|
|
 |
|
|
Last Updated: Oct 7th, 2004 - 09:04:53
|
|
WILKES-BARRE, Pennsylvania, Oct 6 AFP - US President George W Bush today attacked Democratic rival John Kerry over Iraq and the economy, hoping to sap his foe's momentum two days before their second televised debate. With his original public case for the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein under fire and the US jobs picture still cloudy just 27 days before the November 2 election, Bush said Kerry was eager to raise taxes and weak against terrorism.
"My opponent has been known to waver," he said in a speech in this crucial up-for-grabs state. "The problem with this approach is obvious: If America waits until a threat is at our doorstep, it might be too late to save lives."
The president accused the Massachusetts senator of having "a strategy of retreat" on Iraq and charged that, on taxes, "I have a record of reducing them. He has a record of raising them." Meanwhile, the United States opened an aviation trade war over European subsidies to Airbus today, scrapping a 12-year-old accord and filing a World Trade Organisation complaint. The US attack made good on Bush's threat to take the politically charged case to the global trade body, though the president did not mention it in his speech here.
White House officials had billed the address "significant",
"important," and even "major", but Bush's remarks lacked any fresh policy initiatives despite a wealth of newly sharpened barbs against his Democratic challenger. But the political usefulness was clear: Bush hoped to build on
Vice President Dick Cheney's solid debate performance yesterday against Democrat John Edwards and try to recapture momentum in the neck-and-neck race. "America saw two very different visions of our country and two different hairdos," Bush said, a reference to the contrast between
the 63-year-old Cheney's bald pate and the 51-year-old Edwards' thick blond hair. "I didn't pick my vice president for his hairdo, I picked him for his judgment, his experience," he said. "In less than a month, you'll have a chance to vote for Dick Cheney and me."
Recent polls have found the president's thin lead in national polls narrowed after he was widely judged to have lost his first of three televised face-to-face confrontations with Kerry last Thursday. Kerry aides dismissed the attacks, with spokesman Phil Singer
saying: "the president tried to redo the debate from last week by giving a speech full of untruths he couldn't say on stage with John Kerry because he knew Kerry would knock them down. "George Bush needs to get real with the American people and start telling the truth," Singer said in a statement. Kerry spokeswoman also painted Bush's appearance as a "go-over" for a failed performance in the first debate.
"He is trying to lay out things he should have done in the
debate. Unfortunately, there are no go-overs in politics," said .
The Bush campaign, faced with a resurgence by Kerry in opinion polls, was resorting to an "offensive of desperation," she said. "He is going to fear and to smear," she said. Bush, speaking before a second debate scheduled for Friday, poked fun at his frequent annoyed or unsettled looks during the first exchange, which some analysts said cost him public support. The president accused Kerry of changing his mind or espousing
flatly contradictory views in last week's debate and concluded: "You hear all that and you can understand why somebody would make a face."
AFP
© Copyright 2004 by Merlea Investments
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
