How the "Greedy old Preachers" use language to distort......

[Joanne98]

Let's examine the most ridiculed Kerry quote about the $87 billion appropriations bill for the Iraq war, "I voted for it before I voted against it."

Bush’s bill contained a $20 billion blank check to provide no-bid contracts to Halliburton and other firms for Iraq reconstruction, and none of the $87 billion price tag would be paid using Bush’s tax cuts. As the Washington Post has reported, Kerry voted for a different version of the bill that would have funded some of the spending by raising taxes on incomes greater than $312,000, while Bush vowed to veto a version that would have converted half of the Iraq rebuilding plan into a loan. Kerry's alternate version was defeated and Bush’s original bill came up for a vote. Most Democrats decided to support it, as it would be sure to pass. Knowing this, Kerry on principle voted "against" it — that is, he voted against the $20 billion blank check and the no-repealing-the-tax-cut provisions. Cheney, as president pro-tem of the Senate, knows this.

Dick Cheney: Although he voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, he then decided he was opposed to the war, and voted against funding for our men and women in the field. He voted against body armor, ammunition, fuel, spare parts, armored vehicles, extra pay for hardship duty, and support for military families. Senator Kerry is campaigning for the position of commander in chief. Yet he does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief — and that is to support American troops in combat
Cheney also knows that the president had previously sent soldiers into battle in Iraq without sufficient flak jackets, and that one of the many provisions in this bill was to provide them at last. Kerry knew that, when the bill passed, the flak jackets would be provided. Cheney represents this situation as Kerry voting against providing flak jackets to soldiers, as if Kerry didn’t care whether the soldiers were protected, when Kerry has criticized the president for not providing them in the first place.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/09/02_lakoff_gop3.shtml

This is a really good article. He explains the 87 billion dollar vote.