The New York Times
September 3, 2004
Bush Is 'Unfit' to Lead U.S., Kerry Charges
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and MICHAEL JANOFSKY
NANTUCKET, Mass., Sept. 2 - Roaring back at his Republican rivals, Senator John Kerry called President Bush "unfit to lead this nation" for "misleading" America into war in Iraq, and he accused Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of having avoided combat during the Vietnam War.
"For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and my fitness to serve as commander in chief," Mr. Kerry said in remarks issued Thursday night as Mr. Bush was about to accept the Republican nomination for a second term.
"Well, here's my answer," Mr. Kerry said. "I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq."
Mr. Cheney capped a weeklong assault on Mr. Kerry's character and national-security credentials at the Republican convention on Wednesday night, saying that he honored Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam but that the senator's 20-year voting record on foreign policy and military issues made him unfit to be president.
Mr. Kerry hit back last night in his toughest remarks yet about the qualifications of the Republican ticket.
"The vice president even called me unfit for office last night," Mr. Kerry said. "I guess I'll leave it up to the voters whether five deferments makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of duty."
Mr. Cheney received five deferments and did not serve in the military. Mr. Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard.
"Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty," Mr. Kerry said, turning to Mr. Bush. "Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation.
"Letting the Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions of government contracts to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit.
"That's the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney. And it's not going to change. I believe it's time to move America in a new direction. I believe it's time to set a new course for America."
A spokesman for Mr. Bush's campaign, Steve Schmidt, called the remarks "another example of John Kerry trying to divide America over the past."
"The contrast between the president's hopeful, optimistic vision for the future that is laid out in his acceptance speech versus John Kerry's politics of anger and pessimism will be totally clear to the American people," Mr. Schmidt said.
Mr. Kerry's speech was released just before he took off to deliver it at a midnight rally in Springfield, Ohio, alongside his running mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
Earlier on Thursday, Mr. Edwards said Mr. Kerry's rivals were attacking him because they had achieved so little worth celebrating.
"I can understand why the vice president spent so much of his time talking about John Kerry," Mr. Edwards said at a lively rally in Norristown, Pa. "It's because he doesn't want to talk about what they did the last four years."
Mr. Edwards, who campaigned much of the week in economically depressed areas of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, began his response to the Republican convention from his hotel in Philadelphia late Wednesday night, issuing a statement saying, "There was a lot of hate coming from that podium."
Shortly after 5 a.m. on Thursday, Mr. Edwards was at it again, sitting through interviews that the campaign had requested with NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox News and offering each virtually the same assessment of the Republican speeches of the night before.
The attacks from Mr. Cheney and Senator Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, were "way over the top," Mr. Edwards told Fox News. The attacks were filled with "an enormous amount of anger," he told ABC.
On CNN, he said, "If you got up and went to the refrigerator to get a Diet Coke, you would have missed any discussion of what they're going to do about health care, what they're going to do about jobs, what they plan to do about this mess in Iraq."
He also told CNN that many of Mr. Cheney and Mr. Miller's accusations were wildly inaccurate.
"It's unfortunate that under the circumstances that's what Republicans wanted said at this convention," the senator added.
Later, at a community recreation center in Norristown, Mr. Edwards said: "The anger that we heard from the vice president is not going to change this country or do what needs to be done for America. With all the anger and venom we saw focused on John Kerry, I wish we would see a little anger about the millions of people who lost their health care. How about a little anger about the almost two million people who lost their private-sector jobs?"
Even as his audience interrupted with cheers and applause, he told the crowd again and again that he and Mr. Kerry had better ideas to create jobs and expand health care than the Bush administration.
He also implored his audience to recall the less strident tone that the Democrats projected at their convention last month - give or take an Al Sharpton - and to compare it with what they watched on Wednesday night.
When Mr. Edwards invited audience members to ask questions, one man suggested that the Democrats were campaigning too timidly, a criticism that many Democrats around the country are beginning to raise.
"You're up against the dirtiest fighters in the world," the man said. "If they hit you, you've got to hit back twice. How are you going to handle it the next two months?"
"There's a difference between how you fight and who you're fighting for," Mr. Edwards said, choosing his words carefully - just hours before Mr. Kerry's blistering speech was released.
"It's one thing to engage in a lot of personal assaults, like some of the things we saw last night," Mr. Edwards said. "It's another thing to fight with everything you've got for the American people and the people you believe in."
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