Heinz Kerry rebukes heckler; crowd cheer
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| Mon, 09-27-2004 - 2:10pm |
PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) - A group of 600 Democrats crowded the 4H Auditorium at the State Fairgrounds Friday hoping to see for themselves whether presidential candidate John Kerry's wife was as outspoken and sharp-tongued as some have described her.
Teresa Heinz Kerry delivered for her supporters when she talked back to a heckler who implied her husband's a flip-flopper.
During a question and answer session, a young man demanded to know why Kerry voted to give Bush authority to attack Iraq but voted against an $87 billion appropriation bill to support the war effort there.
"Is that the kind of thing he would do as president?," the man asked.
Heinz Kerry sharply asked the man whether he had read the legislation that was voted on.
When he said no, she told him that Kerry had supported $60 billion in military appropriations for Iraq, but would not vote for the full $87 billion because he considered it a "blank check." Kerry was one of 11 Democrats to vote against the bill.
"And we knew they'd already given Haliburton millions in no-bid contracts," she snapped, referring to the company formerly led by Vice President Dick Cheney.
"If you want to say (Kerry) flip-flopped, just say so, don't try to hide," Heinz Kerry scolded.
The young man responsed with chanting "Four more years!" as he walked out of the auditorium. The partisan crowd's cheer of "Six more weeks!" quickly drowned him out.
Roberto Costales of Canon City liked the way she dealt with her heckler.
"Did you notice how she handled that one guy? I bet she doesn't back down from anybody," he laughed.
In appearances here and before a crowd of 1,700 in Fort Collins, Heinz Kerry echoed her husband's views about terrorism, national security, crime, health care and education.
She said the United States needs a different approach in the world.
"The way we live in peace in a family, in a marriage, in the world, is not by threatening people, is not by showing off your muscles. It's by listening, by giving a hand sometimes, by being intelligent, by being open and by setting high standards," she said at the CSU rally.
In Pueblo, Heinz Kerry sounded a similar theme, criticizing the Bush administration for sending warning signals to Iran about developing nuclear weapons.
"There are about 50 countries in the world that have the capability to build nuclear weapons. Are we going to attack them all?" she said.
Gina Maggrett, of Pueblo, liked what she heard.
"(She's portrayed) as this caustic person but I thought she was really warm and intelligent. A lovely person," she said.

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LOL, what, have you seen their IQ scores or something? Oh I forgot, you assume anyone who disagrees with your political views must be dumb. I named Republican women because I was refuting the assertion that Republicans don't like strong intelligent women. Thus, I named women who are strong and intelligent yet respected by most Republicans.
Well, I'm way beyond making the most superficial judegements of a person on the basis that she chooses not to be at the forefront of policy making. She did not, after all, run for president. It is certainly her right to assume whatever role she chooses. But if she chooses to use tasteless, tactless language she is going to turn a lot of people off. Doesn't mean they just don't like her "strength" and her "intelligence", means they don't like her tasteless tactless language. There's a big difference.
Oh, come on. I can't believe there are still people who can't see through their pathetic charade, or at least pretend they can't. And it's hilarious that you should hold up his piece of trash called an autobiography as justification to someone who's never believed a word he's ever said to begin with!
Bev
Ask yourself if you hold men and women to the same standards of behavior (it's okay for men to say/do something but not women?) If you don't-- and it occasionally sounds like you don't-- that is, technically speaking, sexist. I'm just saying the word "if" because I don't know you. Like: IF the 'sexist' shoe fits, wear it. Unless it's not attractive enough for you...
Someone who IS running for election this year is guilty of having a much bigger potty mouth in public recently, than just saying "shove it" or "there are scumbags in any profession..."
Who might that be? Hmmm... oh! I almost FFForgot!! my FFFavorite bunker-dweller!!
I call him Dick.
On the hallowed floor of our U.S. Senate, Dick told a colleague who dared to raise questions about the no-bid contracts Dick's recent employer Halliburton won to help reconstruct the Iraq Dick helped deconstruct, to go F himself. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3699-2004Jun24.html
Can we all just pause for a moment and imagine the COW that debateguy would have if T.H.K. or H.R.C. had uttered that kind of filth? And it IS filth, whether it comes out of the mouth of a man or woman.
In this case, it was spoken ON THE JOB by a man who is running for re-election. He THEN smirked and shrugged in national TV interviews and was totally unapologetic. Which I liken to the defiant, childish behavior of a 7th grade bully waiting outside the principal's office, who got busted because he cussed a teacher who caught him cheating.
Dick's use of the F word is not even something I am saying should influence a person's vote (if you like a candidate's policies & patterns, why should a verbal slip-up, which has happened to all of us, negate more pertinent criteria?) My point is: Why the obsession with T.H.K. and finding things to disparage about her when SHE is not running? It's very transparent why-- because touting the good your guy has done for this country is MUCH harder to do. Why do you care what T.H.K. looks like (it kind of makes me wonder what YOU look like... I'm imagining that you have dimples and... nevermind) Do you hold men in the public eye to the same scrutiny? T.H.K. is 65, and the comment you have about her looks is what college boys would think of her hotness?? I mean it's ludicrous those comments. If debategy's comments are what our dialogue has devolved to, let's all pick apart DICK. There's his bald head, his pasty complexion, his jowls, his gut, his sneer...
See how rude and awful that sounds? Stop taking the low road. The looks of these people -- why is that an issue AT ALL? Are we casting actors on the West Wing? Or are we trying to save our country in what is the most important election of our lives?
Please let's use our heads when voting.
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