Bush on warpath against Kerry policy

? President Bush leveled his toughest and most comprehensive attack on Democratic challenger John Kerry on Wednesday, warning that Kerry “would weaken America and make the world more dangerous” while defending his decision to go to war against Iraq as an unavoidable step to defeat global terrorism.

Pointing toward a Friday night encounter against the Massachusetts senator, the president used his speech here to try to reframe the campaign debate and regain the momentum by putting the onus back on Kerry’s record on national security and domestic issues and shifting attention away from questions about why he launched the war against Iraq in the spring of 2003.

Bush ignored the report released on Wednesday showing that Iraq possessed neither stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons nor an active program to produce nuclear weapons at the time of the invasion. Instead, he sharply criticized Kerry as a decades-long opponent of forceful U.S military action who lacks the will to finish the job in Iraq and to destroy al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

“You can’t win a war you don’t believe in fighting,” Bush told supporters at a performing arts center here. “In Iraq, Senator Kerry has a strategy of retreat.” The president also charged that Kerry’s foreign policy, predicated on multilateralism and a rebuilding of global alliances and institutions, would “paralyze America in dangerous times.”

Post-debate ‘mulligan’

After a contentious debate Tuesday night between Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards, Bush picked up the assault on Kerry’s record with sharp and sometimes misleading criticisms designed to reverse the gains Kerry has made since winning the first debate last week in Florida.

Democrats, borrowing a golfing term for replaying a flubbed shot, called Bush’s speech a “mulligan,” and claimed it was an attempt by him to offer “untruths” he could not raise during last Thursday’s debate because Kerry would have effectively disputed each one.

Mike McCurry, a senior Kerry adviser, asserted that the speech had an “unhinged quality of throwing charge after charge,” and he said Bush’s comments could backfire.

President Bush addresses the crowd at the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Seeking a diversion

The strongly worded speech, which indicted Kerry as a “tax-and-spend liberal,” was timed to deflect criticism of Bush’s Iraq policy from such key sources as former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer, the U.S weapons inspector and the State Department. A Bush adviser said the president hopes to change the dynamics of the race with more biting attacks on Kerry’s record and trustworthiness and on what Bush charges is Kerry’s reluctance to use U.S. military force to defeat terrorism. The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry’s ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush’s image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said.

“Senator Kerry approaches the war with a September the 10th mind-set … that any attack will be met with a swift and certain response,” Bush said. “That was the mind-set of the 1990s, while al-Qaida was planning the attacks on America. After September the 11th, our object in the war on terror is not to wait for the next attack and respond but to prevent attacks by taking the fight to the enemy.”

On the domestic front, Bush said, “My opponent is a tax-and-spend liberal; I’m a compassionate conservative. My opponent wants to empower government; I want to use government to empower people. My opponent seems to think all the wisdom is found in Washington, D.C.; I trust the wisdom of the American people,” he said.

Amid cheers from 1,600 supporters in a performing-arts auditorium in Wilkes-Barre, Bush also assailed Kerry’s record in Congress. “During his 20 years as a senator, my opponent hasn’t had many accomplishments,” he said. “Of the hundreds of bills he submitted, only five became law. One of them was ceremonial.”

Kerry faced similar criticism during the Democratic primary race. An examination of his record found that Kerry’s focus on foreign policy and investigations rather than domestic issues tended to limit his legislative output. Also, Republicans have controlled Congress or the White House or both for all but two of Kerry’s years in the Senate, hampering his opportunities to push measures into law.