jcookc6

This guy won't stop, Sen. Lugar, and how about the new one out today about the security council.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak...t-novak25.html

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It's workhorse vs. show horse

October 25, 2004

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST





President George W. Bush last Thursday quietly signed an authorization extending the Nunn-Lugar Act's weapons elimination beyond the old Soviet Union's borders to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Albania. The president's partner in this success was Sen. Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But isn't this the same Lugar constantly cited by Sen. John Kerry as a fierce Republican critic of Bush?



There is indeed confusion in Lugar's home state of Indiana. The 85-year-old mother of a prominent Hoosier Republican asked her son how come their senator was supporting a Democrat for president and opposing the war in Iraq. Lugar actually was doing neither, but this is precisely the impression the Democrats want.

Kerry's campaign attempts to avoid the liberal stigma and assume a bipartisan image. In doing so, he implies support from such Republicans as Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Chuck Hagel -- and Dick Lugar. That puts Lugar in an uncomfortable position of being used by the Democratic nominee for president.

Lugar, age 72 and ending his 28th year in the Senate, is no Republican heretic. Congressional Quarterly rates him as Bush's most faithful Senate supporter at 99.2 percent (with 251 out of 253 votes). The National Journal rates him tied, along with 12 other senators, as the chamber's most conservative member. He is Indiana co-chairman of the Bush re-election campaign and supports the Iraq war.

Lugar is a workhorse and not a show horse, to use the late House Speaker Sam Rayburn's distinction. On a visit to Albania on Aug. 27-28, he found 16 tons of lethal chemical weapons imported during the 1980s by a previous gangster government. Working with the administration, he arranged for the first use of Nunn-Lugar beyond Soviet boundaries.

What the president signed last week will give the Albanian government money and expert help to destroy the stockpile. Lugar calls this ''the next step forward in preventing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons from falling into terrorist hands.'' Bush has told Lugar he is committed to extending this program worldwide. When Kerry sought the nuclear proliferation issue in the first presidential debate, Bush failed to mention his breakthrough in Albania with Lugar.

Lugar's problem is one word: ''incompetence.'' He used that word in the Foreign Relations Committee when informed that only $1 billion of $18 billion appropriated for Iraqi reconstruction had been spent. Asked why on ABC's ''This Week'' broadcast Sept. 19, Lugar repeated his verdict: ''This is incompetence in the administration.'' Lugar's conclusion was correct but his wording injudicious.

Since then, quoting Lugar as critical of his own administration has become a staple of Kerry's campaign oratory.

Lugar is a gentleman of the old school, not inclined to call up Kerry and tell him to knock it off. Speaking Oct. 15 in Carmel, Ind., Lugar said it is ''very, very unfortunate'' that Kerry is ''trying to stir up waters when we, in a very bipartisan way, on the Foreign Relations Committee support our troops.'' In Culver, Ind., on Oct. 17, he said: ''It does infuriate all my friends, and they wish that somehow or other I could seize Sen. Kerry and tell him, 'Don't do it.' ''

Lugar was more blunt with me last week. ''The use of my remarks is an attempt to shore up a weak position on his [Kerry's] part,'' he told me, adding that Kerry ''has tried to extend the failing of reconstruction to a more general criticism of the war.''

Kerry stresses he is a colleague of Lugar on Foreign Relations, but the chairman notes that the Democratic nominee missed 22 out of 23 committee sessions on Iraq. Even before the 2002 election kicked off presidential campaigning, Kerry was present for only 12 of 38 meetings. He co-sponsored none of the Nunn-Lugar legislation. As the classic Senate show horse who was just waiting to run for president, perhaps Kerry ought to give a workhorse a break and drop him from his speeches.

guy44

OK, I've been to several Kerry rallies, and I have a couple points:

1. Bob Novak is...well...Bob Novak. A hack of the highest magnitude at the very least.

2. Kerry only referenced Lugar as someone with great foreign policy knowledge who criticized the handling and implementation of the Iraq war by the Bush administration. At no point did he ever say Lugar was supporting Kerry for President.

3. Bremer recently said that he thought the U.S. needed way more troops on the ground in Iraq when he was head of the CPA. Just because Kerry mentions that fact doesn't mean that Bremer has said he is supporting Kerry.

4. The line about the Security Council - well, it's silly. Kerry misspoke. It isn't a big deal. I mean, Bush distorts truths left, right, up, and down, but Kerry accidentally saying he met with the whole SC instead of having met with the permanent members is important in any way? What kind of a reality do you live in?

When freepers press on a point like that, or try to insinuate that Kerry is saying that Lugar is voting Democratic, I want to cry. I mean, did Bush not just drive the country into the ground? Is OBL dead or in jail? Is Iraq doing well? Did the administration not underfund No Child Left Behind, the Millenium Challenge Account, etc.? Is our deficit not at a record level? Why do these little misstatements or non-issues matter? Someone?

__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

dy156

I'm a big fan of Lugar and have been for quite awhile. I'm convinced he would make a better president than either candidate.

Here's what I said about him in another thread:

Kerry should not be trying to convince people that Lugar is supporting him, but Lugar needs to make a public statement if, in fact, he is supporting Bush. See the Pat Buchanan thread for proof that you don't have to agree with someone entirely to endorse them.

That having been said, if all Kerry is doing is throwing names out there, and even quoting him, I see nothing wrong with it. I wish more people on opposite sides of the aisle got along.

Superbelt

Robert Novak, Prince of Darkness, American Traitor.

jcookc6

One point brought out above, about the shortage of manpower. Remember the 4th ID was suppose to come in through Turkey into the north of Iraq. Turkey would not allow it. If they had come in as planned alot of the things going on would have been wiped out completely before they could fester as they have. Also, they could have sealed the border with Syria.

cthulu23

The belief that Turkey would allow any troops through to bolster the Kurds was a pretty bad miscalcualtion.

Even without those troops, the initial invasion went very well for the US and it's allies. It's been during the occupation that things have gone sour.