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Big guns
Posted at: Thursday, February 26, 2004, 03:43 AM
The war of words between John Kerry and President Bush continued Wednesday as Ed Gillespie, Republican national chairman, once again attacked Kerry as having voted against important defense bills in the Senate.
The response from the Kerry camp was double-barreled, coming from former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland and Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington.
“It’s the height of irony for people like Ed Gillespie, who never served in the American military, and does not understand war, to criticize the record of Senator Kerry, who has been wounded in battle and tested in combat,” Cleland said in a conference call with reporters.
Speaking on the same conference call, Dicks, a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, the Select Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism, said Kerry had voted for 16 of the 19 defense appropriations bills which had come before him, and for $1.1 trillion in defense spending since Bush took office.
“That’s a lot of defense,” Dicks said.
— Staff reports
