Harley-hopping senator campaigns at motorocyle museum - July 20, 2003
By Mike Hlas - The Cedar Rapids Gazette
ANAMOSA -- Motorcyclists are the most common of sights here, with riders from coast to coast pulling up to the National Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame.
Saturday, however, a presidential candidate took a 2003 100th Anniversary Edition Harley-Davidson V-Rod for a spin through town.
Sen. John Kerry hopped on the Harley after his campaign event in the museum Saturday afternoon. The 59-year-old Massachusetts Democrat gunned the engine and then rumbled down Main Street, pulling out of sight for a few minutes.
But rather than roar into the Iowa countryside by himself, Kerry returned the $18,000 motorcycle to the museum.
"I felt a responsibility, so I came back," quipped Kerry, who owns a Harley.
Earlier, Kerry was no easy rider when it came to discussing President Bush's policies on education, the economy and health care.
Before a crowd of about 60, Kerry criticized the president for carrying out a war in Iraq without the support of the United Nations. He called for the Bush administration to seek U.N. assistance in bringing order to post-war Iraq.
"Now I read in the front page of the New York Times that some people in the ad ministration are arguing that it would be humiliating for them to go to the United Nations and ask them to be involved," Kerry said. "I refuse to allow false pride to get in the way of protecting any one of those troops on the ground in Iraq."
Last fall, Kerry voted for the Senate resolution granting Bush the right to attack Iraq with or without the United Nations. Kerry has recently said he and all Americans were "misled" by Bush, that the president made his argument for war based on flawed intelligence.
Kerry made no direct mention of the unsubstantiated passage in Bush's January State of the Union speech accusing Iraq of seeking uranium for a nuclear weapon from Africa. He did insist that before the war he told Bush to build a coalition of nations and not rush to war.
"Because the problem was never winning the military part of it," Kerry insisted. "It was always the winning of the peace.
"They clearly had no plan to win the peace.
"I want to get the target off those troops in Iraq. I want to win the peace by internationalizing the presence in Iraq, which means we need to bring the United Nations into this. Which we should have done before we ever got going."
By Mike Hlas - The Cedar Rapids Gazette
ANAMOSA -- Motorcyclists are the most common of sights here, with riders from coast to coast pulling up to the National Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame.
Saturday, however, a presidential candidate took a 2003 100th Anniversary Edition Harley-Davidson V-Rod for a spin through town.
Sen. John Kerry hopped on the Harley after his campaign event in the museum Saturday afternoon. The 59-year-old Massachusetts Democrat gunned the engine and then rumbled down Main Street, pulling out of sight for a few minutes.
But rather than roar into the Iowa countryside by himself, Kerry returned the $18,000 motorcycle to the museum.
"I felt a responsibility, so I came back," quipped Kerry, who owns a Harley.
Earlier, Kerry was no easy rider when it came to discussing President Bush's policies on education, the economy and health care.
Before a crowd of about 60, Kerry criticized the president for carrying out a war in Iraq without the support of the United Nations. He called for the Bush administration to seek U.N. assistance in bringing order to post-war Iraq.
"Now I read in the front page of the New York Times that some people in the ad ministration are arguing that it would be humiliating for them to go to the United Nations and ask them to be involved," Kerry said. "I refuse to allow false pride to get in the way of protecting any one of those troops on the ground in Iraq."
Last fall, Kerry voted for the Senate resolution granting Bush the right to attack Iraq with or without the United Nations. Kerry has recently said he and all Americans were "misled" by Bush, that the president made his argument for war based on flawed intelligence.
Kerry made no direct mention of the unsubstantiated passage in Bush's January State of the Union speech accusing Iraq of seeking uranium for a nuclear weapon from Africa. He did insist that before the war he told Bush to build a coalition of nations and not rush to war.
"Because the problem was never winning the military part of it," Kerry insisted. "It was always the winning of the peace.
"They clearly had no plan to win the peace.
"I want to get the target off those troops in Iraq. I want to win the peace by internationalizing the presence in Iraq, which means we need to bring the United Nations into this. Which we should have done before we ever got going."
posted by Pamela J. Leavey at 11:44 PM
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