8:01:29 PM

he prolly asked mccain in 2004 cause he didnt want to pick edwards

7/6/2008 8:06:10 PM

is it new that competing politicians call each other unfit to be whatever they are running for? No, not exactly.
I seem to recall, for example, both Obama and Clinton saying the other was unfit to be president, but that's not stopping Clinton from jumping 100% behind obama now

7/6/2008 8:13:04 PM

1. John Kerry and John McCain are not 'competing' politicians. McCain is competing for the White House, and John Kerry, well ...

2. You seem to recall 2 Democrats competing for the nomination

Objection .. Irrelevant .. NEXT

[Edited on July 6, 2008 at 10:27 PM. Reason : he prolly asked mccain in 2004 cause he didnt want to pick edwards]

[Edited on July 6, 2008 at 10:28 PM. Reason : agreed]

7/6/2008 10:24:28 PM

it's not a 1:1 analogy, but it's the same fucking point.

7/6/2008 10:35:53 PM

Quote :

"is it new that competing politicians call each other unfit to be whatever they are running for? No, not exactly."

that isn't exactly what this is, though.


This is like a chick who gets dumped or turned down by some dude going around spreading rumors that he has a little schlong.

7/6/2008 10:35:59 PM

Quote :

"it's not a 1:1 analogy, but it's the same fucking point."

no ... no it's not

you fail to realize the extent of your incorrectness

7/6/2008 10:42:29 PM

the question here is: Who actually listens to John Kerry?

7/6/2008 11:53:03 PM

Some Democrats.

Not too many independents (which is why he's not President).

Definitely not many Republicans.


Kerry has a point that McCain has moved to the right. However, I don't think that makes him unfit to be President, and certainly Kerry's borrowed talking point about McCain being "4 more years of Bush and Rove" is ridiculous.

7/7/2008 12:03:26 AM

Quote :

"This is like a chick who gets dumped or turned down by some dude going around spreading rumors that he has a little schlong."

I think if McCain has a little schlong then he is unfit to be President.

7/7/2008 12:11:32 AM

McCain is 5'7"

Obama is 6'1"

the last time a presidential candidate overcame such a height-differential was Benjamin Harrison

1889.

now, as to the youth-differential, the appeal-differential, the knowledge-differential... well, looks like John McSame has a lot of catchin' up to do.

7/7/2008 12:42:36 AM

Wow, I didn't know John McCain was only 5'7". I didn't think someone that short would ever make it close to becoming President unless it was a woman.

7/7/2008 1:18:37 AM

joe_schmoe is 5' 2"

7/7/2008 3:01:36 AM

hooksaw is a hunched over neckbeard. real height has yet to be determined.

7/7/2008 8:14:10 AM

No but seriously John McCain is unfit to be president, so is John Kerry

7/7/2008 8:27:46 AM

Quote :

""John Kerry said Sunday Republican John McCain doesn’t have the judgment to be president.""

So which congressman was the primary supporter of the troop surge, probably the turning point in the war on terror in Iraq?

And which one said we should give up, it was a lost cause?

7/7/2008 8:32:58 AM

The turning point eh

So when have we won

Also

Quote :

"“The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.”"

And they say Obama is naive

[Edited on July 7, 2008 at 8:42 AM. Reason : .]

7/7/2008 8:34:19 AM

Quote :

"The turning point eh"

you are delusional if you fail to recognize the success of the surge. It will absolutely go down as the turning point in Iraq in years go come.

7/7/2008 10:39:09 AM

Again, the military success of the surge is not really the point of any real discussion. The whole point of the surge was to make room for political progress. Have they done this? Not really, yet.

7/7/2008 10:42:44 AM

I'll ask again

At what point have we won in Iraq

When can our boys come back with their heads held high in victory

7/7/2008 11:01:36 AM

My opinion of it is when we take a complete support role with a force as low as in Germany and S. Korea. If we are at that point, then it most likely means that Iraq is making all its own decisions and in complete control of all of its security. I don't see this happening for 5 years, but I don't know too much about the history of nation building (not a ton of WWII knowledge). How long has it historically taken?

7/7/2008 11:04:09 AM

Japan was fairly quick, most of the institutions were left in place except for the legal role of the emperor. A majority of the old politicians were left to stay in command - they even made the mistake of allowing the PM who was PM when the war began work publicly with the military. Truman found out and nixed that after the NYT put it on the front page

7/7/2008 11:12:54 AM

So, can we agree if Iraq was a homogeneous culture like Japan without several different factions fighting an ideological battle, its reconstruction and stability might be a bit swifter?

