Originally posted by limerickman
Bush has had four years - and I think that these four years have not been very successful.
His track record is there for people to evaluate.
Kerry ?
We have only his Senate record to measure his performance.
Neither Kerry or Bush are statesmen - never mind politicians.
Just a few of Kerry's accolades:
Running For Congress In 1972, Kerry Promised To Cut Defense Spending. On what he’ll do if he’s elected to Congress, Kerry said he would ‘bring a different kind of message to the president.’ He said he would vote against military appropriations.
Running For Senate In 1984, Kerry Called For Cancellation Of At Least 27 Weapons Systems And Reductions In 18 Other Systems. “[Kerry] recommended cancellation of 27 weapons systems including the B1 bomber, the cruise missile, MX missile, Trident submarine, Patriot air defense missile, F15 fighter plane, Sparrow missile, stealth bomber and Pershing II missile. He recommended reductions in 18 other systems including the joint tactical air system, the Bradley fighting vehicle, the M1 Abrams tank and the F16 fighter plane.”
Upon Entering Senate, Kerry’s First Floor Speech Was In Opposition To Critical Missile Program And He Introduced Comprehensive Nuclear Freeze Bill. Kerry introduced: “A bill to provide for a comprehensive bilateral and verifiable freeze between the United States and the Soviet Union on the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons systems.” The bill had no co-sponsors, and never made it to the Senate floor for a vote.
Weapons Kerry Sought To Phase Out Were Vital In Iraq. “[K]erry supported cancellation of a host of weapons systems that have become the basis of US military might – the high-tech munitions and delivery systems on display to the world as they leveled the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in a matter of weeks.”
Kerry Voted Against At Least Eleven Military Pay Increases .
As Senator, Kerry Also Pushed To Cut Intelligence Funding By More Than $2.58 Billion. This is why OUR INTELLIGENCE isn't on par!
For example, at the end of the Cold War, Kerry advocated scaling back the CIA, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he complained about a lack of intelligence capability.
In the 1980s, he opposed the death penalty for terrorists who killed Americans abroad, but he now supports the death penalty for terrorist acts.
In the 1990s, he joined with Republican colleagues to sponsor proposals to end tenure for public schoolteachers and allow direct grants to religion-based charities, measures that many Democratic groups opposed. In 1997, he voted to require elderly people with higher incomes to pay a larger share of Medicare premiums.
Kerry, of course, has struggled with his vote in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war. "We did not empower the president to do regime change," Kerry said of the resolution on Meet the Press last summer. Actually, the Kerry-supported resolution specifically cited regime change as a goal, and Kerry also voted to make regime change U.S. policy in 1998. That's two Kerry votes in favor of regime change, but who's counting? The Massachusetts senator has similar trouble with other prior votes, making him the first candidate in U.S. history to run a presidential campaign against himself.
Today's Kerry excoriates Attorney General John Ashcroft for violating American civil liberties with his evil tool, the Patriot Act. "We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night," Kerry huffs. "So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time." Maybe Kerry should have thought about that before voting for the Patriot Act in 2001 — since laws and liberties are pretty important and all.
Back before he had to worry about competing with one Howard Brush Dean, Kerry was positively delighted by the Patriot Act. "It reflects," he said on the Senate floor, "an enormous amount of hard work by the members of the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. I congratulate them and thank them for that work." While supportive of "sunset" provisions in the bill, Kerry pronounced himself "pleased at the compromise we have reached on the anti-terrorism legislation." These are not the words of a man about to help inaugurate an era of brown-shirt law enforcement.
John Kerry, A.D. (After Dean), attacks President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act as "one-size-fits-all testing mania." Worse, according to Kerry, "By signing the No Child Left Behind Act and then breaking his promise by not giving schools the resources to help meet new standards, George Bush has undermined public education and left millions of children behind." The funding charge is a canard — overall spending on education under Bush is up 65 percent — but it gives Kerry a way to join the Dean-led assault on the act, which he voted for — enthusiastically.
"This is groundbreaking legislation," John Kerry, B.D. (Before Dean), gushed on the Senate floor, "that enhances the federal government's commitment to our nation's public education system ... and embraces many of the principles and programs that I believe are critical to improving the public education system." He didn't just support the bill, he took credit for it: "Last year I worked with 10 of my Democratic colleagues to introduce legislation that would help break the stalemate and move beyond the tired, partisan debates of the past. Our education proposal became the foundation of the bill before us today."
As for the North American Free Trade Agreement, the target of Dean and other liberal critics, Kerry promises to "fix it." The agreement supposedly doesn't do enough to keep Mexico from employing low-wage workers, thus encouraging jobs to leave the United States and depressing wages here. True to form, he used to love the trade deal. "NAFTA is not the problem," he explained in 1993. "Job loss is taking place without NAFTA."
Lim, as an American I respect a Leader who says what he is going to do and sticks by his guns and stays the course!...From a translatic point of view, you feel your government would respect this Kerry? In my opinion, he would appear to be a loose cannon. If I were the leader of another nation with this guy in office, I would be thinking...I wonder what he is going to do this time cause he isn't stable...
At least with Bush, like him or hate him, you know where he is coming from, you know what he stands for. Truth, justice and the American way! Yes, Bush has made some calls that I don't agree with but all in all he's my man and trust me when I say that my wife is a DEM...I'm not being disengenuous...SHE voted for Clinton twice and she is voting for BUSH for the SECOND time.