Assertions
Posted By Russ Emerson on April 20, 2004 at 8:52 pm
John Kerry seems to forget that one of the jobs of the President is to conduct foreign policy.
Spotted at Best of the Web:
John Kerry “quickly seized on [Bob] Woodward’s assertion on Sunday that the Saudi ambassador to the United States had agreed that his country would make sure that oil prices did not get too out of hand and would lower them to boost the American economy prior to the election–a decision that would presumably help Mr. Bush politically,” reports the New York Times:
“That is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people,” Mr. Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, declared during a campaign stop in Florida.
Of course, Woodward’s assertions are just that: assertions. But as David Frum notes on NRO:
But is it true?
Ask yourself this: Who could have been Woodward’s source for this claim? Only one person: the canny Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States and a frequent purveyor of titillating items to selected journalists.
Next question: If such a deal existed, what motive could Prince Bandar have for revealing it? The revelation could only hurt Bush, the candidate Bandar was allegedly trying to help.
Logical next thought: If, however, Bandar wanted to hurt Bush, then the revelation makes a great deal of sense.
But why would Bandar want to hurt Bush? Don’t a hundred conspiracy books tell us that the Bush family are thralls of Saudi oil money? Perhaps the Saudis don’t think so. Perhaps they see President Bush’s Middle East policy as a threat to their dominance and even survival. What could after all be a worse nightmare for Saudi Arabia than a Western-oriented, pluralistic Iraq pumping all the oil it can sell?
In other words, if what Bob Woodward reports is true, then the Saudis are meddling to defeat Bush, not elect him.
But Kerry doesn’t care what’s actually true. He merely cares about scoring political points.
The real point, though, is that he seems to think lower oil prices are bad based on who does the legwork to assure the free flow of oil. Perhaps he’d rather we had a repeat of the oil embargo of the ’70s.
Actually, if he could blame President Bush, I think that’s exactly what he’d rather have.
I noticed you left out a key part of the Kerry quote, the beginning where he said, “If this is true…” Kinda changes the whole meaning of his statement when you hear it in context…
I quoted it exactly as it appeared at the linked-to site.
In Kerry’s context, though, the “If…” is meaningless. He was making the accusation, weasel-words or not.