{"id":2568,"date":"2004-09-20T12:29:31","date_gmt":"2004-09-20T17:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2568.html"},"modified":"2004-09-20T12:29:31","modified_gmt":"2004-09-20T17:29:31","slug":"defeat-and-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/defeat-and-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"Defeat and retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s another <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/wire\/Politics\/ap20040920_559.html\">gem of a quote<\/a> from the Bush gang.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry&#8217;s goal of pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in his first term sends &#8220;a clear signal of defeat and retreat to America&#8217;s enemies that will make the world a far more dangerous place.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Defeat and retreat&#8221; is the latest soundbite from the Bush campaign that you&#8217;ll be hearing a lot of for the next six weeks. But every time you hear Republicans complain that Kerry has expressed support for reducing troop levels in Iraq, remember that Bush has done <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A1827-2003Nov20.html\">the exact same thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, it was just last November when the Bush administration announced a plan to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq by 27,000 over a six-month period and by an additional 50,000 by mid-2005. In other words, Bush proposed a troop reduction plan last fall that is <i>even more ambitious<\/i> than what Kerry has suggested.<\/p>\n<p>When Kerry does it, it&#8217;s &#8220;defeat and retreat.&#8221; When Bush does the same thing, it&#8217;s steady leadership. <\/p>\n<p>What does it say about the Bush campaign that every strategy and message is dependent on hoping the public doesn&#8217;t remember the president&#8217;s record?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s another gem of a quote from the Bush gang. Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry&#8217;s goal of pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in his first term sends &#8220;a clear signal of defeat and retreat to America&#8217;s enemies that will make the world a far more dangerous place.&#8221; &#8220;Defeat and retreat&#8221; is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}