From a
interview in the latest issue of
Time:
KERRY
We can do a better job at homeland security. I can fight a more effective war on terror....
TIME
Is the President being as aggressive as he should be in dealing with insurgent strongholds in Iraq?
KERRY
At this moment in time, I'm not sitting with the generals in front of me for the full briefing. I'm not going to comment on that right now. That is up to the President. It's his decision to make. But I will tell you this, that we've gone backward in Iraq, and we've gone backward on the war on terror. I'm not President until Jan. 20, if America elects me. I don't know what I'll find in Iraq....
TIME
As President, who would be the first person you would phone?
KERRY
I'm not going to say one, two, three. I will tell you that I have 20 years of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee....
TIME
You can't be more specific?
KERRY
I know exactly what I'm going to do, but I'm not the President today....
TIME
Will you be more specific about timetables for getting troops out?
KERRY
I have said that I have a goal to be able to bring our troops out of there within my first term, and I hope to be able to bring out some troops within the first year. But what's important here is that I can fight a more effective war on terror....
TIME
How would you go about winning the war of ideas in the Middle East?
KERRY
What I intend to do is to put in play the economic power, the values and principles, the public diplomacy, so we're isolating the radical Islamic extremists and not having the radical extremists isolate the United States. It means bringing religious leaders together, including moderate mullahs, clerics, imams -— pulling the world together in a dialogue about who these extremists really are and how they are hijacking the legitimacy of Islam itself....
TIME
Our latest poll indicates that terrorism has become the No. 1 issue for voters.
KERRY
I will fight a more effective war on terror, and over the next weeks the American people will see the phoniness of the Bush efforts....
TIME
Are you surprised at the bounce Bush got out of his convention?
KERRY
I don't know what you're talking about in terms of the Bush bounce....
The part about "dialoguing" is preciousness itself:
It means bringing religious leaders together, including moderate mullahs, clerics, imams -— pulling the world together in a dialogue about who these extremists really are and how they are hijacking the legitimacy of Islam itself.
That'll really impress the Islamofascists. No wonder liberals scare me. Then there's this:
[O]ver the next weeks the American people will see the phoniness of the Bush efforts.
Is he predicting a major terrorist attack, or positioning himself to say "I told you so" if there is one? Unfair on my part? I don't think so. The man is desperate. As I said
here, "Absent a terrorist attack, the election is now Bush's to lose."
