John Kerry announced today that he is out of the Presidential race for 2008, instead he plans to use his seat in the Senate to help end the war in Iraq. He had been acting like a candidate every since he lost two years ago. In 2004 he was attacked for flip floping on the issues, and he made it easy for Republicans sometimes. He also failed to answer to the Swiftboat attacks in time, and suffered because of it. He almost won, and many thought he did until the very end. In late 2006, just as he was getting started again, he made a huge political mistake with a speech to a bunch of college students. He really didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but as always he is such an easy target. De De Deee…. It really is unreasonable to think he really thinks soilders aren’t that smart since he was a soilder himself at one time. But then again Kerry isn’t that smart… With the latest entries of Hillary, Obama, and Richardson, and his own Vice Presidential candidate in 04 Edwards, all doing much better in any polls, it was probably an easy decision to drop out.  Also in the news; the Democratic controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committe rejected President Bush’s proposal for more troops one day after President Bush had asked for Congress to “give it a chance to work”.  The resolution was proposed Democrats Joseph Biden and Carl Levin, and Republican Chuck Hagel, a long-standing critic of the war.  They passed the resolution saying the troop increase was “not in the national interest”,  There is a growing list of Republicans willing to sign on to this including candidate Sam Brownback. This is all really just a bit of political theater though because Bush is going to send the new “surge” of troops anyway. In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, vice President Dick Cheney stated, the administration is committed to moving ahead with its plan to send more troops to Baghdad, even if Congress passes a resolution in opposition.
“It won’t stop us,” he said. “And it would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops.”
If U.S. forces were to pull out of Iraq, “we would simply validate the terrorists’ strategy that says the Americans will not stay to complete the task … that we don’t have the stomach for the fight. That’s the biggest threat.”
He added, “The notion that somehow the effort hasn’t been worth it, or that we shouldn’t go ahead and complete the task, is just dead wrong.”
Cheney said the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam Hussein was the right move.
Alan Cosgrove