Why do we let them question Kerry's 20year Senate record?

[dogman]

This is a referendum on the Presidency. What is B$$$'s 4 year record? We aren't supposed to discuss 30 years ago, then lets discuss the last 4 years. This campaign must continue to take it to B$$$ and hold his record up to the light.

[billbuckhead]

1. What about BushCheneyBinLadin's shaky business history

Arbusto-Harkin-Texas Rangers-Enron-Halliburton etc. One rarely hears how Harkin was a forerunner of Enron.

[blm]

3. heh. Print this out and share it with EVERYONE.

The question from reporters SHOULD be WHY did so many in the Bush1 administration try to STOP Kerry from exposing the funding of terrorism?

And isn't there a likely relationship between those efforts and the Bush2 administration's attempt to stop the 9-11 investigations?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html
September 2004
Follow the Money
How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank.
By David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.

All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.

More than a decade later, Kerry is his party's nominee for president, and terrorist financing is anything but a back-burner issue. The Bush campaign has settled on a new strategy for attacking Kerry: Portray him as a do-nothing senator who's weak on fighting terrorism. "After 19 years in the Senate, he's had thousands of votes, but few signature achievements," President Bush charged recently at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh; spin that's been echoed by Bush's surrogates, conservative pundits, and mainstream reporters alike, and by a steady barrage of campaign ads suggesting that the one thing Kerry did do in Congress was prove he knew nothing about terrorism. Ridiculing the senator for not mentioning al Qaeda in his 1997 book on terrorism, one ad asks: "How can John Kerry win a war if he doesn't know the enemy?"
>>>>>>>>>

But legislation is only one facet of a senator's record. As the BCCI investigation shows, Kerry developed a very different record of accomplishment--one often as vital, if not more so, than passage of bills. Kerry's probe didn't create any popular new governmental programs, reform the tax code, or eliminate bureaucratic waste and fraud. Instead, he shrewdly used the Senate's oversight powers to address the threat of terrorism well before it was in vogue, and dismantled a key terrorist weapon. In the process, observers saw a senator with tremendous fortitude, and a willingness to put the public good ahead of his own career. Those qualities might be hard to communicate to voters via one-line sound bites, but they would surely aid Kerry as president in his attempts to battle the threat of terrorism.
>>>>>>>>

  

[LTR]

4. Why don't they mention THIS when talking about Kerry's record?

A better question: Why isn't Kerry talking about it?

[moez]

2. Actually...

That's the issue that is germane to the discussion - one guy's record against the other guy's record.

It's not doing us any good at all keeping the discussion wrapped around Viet Nam. Once the topic becomes the economy, the war, health care, etc, it's over.

[dogman]

5. A second term election should be about the incumbent's first term

even more than Kerry's rcord in the Senate. Bush has led the country for 4 years and has failed. That is what this election should be about and that should be the answer given when Kerry supporters are asked about Kerry's Senate record.

[Longhorn]

6. They have every right to question Kerry's Senate record

and we have every right to question Bush*'s record. Those issues are germane to the campaign. What isn't fair is if Kerry's record is scrutinized and Bush is given a pass because it's somehow traitorous to criticize the president, which is the message Republicans keep putting out there. That's just plain wrong.

To me, their previous military service is important only to the extent that they are honest now about what they did in the past. I believe Kerry is telling the truth and the evidence backs him up; Bush is lying and the evidence that we've seen so far proves that he's lying.

[dogman]

7. I should have read further before posting.

It appears Skinner already started this discussion in more detail earlier.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=822166&mesg_id=822166