Text 2506, 99 rader
Skriven 2004-09-21 22:41:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Kerry
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Owl Gore and Dean were also in fighting moods.  It seems like the 
liberals are always in a fighting mood, except against the wrong people.  
An alpha male discussion is just around the corner.

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http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/428448|top|09-21-
2004::17:11|reuters.html

Kerry Iraq Speech Has His Camp in 'Fighting Mood'
 
 
Sep 21, 5:04 PM (ET) 

By Patricia Wilson
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Reuters) - One speech may not a campaign make, but 
John Kerry and his top advisers are pumped up and in "a fighting mood" 
after the Democratic candidate's aggressive attack on President Bush's 
handling of Iraq.

The Massachusetts senator, lagging in opinion polls six weeks before the 
Nov. 2 election, seems to have kicked a habit of pulling his punches at 
the last minute and showed a new willingness to mix it up with his 
Republican rival.

From a scathing address detailing Bush's "arrogance and outright 
incompetence" on Iraq, to a Democratic fund-raiser and on to a morning 
television talk show where he charged that the president was "in 
denial," Kerry seems to have found a new lease on political life.

"These guys, they've got me in a fighting mood," Kerry said to roars of 
approval at a reception in New York on Monday night.

Campaigning in Florida on Tuesday, he openly acknowledged his hard-
hitting approach.

"I know it sounds sort of tough, I know it does," he told a town hall 
meeting in Jacksonville. "I wish it didn't, but the fact is ... on Iraq, 
they haven't leveled with the American people and we deserve a president 
of the United States who looks Americans in the eye and tells you the 
truth."

Several Democrats outside the campaign called Kerry's speech in New York 
a turning point that would force Bush to play defense.

"Many people have said this was a speech you needed to give," said Mike 
McCurry, a Kerry adviser and former White House spokesman for President 
Bill Clinton.

But Republican campaign officials dismissed it as "new contradictions 
and more confusion."

"My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his 
statements are hardly credible at all," Bush told reporters in New York 
where he addressed the United Nations.

Kerry staff members were delighted at the newspaper and television 
coverage devoted to their boss's stinging critique of the president's 
"colossal failures of judgment" in the run-up to the war and its 
aftermath.

"He rocked, didn't he," the candidate's wife Teresa Heinz Kerry 
declared. "There's a time for everything and it was time for him to take 
off the gloves."

It was a welcome change for the Democratic faithful who privately feared 
their candidate lacked fire, and vindication for a cadre of new advisers 
who urged Kerry to land some punches instead of simply shadow boxing 
with Bush.

A senior Kerry aide portrayed the Iraq speech as a kind of catharsis for 
voters as well as the candidate, who has struggled with the issue 
throughout the spring and summer.

"I think people responded to the fact that someone finally told the hard 
truths," the aide said. "The White House's weak response was telling. 
They didn't challenge a single assertion he made about the situation on 
the ground."

But Kerry has often wrestled with just how hard to hit. His tendency was 
to retreat altogether from some of the harsher rhetoric that appears in 
his prepared remarks or to soften it.

Instead of accusing Bush of living "in a fantasy world of spin" on Iraq, 
he told a National Guard conference the president was dwelling in "a 
different world of spin."

An advance text of a fiery address full of biblical allusions before a 
Baptist convention warned blacks to beware of Bush's overtures, 
comparing the president to a wolf in sheep's clothing. Instead, Kerry 
described him as a "false prophet."

When the ban on assault weapons expired earlier this month, Kerry 
rebuked Bush for failing to fight for its renewal, but issued a much 
sterner written statement saying the president was making the job of 
terrorists easier.

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