99 to 1 - Kerry's The One

Kerry, the only Senator not to vote for the Project BioShield Act, spent today telling anyone who would listen (i.e. the mainstream media) that the U.S. is not adequately prepared for Bioterrorism.
The Associated Press quotes Kerry:

Hospitals are overburdened, Kerry said, and essential drugs and vaccines have not been adequately developed.

[. . .]

Kerry said as president he would appoint one person to oversee all bioterrorism programs, budgets and strategic priorities and to work with state and local leaders pursuing preparedness goals.

In his 2003 State of the Union speech, President Bush called upon Congress to prepare the U.S. for bioterrorism with Project Bioshield:

I ask you tonight to add to our future security with a major research and production effort to guard our people against bioterrorism, called . The budget I send you will propose almost $6 billion to quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola, and plague. We must assume that our enemies would use these diseases as weapons, and we must act before the dangers are upon us.

Less than a week later the White House fleshed out the details of Project Bioshield. President Bush's Project Bioshield is much more comprehensive than Kerry's proposal to "appoint one person oversee all bioterrorism programs." Project Bioshield will:

Provide funding for the development and delivery of new medical countermeasures. This funding will enable the government to purchase vaccines and other therapies as soon as experts believe that they can be made safe and effective.

New National Institutes of Health programs to speed research and development on medical countermeasures, including more rapid hiring of technical experts.

New FDA emergency use authorization to permit the effective use of such treatments in an emergency, if alternative treatments are not available.

Congress passed the Project BioShield Act of 2003 on May 19, 2004. The vote in the Senate was 99-1. The only U.S. Senator who did not vote for the Project BioShield Act was, that's right, Kerry.

Does Kerry not know what the Senate voted on or what President Bush proposed? Or does Kerry simply not care so long as he can get his sound bites?

Comments

[unixdude]

John Kerry: He's on your side if the issues ... eh ... whichever side you're on.

[Harvey Levin]

Kerry makes me SICK. I wanna puke that this liar - worse than Al Gore in that department - continually speaks everyday about Bush's "failings" and yet is caught in lie after lie after lie. No wonder he said "I voted for it before I voted against it" - who in the name of hell could remember how he voted if today he is for something he was against yesterday?

What irritates me more is not that Kerry is a sickening liar. It is that the "media" made up of ass-licking liberal liars lets Kerry get away with this without even asking him one challenging question. They are all so desperate to defeat Bush that they would care if Kerry dressed up in drag to court the cross-dressing vote.

[andy]

Per my e-mail to you, I'll concede that's a valid point. Perhaps I took your point incorrectly last night, but then there was beer involved so I will deny all knowledge of the event.

[California Yankee]

The main point is not that Kerry failed to vote for the Project Bioshield Act, it's that Kerry hypocritically criticizes President Bush on an issue that the President has already addressed more substantively than Kerry has. Kerry is either unaware of the provisions of the Project Bioshield Act or is just hunting for sound bytes.

[andy]

And given that the vote was on May 19, 2004, Kerry could have easily been out stumping for his candidacy - actually, it looks like that was the day he was meeting with Nader in D.C. Given an article I was just reading re: Nader and his warchest (limited as it might be), it would seem that it would have better served Kerry to be in this meeting than voting for/against a national defense measure that was clearly going to pass.

As much as I dislike Kerry, this is not an indication of his being against protecting the nation, defending it from bio-terror, etc. And if we on the right-leaning side portray it as such then, honestly, we're no better than Michael Moore in the second-helpings line at a Ryan's Steak House.

[Kevin]

Technically it's 99-0-1. Kerry didn't vote for it before he didn't vote against it...