Across the continent from Boston, where Democrats lined the Fleet Center with electronic signs that occasionally flash the phrase "A stronger America" and John Kerry arrived today surrounded by his Band of Brothers, Dick Cheney stood between two 155 mm howitzers and suggested that a John Kerry administration would be so "weak" as to invite another 9/11. "President Bush is determined to remove threats before they arrive instead of simply waiting for another attack on our country,'' he said on Tuesday. "Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness," he told 2,500 Marines dressed in camo for the pep rally.
In Boston today, War Room caught up with Gary Hart, who reacted to Cheney's suggestion that Kerry isn't fit to be commander in chief. "It's ironic because it wasn't too long ago that the Republican line was if you wanted to go to war, you go Democratic. That was Robert Dole in 1976 who claimed the Democrats created wars, and now all of a sudden we're weak on defense. That of course is not true. It's all politics." And about Cheney continuing to fall back on dubious justifications for the Iraq war, including the WMD threat? (In the speech to the Marines, he said ousting Saddam was necessary because of the possibility that terrorists could acquire theoretical WMDs from an "outlaw regime.") "It just shows you how out of touch he is," Hart said. "If you continue to say something that is demonstrably not true, you are either purposefully deceiving people or you have deceived yourself." So which is it? "You'd have to pry open his mind, I think," Hart said.
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