August 2, 2004
THE CAMPAIGN IN A NUTSHELL
Remarks by the President on Intelligence Reform (The White House, 8/2/04)
[David Gregory:] Mr. President, thank you. All of this as you know is coming in the context of the presidential election campaign. Your opponent has made a couple of charges that I would like your response to. One, essentially saying that three years after the 9/11 attacks, to go about the business of rehauling the intelligence community is too long. Second, there's been a suggestion from the Kerry camp today that this administration is actually responsible for fueling the recruitment of al Qaeda through some of its policies, particularly -- they didn't say this directly -- but the war in Iraq. Your response?There's a lot of good stuff in the President's remarks, despite the fact that having a "National Intelligence Director" will, if we are lucky, make exactly no difference. This answer is particularly good, articulating as well as can be the security stakes in this election. The choice we are being given is between the sighted and the blind.THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that's a misunderstanding of the war on terror. Obviously, we have a clear -- a difference of opinion, a clear difference of opinion about the stakes that face America. These people we face are cold-blooded, committed killers. They're interested in destroying our way of life. They were interested in destroying our way of life before I arrived in office. The only way to deal with these people is to bring them to justice.
See, evidently some must think that you can negotiate with them, you can talk sense to them, you can hope that they change. That's not what I know. I know in order to deal with these people we must bring them to justice before they hurt us again. And so we're on the offense. We will stay -- the best way to protect the American homeland is to stay on the offense. It is a ridiculous notion to assert that because the United States is on the offense, more people want to hurt us. We are on the offense because people do want to hurt us.
MORE:
Kerry: Bush Policies Encourage Terrorism (Nedra Pickler, AP, 8/2/04) (Democratic candidate John Kerry accused President Bush of encouraging terrorist recruitment with policies that have made the world angry at the United States, a criticism that Bush dismissed as a "ridiculous notion.")
Kerry has two months until the debates to either stop making the accusation that we're creating more terrorists by our actions, or start explaining why you can negotiate with them, you can talk sense to them, you can hope that they change if we back off our current position.
He can blather along with his current posturings until then and hope some X factor comes in to change the political equasion, but once people start really paying attention in the fall, just not being George W. Bush isn't going to cut it in the war on terror.
Posted by: John at August 2, 2004 3:51 PMWhen in doubt, create a "Czar."
The Prez should flip Dem reasoning around on them, and insist that Congress "pay" for it by cutting from the domestic budget. Indeed, the Dept of Agriculture seems like a good place to start. All they're good for lately is making milk prices too high. Brittle bones can't be good for homeland security.
Posted by: kevin whited at August 2, 2004 3:55 PMNot the blind-- this is someone who can see, but like a small child, believes that if he keeps his eyes tightly closed, everything will be fine because what you can't see can't hurt you.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at August 2, 2004 4:16 PMIf Drudge is right, the mainstream news media appear to be going full-throttle with stories that at least implicitly agree with Dean.
Someone could probably do a pretty good story on the relative appearance of "Republican dirty tricks/smear campaign" (fairly common), and "Democratic..." (ever?), in recent news coverage...
Posted by: brian at August 2, 2004 10:57 PM