7/7/2008 11:16:04 AM

Yes I think so

7/7/2008 11:19:47 AM

That's not the lesson learned from Japan IMO. The lesson learned is that you need to leave government infrastructure in place if you want to maintain stability. Kicking out the baathists and starting from scratch was a horrible idea.

7/7/2008 11:26:40 AM

Quote :

"Again, the military success of the surge is not really the point of any real discussion. The whole point of the surge was to make room for political progress. Have they done this? Not really, yet."

The success of the surge is absolutely a point of discussion........when you talk about A POTENTIAL PRESIDENTS JUDGEMENT

Barack said it wouldnt work...no progress could be made....we need to quit, its a lost cause.

McCain's judgement absolutely help the situation on the ground.

HOW ON EARTH COULD YOU ARGUE OTHERWISE????

7/7/2008 11:30:23 AM

Because we're paying billions a month to be over there while not making the country any safer or producing any kind of net gain at all to anyone except contracted firms? It's absolutely a lost cause, and the longer we stay the more we lose.

[Edited on July 7, 2008 at 11:33 AM. Reason : .]

7/7/2008 11:33:47 AM

Quote :

"Barack said it wouldnt work...no progress could be made....we need to quit, its a lost cause."

I'll preface the following link with - I don't know what all he has said about the surge and at what point. I just found this with a little googling

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/08/21/325917.aspx

Quote :

"Obama noted that he hadn’t seen a transcript of exactly what Clinton said yesterday about the troop surge during her speech at the VFW, but added, “My assessment is that if we put an additional 30,000 of our outstanding troops into Baghdad, that that's going to quell some of the violence, short term. I don't think that there's ever been any doubt about that. And I don't think that there's any doubt that as long as US troops are present, that, you know, they are going to be doing outstanding work. “It doesn't change the underlying assessment, which is that there's not a military solution to the problem in Iraq, and that the political dynamic in Iraq has not changed. The only thing that the Iraqi legislature appears to have agreed to, as the surge took place, was a motion to adjourn and go on vacation. "

7/7/2008 11:34:03 AM

Again, you're only looking at part of the plan for the surge. You have to look at the entire scope of the plan to talk about it. Otherwise you need to redress your argument as 'the military success of the surge' and ignore the purpose, which was to enable political progress - which again hasn't occurred.

7/7/2008 11:35:23 AM

the surge is working, mccain was right esp when it was unpopular. You can not like the man or the party, but you look silly pretending it wasnt the right call.

7/7/2008 11:36:00 AM

eyedrb, can you read? seriously?

Two facets to this argument:

1. military progress
2. political progress


Everyone said 1 would work, 2 is the issue in contention.

McCain said 1 and 2 would work, no problem.
Obama said 1 would work, 2 probably wouldn't work.

If you don't understand these simple facts then you are an idiot with no reading comprehension (you have nothing to comprehend at this point, I have spelled it out in the most basic of ways).

7/7/2008 11:40:51 AM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article4276486.ece

"American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror."

Monky, I would imagine you would have a much better chance at politically progress without terrorism walking your streets. You can divide up your points as much as you want, but without the surge you would have less of a chance for political success. Would you agree with that monky?

7/7/2008 12:24:26 PM

I, nor anyone else, ever disagreed with that statement. That doesn't change that next to no political progress is being made despite the military successes though.

I mean, you can point to the UAE forgiving debts if you're really stretching to find progress, but that's a foreign government making progress, not the Iraqi government.

7/7/2008 12:28:01 PM

no political progress? come on monky, you are smarter than that. Yes the progress is slow, but its still progress. Hell they just met 15 of 18 benchmarks.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j2KfQBk9ZhPhOJZ7biQo-IkmdJoAD91L6L407

7/7/2008 12:33:54 PM

Please tell me you actually read that article before posting it?

Quote :

"No matter who is elected president in November, his foreign policy team will have to deal with one of the most frustrating realities in Iraq: the slow pace with which the government in Baghdad operates."

Quote :

"Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., who requested the administration's updated assessment, scoffed at the May report, which he says uses the false standard of determining whether progress on a goal is "satisfactory" versus whether the benchmark has been met. He estimates that only a few of the 18 benchmarks have been fully achieved."

