10.24.2004

Bush Cedes Terror War

President Bush gave only his third major television interview tonight, the second to Fox News. Speaking to Sean Hannity of Fox's top rated Hannity & Colmes, Bush had the following to say [Yahoo]:

President Bushand Sen. John Kerry stayed on the offensive in swing states Sunday as the presidential race entered its final full week. In a television interview, Bush said it is "up in the air" whether the nation can ever be fully safe from another terror attack and suggested terrorists may still be contemplating ways to disrupt the election.

Kerry ridiculed Bush's statement, suggesting it echoed an earlier assertion — later withdrawn — by the president that the war on terror could not be won.

"You make me president of the United States, we're going to win the war on terror," Kerry said at an evening rally in Boca Raton, Fla. "It's not going to be up in the air whether or not we make America safe."

Earlier, Kerry spoke at a predominantly black church for the fourth consecutive Sunday, this one in Fort Lauderdale in heavily Democratic Broward County, and promised worshippers their votes would be counted this time. The county saw some of the worst of Florida's 2000 vote-counting abuses. "I want you to turn out," the Democrat said.

Kerry pressed his attack on the president's record in new television ads, while on the campaign trail he sought to strike a more inspirational tone, saying in a speech on faith that values he practices as a Roman Catholic "will guide me as president."

The Democrat took on church bishops who have criticized his support for abortion rights and expanded embryonic stem cell research and who have said he should be denied Holy Communion for not advancing church teachings. "I love my church, I respect the bishops, but I respectfully disagree," Kerry said.

With polls showing the race still tight, the campaigns were focusing their efforts on fewer than a dozen states that remain highly competitive, with both camps making last-minute scheduling decisions to reflect realities on the ground.

... In a taped interview with Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes," Bush was asked whether the nation would always be vulnerable to another terror attack and whether Americans would always have to live with that.

"Yes, because we have to be right 100 percent of the time in disrupting any plot and they have to be right once," Bush said. He said the nation is safer from terrorism, but "whether or not we can be ever fully safe is up — you know, up in the air."

Bush said he was sure terrorists still "think about" trying to disrupt the Nov. 2 elections, citing the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people right before Spain's national elections.

"I don't want to alarm anybody because ... there's nothing specific at this point in time — a kind of general intent," Bush said in the interview, to be broadcast Monday night.

Bush caused a flap at the G0P convention in New York in late August when he said of the war on terror: "I don't think you can win it." The comment, made in an interview with NBC, complicated GOP efforts to portray him as a resolute leader.

The president quickly backed away from the earlier remark, asserting that the war on terror could be won, even if not in a conventional sense, and that he "probably needed to be more articulate."

In the Fox interview taped Saturday, Bush also was asked whether a nuclear, chemical or biological attack in the United States is a real possibility. "Yes it is," Bush replied. "That's the biggest threat we face." Fox released excerpts of the interview on Sunday.


Perhaps my favorite part is where he says we have to be right 100% of the time. Who gave him that quote? I find it a bit preposterous that we expect to stop every attack ever launched at us. America never has stopped every attack and America never well. 100% certainty is not within the human race's reach. The more we work together, we decrease the chance of a successful attack immensely. But expecting to stop every single thing is just a joke. Sorry to be so negative, but that kind of talk just sounds stupid to me. There's promises you can't keep. Stopping every single attack is one of them. Kerry takes the more reasonable approach on this issue, hands down.

Anyway, to any "swing voter", if they're paying attention to this second "slip" by Bush, I'd think they'd start to wonder how well he will defend us, if he can't even speak his mind correctly. Another plus for swing voters should be the newspaper endorsements. I'll post those later...
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