SwiftVets.com

[Stevie]

Has anyone been listening to Edwards speeches?

Is he saying he has been misled by Bush etc????

Why was Kerry misled and Edwards NOT misled ?

Edwards has a brain and Kerry has PUPPET STUFFING???

JOHN EDWARDS INTERVIEWED BY CHRIS MATTHEWS:

Updated: 9:44 a.m. ET Oct. 15, 2003
Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) was the first guest in the special series, ‘Hardball: Battle for the White House’ which kicked off on Oct. 13, Monday, 7 p.m. ET.


Chris Matthews goes one-on-one with Sen. Edwards on Oct. 13, Monday, 7 p.m. ET

The Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government hosts the series. The audience, which will be comprised mostly of local college students, will also ask questions of the candidates. Admittance to these forums will require a ticket. While most tickets will be distributed to Harvard and other local college students. Some tickets will be reserved for the general public. Instructions for obtaining tickets will be available on the IOP website.
LINKS:
Edwards embed page
Edwards official bio
Edwards blog
Edwards newspaper coverage
To get news on the Hardball: Battle for the White House delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Hardball Briefing. Click here to subscribe.
READ THE TRANSCRIPT BELOW
ANNOUNCER: Live from the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, the “Battle for the White House.”
Here’s Chris Matthews.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: In the next hour, he’s in his first term of the United States Senate. Now he’s running for president. My special guest tonight, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
MATTHEWS: Here we are on the night of the American League championship. Who are you for?
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Red Sox.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you...
EDWARDS: Are all the questions going to be that easy?
MATTHEWS: No. This is being shown in New York, Senator.
Let me, you just don’t like the word Yankee, do you, being from North Carolina?
We’re going to go-We’ve got to get serious, unfortunately. You’re running for president of the United States. You’re in your first term as a United States Senator from North Carolina.
Let me ask but the war, because I know these are all students and a lot of guys the age of these students are fighting over there and cleaning up over there, and they’re doing the occupation.
Were we right to go to this war alone, basically without the Europeans behind us? Was that something we had to do?
EDWARDS: I think that we were right to go. I think we were right to go to the United Nations. I think we couldn’t let those who could veto in the Security Council hold us hostage.
And I think Saddam Hussein, being gone is good. Good for the American people, good for the security of that region of the world, and good for the Iraqi people.
MATTHEWS: If you think the decision, which was made by the president, when basically he saw the French weren’t with us and the Germans and the Russians weren’t with us, was he right to say, “We’re going anyway”?
EDWARDS: I stand behind my support of that, yes.
MATTHEWS: You believe in that?
EDWARDS: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about-Since you did support the resolution and you did support that ultimate solution to go into combat and to take over that government and occupy that country. Do you think that you, as a United States Senator, got the straight story from the Bush administration on this war? On the need for the war? Did you get the straight story?EDWARDS: Well, the first thing I should say is I take responsibility for my vote. Period. And I did what I did based upon a belief, Chris, that Saddam Hussein’s potential for getting nuclear capability was what created the threat. That was always the focus of my concern. Still is the focus of my concern.So did I get misled? No. I didn’t get misled.
MATTHEWS: Did you get an honest reading on the intelligence?
EDWRADS: But now we’re getting to the second part of your question.
I think we have to get to the bottom of this. I think there’s clear inconsistency between what’s been found in Iraq and what we were told.
And as you know, I serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee. So it wasn’t just the Bush administration. I sat in meeting after meeting after meeting where we were told about the presence of weapons of mass destruction. There is clearly a disconnect between what we were told and what, in fact, we found there.
MATTHEWS: If you knew last October when you had to cast an aye or nay vote for this war, that we would be unable to find weapons of mass destruction after all these months there, would you still have supported the war?
EDWARDS: It wouldn’t change my views. I said before, I think that the threat here was a unique threat. It was Saddam Hussein, the potential for Saddam getting nuclear weapons, given his history and the fact that he started the war before.
MATTHEWS: Do you feel now that you have evidence in your hands that he was on the verge of getting nuclear weapons?
EDWARDS: No, I wouldn’t go that far.
MATTHES: What would you say?
EDWARDS: What I would say is there’s a decade long pattern of an effort to get nuclear capability, from the former Soviet Union, trying to get access to scientists...
MATTHEWS: What about Africa?
EDWARDS: ... trying to get-No. I don’t think so. At least not from the evidence.
MATTHEWS: Were you misled by the president in the State of the Union address on the argument that Saddam Hussein was trying get uranium from Niger?
EDWARDS: I guess the answer to that is no. I did not put a lot of stock in that.
MATTHEWS: But you didn’t believe-But you weren’t misled?
EDWARDS: No, I was not misled because I didn’t put a lot of stock in to it begin with. As I said before, I think what happened here is, for over a decade, there is strong, powerful evidence, which I still believe is true, that Saddam Hussein had been trying to get nuclear capability. Either from North Korea, from the former Soviet Union, getting access to scientists, trying to get access to raw fissile material. I don’t-that I don’t have any question about.
_________________
Stevie
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage
morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should
be arrested, exiled or hanged.