April 06, 2006 08:00 AM UTC

Allard vs. Kerry, Round 1

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• by: Colorado Pols

From the Rocky Mountain News:

Sen. Wayne Allard and Sen. John Kerry had a televised, verbal skirmish over Iraq war policy today, blasting each other in back-and-forth speeches. Allard, R-Loveland, took to the Senate floor to defend President Bush’s Iraq policy in the wake of Kerry’s recent call for a dramatic shift of policy and accelerated pull-out of U.S. troops.

“I’ve been very supportive of the president (on) Iraq because he has had a plan and he has stayed the course,” Allard said. “Even though the political winds have been twirling around out there, he has been able to ignore those and move forward.”

“What we see today in the criticism of the president from Sen. Kerry, we’ve seen an individual being spun in the political winds, unlike the president,” Allard said.

That drew an angry response from Kerry, D-Mass., a Vietnam War veteran and former Democratic presidential contender. Frequently referring to Allard as “the senator from Colorado,” Kerry said, “Anyone who wants to come to the floor and pretend it’s working today is living in a fantasy land.”

At one point, referring to Allard, Kerry asked: “Is it OK with him that young Americans are dying” while Iraq struggles to get a new government in place. Kerry said military leaders, including Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, have told him that the large presence of U.S. troops is actually adding to the unrest.

“I’m listening to Gen. Casey, not the senator from Colorado,” Kerry said.