Charges traded on foes' honesty
WASHINGTON -- The White House yesterday suggested John F. Kerry was "making it up" by claiming unnamed foreign leaders want him to replace President Bush, but the presumptive Democratic nominee challenged the president's own credibility. He asserted that Bush failed to provide the military and front-line terrorism defenders with promised equipment, did not level with the American people about the cost of his Medicare bill, and failed to match his antiterrorism rhetoric with action.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, building off comments made against Kerry a day earlier by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, said: "Either he is straightforward and states who they are, or the only conclusion one can draw is that he is making it up to attack the president."
Vice President Dick Cheney also noted that Kerry rebuffed a heckler Sunday who sought the names by stating that it was none of his business. "But it is our business when a candidate for president claims the political endorsement of foreign leaders," Cheney said during a campaign event in Phoenix for Representative Rick Renzi. "At the very least, we have a right to know what he is saying to them that makes them so supportive of his candidacy."
Kerry later shot back. "They're trying to change the subject from jobs, health care, the environment, and Social Security," he said as he entered a meeting with Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, Country, and Municipal Employees. "They don't have a campaign, so they're trying to divert it."
Kerry's meeting with McEntee did not result in an immediate endorsement of the 1.4-million-member AFSCME. However, Kerry did receive the endorsement of the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York, who ended his campaign for the Democratic nomination.
But the tenor of the day was dominated by the charges and countercharges between the White House and Kerry.
McClellan repeated three times the charge that Kerry was "making it up." He also broadened the criticism to rebut Kerry's recent assertion that the administration delayed, for political reasons, a deal for Libya to dispose of its weapons of mass destruction, and comments last year that the administration rebuffed last-minute offers from Russia and France to avert the Iraq war. "This is not the first time he has refused to back up his assertions," McClellan said.
Kerry's staff later released a statement challenging the propriety of McClellan's making political comments while on the government payroll.
Though the general election battle is only two weeks old, the Republicans have already shown their strategy against Kerry. They have presented Bush in TV ads as a clear and decisive leader, while depicting their rival as indecisive and duplicitous. Powell, who usually avoids partisan commentary, criticized Kerry for stating at a Florida fund-raiser last week -- without naming names -- that some leaders have told him they hope he wins the White House.
A Globe reporter was present for the fund-raiser as a representative of the newspapers covering the campaign. The reporter initially sent out a report to his colleagues saying that Kerry had told the crowd, "I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly but, boy, they look at you and say, `You gotta win this, you gotta beat this guy, we need a new policy' -- things like that."
Yesterday the reporter listened again to the tape, previously transcribed on a bus and campaign airplane, and said Kerry actually said: "I've been hearing it, I'll tell ya. The news, the coverage in other countries, the news in other places. I've met more leaders who can't go out and say it all publicly but, boy, they look at you and say, `You gotta win this, you gotta beat this guy, we need a new policy' -- things like that."
Kerry never used the term "foreign" or, as some accounts have reported, said he had "met with" foreign leaders. His comments were preceded by a statement from Milton Ferrell, Kerry's Florida fund-raising chairman, voicing foreign displeasure with the current president. Ferrell said, "Europeans and elsewhere, they're counting on the American people. They hate Bush, but they know we're going to get rid of him."
The senator, committed to taking the fight to Bush and leaving no charge unchallenged, unleashed his broadside at the administration yesterday during a high-octane appearance before 900 people at a legislative conference for the International Association of Fire Fighters.
The aggressive posture is expected to continue today, as the Massachusetts senator holds a celebration with veterans in West Virginia and tomorrow with a speech in Washington about protecting military families in times of war.
In each case, Kerry is trying to answer and even upstage Bush and Cheney as they attend events this week marking the first anniversary of the Iraq War.
The 263,000-member firefighters union, the largest of its kind in the nation and the first major labor group to endorse Kerry, greeted him as a hero.
"I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the war on terror, as some do; I believe he's done too little and done some things he didn't have to do," Kerry told his audience. "When the focus on the war on terror was appropriately in Afghanistan and breaking Al Qaeda, President Bush shifted his focus to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. He's pushed away our allies at a time when we need them the most. He hasn't pursued a strategy to win the hearts and minds of people around the world and win the war of ideas against the radical ideology of Osama bin Laden. And time and again, George Bush has failed to give those fighting the war on terror -- whether they're overseas or here -- the weapons, equipment, and support that they need."
He also said the nation's defenders, whether firefighters who lack radios or soldiers in Iraq who have had to buy their own enhanced body armor, have been let down by the administration.
Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said: "John Kerry is completely detached from the reality of his own record and past statements on homeland security. Earlier this year, he said that the terror threat was `exaggerated,' and his record on security includes six votes against the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and votes against providing body armor for our troops in Iraq."
Kerry also keyed off two recent stories in an effort to raise further doubts about Bush'scredibility.
One, first reported last week by Knight Ridder, disclosed that a government actuary said the administration threatened to fire him if he revealed the true cost of the $395 billion Medicare bill, now pegged at $530 billion, before Congress voted to approve the plan. The other, reported in yesterday's New York Times, revealed the Department of Health and Human services paid actors to pose as journalists for so-called video news releases the administration is dispersing to TV stations and others in an effort to build support from the Medicare law's prescription drug benefit.
"After already hiring actors to pose as soldiers in the president's campaign commercials," Kerry said, referring to ads that first aired earlier this month, "you have to kind of wonder: How many Oscar-winning performances will it take to convince America that George Bush can actually put America back on track?"
As for the actuarial story, he told the firefighters: "There's no place for silencing the truth that belongs to the American people. If you were a CEO of a company with that kind of overrun, you'd be fired."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
