Ed Gillespie, chairman of the RNC, appears to have settled on a line of attack against John Kerry, and according to the Republicans’ talking points, Kerry’s votes against weapons systems in the 1990s will be a center point of GOP criticism.
But before he goes too far with this tack, Gillespie may want to read Slate’s Fred Kaplan’s take on Kerry’s voting record. If it hasn’t been already, the article will soon be distributed far and wide by Mary Beth Cahill and Co.
For example, it was President George H.W. Bush, in his 1992 State of the Union, who took the lead in eliminating weapons programs — the same programs Kerry wanted to see eliminated at the time. Bush pere said:
After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B-2 bomber. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper [MX] missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles.
It sets up a fun scenario for future debates. If Bush condemns Kerry’s votes on these weapons programs, Kerry can simply say, “Your father and I were working together on these common-sense reductions. Where were you?”
In fact, Dick Cheney, the first President Bush’s defense secretary, criticized Congress for not cutting more weapons systems.
Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you’ve squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don’t fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements…. You’ve directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s — all great systems … but we have enough of them.
And as Kaplan also noticed, it was Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same hearings, testifying about plans to cut Army divisions by one-third, Navy aircraft carriers by one-fifth, and active armed forces by half a million men and women, to say nothing of “major reductions” in fighter wings and strategic bombers.
Kaplan noted that these comments came in the early 1990s, when cuts in defense spending were more politically popular, and Kerry was supportive of many of the same cuts the first Bush White House was recommending.
Granted, these reductions were made in the wake of the Soviet Union’s dissolution and the Cold War’s demise. But that’s just the point: Proposed cuts must be examined in context. A vote against a particular weapons system doesn’t necessarily indicate indifference toward national defense.
In fact, Kaplan notes that Gillespie and the RNC are playing fast and loose with the congressional record.
Looking at the weapons that the RNC says Kerry voted to cut, a good case could be made, certainly at the time, that some of them (the B-2 bomber and President Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile-defense program) should have been cut. As for the others (the M-1 tank and the F-14, F-15, and F-16 fighter planes, among others), Kerry didn’t really vote to cut them.
The claim about these votes was made in the Republican National Committee “Research Briefing” of Feb. 22. The report lists 13 weapons systems that Kerry voted to cut—the ones cited above, as well as Patriot air-defense missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and AH64 Apache helicopters, among others.
It is instructive, however, to look at the footnotes. Almost all of them cite Kerry’s vote on Senate bill S. 3189 (CQ Vote No. 273) on Oct. 15, 1990. Do a Google search, and you will learn that S. 3189 was the Fiscal Year 1991 Defense Appropriations Act, and CQ Vote No. 273 was a vote on the entire bill. There was no vote on those weapons systems specifically.
If Bush’s attack dogs are looking for embarrassing votes to hold against Kerry, they’ll have to look elsewhere.