Bush attacks 'waffling' Kerry in re-election launch
US president George Bush went on the attack today as he launched his re-election campaign, casting Democratic front-runner John Kerry as indecisive and warning that the party would raise taxes, expand the government and fail to lead on national security.
Previewing his principal re-election theme, Bush made national security the centrepiece of his revamped re-election speech, explicitly invoking the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and questioning the credentials of the Democrats who want his job.
“The action we take and the decisions we make in this decade will have consequences far into this century,” Bush told 1,400 people at a Washington fund-raiser for Republican governors.
“If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. That will not happen on my watch.”
In his 40-minute address, Bush mentioned none of the Democratic presidential candidates by name, but some of his sharpest criticism was unmistakably intended for Kerry.
“The other party’s nomination battle is still playing out. The candidates are an interesting group with diverse opinions,” Bush said. “They’re for tax cuts and against them. They’re for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They’re for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They’re in favour of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that’s just one senator from Massachusetts.”
Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter disputed Bush’s list of purported waffling. Kerry opposed Bush’s tax cuts for the richest Americans and stands by that; voted for NAFTA and stands by it; voted for the Patriot Act, but believes the Justice Department is using it to trample civil liberties; and stands by his vote to authorise force for Iraq, but believes Bush’s prosecution of the war “created a breeding ground for terror” and alienated allies, Cutter said.
Bush made a veiled reference to Kerry’s call, in an interview 34 years ago, for United Nations control of the US military and said: “America must never outsource America’s national security decisions to the leaders of other governments.”
The president has sought to depict himself as above the political fray in recent months, even as Democrats pummelled him during their primary process. Today, Bush signalled he had entered a new phase in which he would strike back.
The November election presents “a choice between keeping the tax relief that is moving this economy forward, or putting the burden of higher taxes back on the American people”, he said. “It’s a choice between an America that leads the world with strength and confidence, or an America that is uncertain in the face of danger.”
Bush pledged to improve the economy and “keep our enemies on the run”, recalling his walk through the rubble of the World Trade Centre on September 14, 2001. The Democratic presidential hopefuls “have not offered much in the way of strategies to win the war, or policies to expand the economy”, he said.
Kerry said Bush’s plunge into campaign mode showed the president was nervous.
“I think George Bush is on the run. And I think he’s on the run because he doesn’t have a record to run on,” the Massachusetts senator said while campaigning in New York’s Harlem neighbourhood.
“I don’t think losing three million jobs, having deficits as far as the eye can go, having two million people lose their health insurance, turning your back on kids in schools ... represents a vision,” Kerry said later in Queens, New York.