Quote :

"most agree that a functional democracy in Iraq could still be years away because of the complexities of the issues involved and the deeply rooted distrust among the nation's sectarian groups"

The article is largely negative of Iraqi progress.

7/7/2008 12:38:49 PM

I read it, did you READ my post?

Quote :

"Yes the progress is slow, but its still progress"

7/7/2008 12:55:55 PM

Slow? I mean if it takes 50 years for a stable government, slows cool right?

7/7/2008 1:08:31 PM

no one ... not politicians, military strategist, CNN-analysts or T-Dub liberal moonbats ... no one ever said the surge wasn't going to have the short-term effect of reducing sectarian violence in whatever area troop presence was increased.

eyedrb or anyone else who says otherwise, is either a liar or a retard.

THE PROBLEM that anyone with a grain of sense or understanding recognizes, is the long-term question: can the Iraq government handle the sectarian strife that is splitting their country at the foundational seams, without requiring BILLIONS of dollars and THOUSANDS of american lives to prop them up.

The results so far, are not clear.

7/7/2008 1:08:49 PM

Quote :

"I'll ask again At what point have we won in Iraq When can our boys come back with their heads held high in victory "

i think the noose around neck settles that first question


and our boys can come back home at any fucking time with their heads held high in victory goddammit

7/7/2008 1:41:36 PM

Alright, if we've already won let's get the hell out then

I just ask because a lot of people say that if we left now that they would be coming home with the shame of surrender, a claim I don't agree with

[Edited on July 7, 2008 at 1:48 PM. Reason : .]

7/7/2008 1:45:26 PM

^ whoever says that is retarded. The only reason they are over there is to support the Iraqis and their govt. in a backstage role incase something happens. You can't leave until 100% sure that the govt. and troops are stong enough to support themselves.

You don't leave until the job has been done. All the anti-war leftwing people want us to pull out now. They don't think logically and fail to realize that Iraq could then become a terrorist state again and we'd have to retake the country costing us many more thousands of lives than if we had just stayed to begin with.

[Edited on July 7, 2008 at 2:26 PM. Reason : .]

7/7/2008 2:23:48 PM

Quote :

"You can't leave until 100% sure that the govt. and troops are stong enough to support themselves."

So you're for committing our troops AND money for multiple decades?

Count me out.

7/7/2008 2:25:29 PM

.^Who says mulitple decades? If the surge keeps working as effectively as it has all we'll need to do is maintain a military presence while the Iraqis do most of the work, like in Germany. The Iraqis now do most of the work, we are just there to ensure that the work gets done right.

So you'd rather get our troops home, then have the terrorists take over the country again. Forcing us to go back and retake Iraq. Costing thousands more American lives and billions of dollars, and still have to maintain a presence like if we had never left in the first place? Why not just stay till the job is done the first time?

[Edited on July 7, 2008 at 2:42 PM. Reason : .]

7/7/2008 2:34:49 PM

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0353522920080707?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Well, Iraq wants us out now. What should we tell em?

7/7/2008 3:01:36 PM

Quote :

"Who says mulitple decades? If the surge keeps working as effectively as it has all we'll need to do is maintain a military presence while the Iraqis do most of the work, like in Germany. The Iraqis now do most of the work, we are just there to ensure that the work gets done right. "

I'm saying multiple decades. We've already posted links citing pretty slow progress, and that isn't just with a "military presence". It's with a $341 million per day presence. I don't expect you to make any sort of an argument that we'll be able to draw troops (and thus, the cost) down in any time period short of at least 1 decade. Please make a case that is compelling, I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

[Edited on July 7, 2008 at 3:06 PM. Reason : a]

7/7/2008 3:02:49 PM

Quote :

" So you'd rather get our troops home, then have the terrorists take over the country again."

Because that is exactly what will happen? If the warhawks know exactly what will happen in the future with Iraq this time around, why didn't you have the foresight to do shit right the first time?

7/7/2008 3:03:03 PM

^ Of course we aren't certain that will happen, but why would you want to risk it happening to begin with?

^^^ Reuters is a left wing media outlet that wants Obama to win the presidency.

^^ How much was the war costing us between 01 and 06? How much do we spend yearly in bases in places like Germany and Japan?

7/7/2008 3:27:01 PM

lol left wing media conspiracy

Reuters is fuckin British

7/7/2008 3:32:59 PM

Reuters has long been known for anti-war leftwing stuff. Anybody knows that.

7/7/2008 3:35:12 PM