John Forbes Kerry Is It

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCXLII

In honor of the selection of Sen. John Kerry (D-Pomo) as the Democratic Party's nominee for president of the United States of America, two editorials from the depths of the backlog.

First, from the Mobile Register, Mar. 5.

Sen. John Kerry, now the sure Democratic nominee for president, has been mocking President George W. Bush for months by saying "Bring it on" in reference to any and all debates on the issues.

But Mr. Bush and his political advisers are probably thinking the same thing about Mr. Kerry. For good reason, they probably relish having an opponent with all of the Democratic nominee's weaknesses.

In Mr. Kerry, the president faces a Massachusetts senator more liberal than Ted Kennedy, by a number of official rankings of the U.S. Senate. Indeed, the non-partisan National Journal just put out rankings showing that in 2003, Mr. Kerry rated as the single most liberal member of the Senate.

In him, the president also faces an opponent equally as inauthentic and as arrogant as Al Gore was. Mr. Kerry is Irish-Catholic when that suits him, but he's also Jewish when that's an advantage.

He has been both war hero and war protester, although he tried to have it both ways by throwing somebody else's medals over a wall in a high-profile protest, while secretly keeping his own.

When it comes to fence straddling, meanwhile, the senator has been a real champion. He voted against the first war in Iraq, but then wrote the same constituent twice within nine days, once saying that he opposed the war and later saying he "strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the current crisis." He voted for the second war in Iraq, but then criticized it. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement, but now talks like a protectionist.

To overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the senator now says we were wrong to do it with out negotiating further at the United Nations. But when it comes to Haiti's deposed dictator, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Mr. Kerry said he would have intervened on behalf of Mr. Aristide. Not only that, but "absent an international force, I'd do it unilaterally."

So it's not OK to act without U.N. approval (but with several dozen other allies) against Saddam Hussein, but it is OK to act without a single other ally to save a corrupt and brutal Haitian leader?

Sen. Kerry has cast key votes to cut funds for U.S. intelligence agencies, but now criticizes the Central Intelligence Agency for weak intelligence gathering. He says he'll be stronger on national security than President Bush has been, but he has voted against the B-1 bomber, the B-2 Stealth bomber, the F-14 fighter, the F-15, the F-16, the AH-64-Apache helicopter, the Patriot missiles, the Aegis air defense cruiser (which is key to sea-based missile defense), the Trident missile for submarines, the M-1 Abrams tanks, the Tomahawk cruise missile and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

John Kerry has been both in favor of and against the death penalty for terrorists, both in favor of and against the Patriot Act, against the federal Defense of Marriage Act that President Clinton signed yet also against gay marriage, and accepting of and opposed to the "outsourcing" of jobs.

Even the liberal Washington Post editorialized on Feb. 15 that Mr. Kerry has tried to have it both ways on numerous issues, and wrote that "Mr. Kerry's attempts to weave a thread connecting and justifying all these positions are unconvincing."

Maybe the president shouldn't say bring him on, but to bring them on — because there seems to be far more than just one John Kerry.

Second, from the Washington Post, Feb. 15.

JOHN KERRY has become the favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination without a detailed or clarifying debate on many issues. This has happened in part because the leading Democratic candidates had relatively few differences on foreign or domestic policy; in part because their multi-candidate forums allowed little time for in-depth discussion; and in part because most have chosen to avoid direct attacks on each other since the primaries began last month. Most of the rhetoric has been directed at President Bush, and exit polls show that many voters have been more interested in which candidate has a better chance of unseating the incumbent than in where he might take the country. Mr. Kerry has surged to the forefront in part because of his biography and in part because he avoided the political misjudgments and verbal gaffes that caused voters to reject onetime front-runner Howard Dean. Now, with the nomination seemingly within his reach, the Massachusetts senator must begin to more fully explain where he stands on the major challenges facing the country.

That task is particularly important for Mr. Kerry because of his fuzziness on issues ranging from Iraq to gay marriage. Some of the blur is caused by a record of political activity stretching back more than 30 years, including 19 in the Senate; in such circumstances it's not hard for opposition researchers to unearth contradictions. But even a more independent assessment of Mr. Kerry can lead to puzzlement. He says he opposes gay marriage, yet voted against the federal Defense of Marriage act. He voted for the North American Free Trade agreement yet now talks in protectionist terms, promising he will provide American workers "a fair playing field" while accusing Mr. Bush of "selling them out." Would a President Kerry seek additional free trade agreements in Latin America and elsewhere? What's his position on whether his own state should adopt a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? So far, the answers aren't clear.

The most important confusion surrounds Mr. Kerry's position on Iraq. In 1991 he voted against the first Persian Gulf War, saying more support was needed from Americans for a war that he believed would prove costly. In 1998, when President Clinton was considering military steps against Iraq, he strenuously argued for action, with or without allies. Four years later he voted for a resolution authorizing invasion but criticized Mr. Bush for not recruiting allies. Last fall he voted against funding for Iraqi reconstruction, but argued that the United States must support the establishment of a democratic government.

Mr. Kerry's attempts to weave a thread connecting and justifying all these positions are unconvincing. He would do better to offer a more honest accounting. His estimation of the cost of expelling Iraq from Kuwait in 1991 was simply wrong; and if President Bush was mistaken to think in 2003 that there was an urgent need to stop Saddam Hussein from stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Kerry made the same error in 1998.

More important, Mr. Kerry should clarify what he believes should be the objectives of the U.S. mission in Iraq going forward — and what military and aid commitments he is prepared to make. In his last substantive speech on the subject, in December, the candidate called for replacing the U.S. occupation authority with a United Nations mission and recruiting NATO and other allied troops "so that we get the targets off the back of our soldiers." But there is no prospect of a U.N. administration; its envoys are instead negotiating the terms under which an Iraqi government will succeed the U.S. authority. The Bush administration has meanwhile invited NATO to share responsibility in Iraq, only to receive a cool response from Germany and France. Mr. Kerry spoke of "completing the tasks of security and democracy" in Iraq. But he hasn't yet offered a realistic plan for how he would do it or committed himself to the likely cost in American troop deployments and dollars. If he is to offer a credible alternative to Mr. Bush, he must explain how he would manage the real and dangerous challenges the United States now faces in Iraq — without the fuzzing.

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Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 07/29/04 09:01:38 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.