WSJ: Kerry vs. Kerry

Wall Street Journal ^ | September 10, 2004 | Editorial

[OESY]

...First, back in October 2002 when the polls showed large public support, Mr. Kerry voted for the war. "I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein," he said in one of the early Democratic debates. "And when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him."

But then Howard Dean rose in the polls as the antiwar candidate, and Mr. Kerry suddenly turned against the war too. "Are you one of the anti-war candidates?" asked Chris Matthews back in January on MSNBC's "Hardball." Mr. Kerry: "I am -- Yes..."

Or at least he was until he routed Mr. Dean, when he became prowar once again. Throughout the spring he vowed to stay the course, saying in April that "it would be unwise beyond belief for the United States of America to leave a failed Iraq in its wake." His positions were so close to Mr. Bush's that pundits were suggesting Iraq wouldn't be an issue in the fall. Only last month, Mr. Kerry declared that even knowing everything he knows now about events in Iraq, "yes, I would have voted for the authority" of President Bush to wage war.

...His latest line is that Iraq is "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," and that he would have done "everything differently" from Mr. Bush....

Mr. Kerry is even reviving the old liberal isolationist line that money spent fighting our enemies in Iraq should be better spent at home. "$200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can't afford after-school programs for our children....

We're not the only ones who've noticed that Mr. Kerry's statements on Iraq aren't so much "nuanced" as simply irreconcilable....

[Piquaboy]

The Rats cannot buy votes with the money spent in Iraq.

[Redbob]

There you go again, posting from that nasty ol' WSJ that won't let us have their content for free!
<grin>

Good on you, mate!

[Redbob]

"We're not the only ones who've noticed that Mr. Kerry's statements on Iraq aren't so much "nuanced" as simply irreconcilable...."

Shoot, even dear old Al Hunt said yesterday (in the WSJ, of course) that Kerry should forget the "nuance" and come out and say something definite - then stick with it!