More On "Flipper" John

We missed this Feb 15 Valentine from the WaPo, but it still touches our hearts:

Time For Clarity

...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.

Let's toss in a rebuttal from Matt Yglesias.

And in a not to be missed tour de farce, the Daily Torygraph comes all the way from London to ridicule Kerry on everything, starting with his Irish ancestry. The link may fade, but the warm glow (and the extended excerpts below) never will. A hint:

...On the stump, Mr Kerry has repeatedly condemned the Bush White House as "the biggest say-one-thing-do-another" in American history. Republican activists have retorted that Mr Kerry is a big "say-one-thing-say-another" candidate.

And, as part of our unrelenting effort to be fair and balanced, let's wave in Matt Yglesias of the American Prospect, who apparently kept a straight face when given the Sisyphean challenge of explaining that Kerry is not a waffler. That's right, give the story to the new guy! Our fave:

On NAFTA, a flip-flop is even harder to find. Kerry supported the treaty; nowhere in his trade issues page is there any suggestion that he intends to abrogate it. Rather, "John Kerry will also order an immediate 120-day review of all existing trade agreements to ensure that our trade partners are living up to their labor and environment obligations."

If his point is that all the recent Kerry posturing is just posturing, well, sure. But isn't that the point being made on this issue by the waffle crowd, too?

And we catch a whiff of desperation here:

Criticism of Kerry's record on the war, moreover, cuts against the notion that he is an opportunistic panderer. His vote for the authorizing resolution was deeply unpopular within the Democratic Party and nearly cost him the nomination, forcing him to spend months trailing behind the more forthrightly dovish campaigns of Dean and Gen. Wesley Clark.

His vote in October 2002, along with the votes of roughly half the Senate Dems, was a Profile in Courage! But weirdly, despite the "deeply unpopular" vote, he was perceived as the front-runner in early 2003, when Dean was not yet even a footnote, in large part because of his credibility on national security. Please. It was only well after the vote that the doves took flight. Eventually, Kerry realized that, in an attempt to preserve his electability in November, he may have scuttled his nominability in February. Hence, his current position, which I paraphrase as - I voted for diplomacy, never thinking that after just six months at the United Nations the evil Bush team would actually quit talking and start shooting. Bush lied to me! And the same guys that alienated our allies and showed no diplomatic skills with Kyoto and the ICC blew it with this... you can only imagine my surprise!

Compelling.

MORE: Here is a Kerry speech on jobs. He says "we will insist on labor and environment standards in the core of every trade agreement", which we all know is code for protectionism. Or might be - with Kerry, how can one tell?

Comments

[Forbes]

For a breathtaking explanation by Kerry regarding his authorizing force "war" vote, check out this March 3rd column in the San Francisco Chronicle, after Kerry met with the Editorial Board on Feb. 27th. Here's a highlight:

Kerry's answer was that Washington insiders believed that Bush didn't mean what he said. "I think that you had a hard-line group (then Pentagon adviser) Richard Perle, (Deputy Defense Secretary) Paul Wolfowitz and probably (Vice President Dick) Cheney. But when Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker (former advisers to the first President Bush) weighed in, very publicly in op-eds in the New York Times and the (Washington) Post, the chatter around Washington and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell in particular, who was very much of a different school of thought, was really that the president hadn't made up his mind. He was looking for an out. That's what a lot of people thought."

What about what Bush said to the U.N.? That was "rhetorical," Kerry answered. And "a whole bunch of very smart legitimate people" not running for president thought as he did. "So most people, actually on the inside, really felt that (Bush) himself was looking for the way out to sort of satisfy Cheney, satisfy Wolfowitz, but not get stuck." Kerry continued, "The fact that he jumped and went the other way, I think, shocked them and shocked us."

So Kerry was "misled" because he believed that Bush didn't mean what Bush said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/03/EDGVG5CFUG1.DTL

Kerry's repertoire includes reading tea leaves and listening to people not in the administration for perspective on the administration's policy. Wonderful.