Vodkapundit - Candidate Fisks Self!

Candidate Fisks Self!

Posted by Stephen Green · 8 March 2004

John Kerry in Time magazine:

"I don't think war is nuanced at all. I think how you take a nation to war is the most fundamental decision a President makes," he says, "and there's nothing nuanced at all about keeping your promises. There is nothing nuanced about exhausting remedies that give you legitimacy and consent to go to war. And I refuse ever to accept the notion that anything I've suggested with respect to Iraq was nuanced. It was clear. It was precise. It was, in fact, prescient. It was ahead of the curve about what the difficulties were. And that is precisely what a President is supposed to be. I think I was right, 100% correct, about how you should have done Iraq."

Breaking with longtime tradition, let’s allow Senator Kerry to fisk himself.

This week in Time, Kerry stated: “I don't think war is nuanced at all.”

Before the Iraq War:

Whether the President will have to use that authority depends ultimately on Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein has a choice: He can continue to defy the international community, or he can fulfill his longstanding obligations to disarm. He is the person who has brought the world to this brink of confrontation.

After the Iraq War:

We did not empower the president to do regime change.

That second quote, from this year, certainly qualifies as a nuanced – at very least – reading of his own words on the Senate floor in 2002.

This week in Time:

I think how you take a nation to war is the most fundamental decision a President makes, and there's nothing nuanced at all about keeping your promises. There is nothing nuanced about exhausting remedies that give you legitimacy and consent to go to war.

Kerry in 2002:

In approaching the question of this resolution, I wish the timing were different. I wish for the sake of the country we were not here now at this moment. There are legitimate questions about that timing. But none of the underlying realities of the threat, none of the underlying realities of the choices we face are altered because they are, in fact, the same as they were in 1991 when we discovered those weapons when the teams went in, and in 1998 when the teams were kicked out.

Is taking back his own vote somehow not a position filled with creamy nuanced goodness?

This week in Time:

And I refuse ever to accept the notion that anything I've suggested with respect to Iraq was nuanced. It was clear. It was precise. It was, in fact, prescient.

Which part was clear, precise, and prescient?

This part, when he promised in 1998 to “take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end his weapons of mass destruction program”?

Or this part, from more recent times, when Kerry said the President “broke his promise” to “exhaust diplomatic solutions.”

This week in Time, Kerry says, “I think I was right, 100% correct, about how you should have done Iraq.”

Unfortunately, Time didn’t explain which John Kerry made that last comment – the somewhat-responsible Senator who existed from 1998-2002, or the recklessly-pandering Presidential candidate from 2004.

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste read the same story, and took it apart.

Comments

If Americans decide to vote for more of this drivel they will deserve everything they get.

Posted by: JK at March 8, 2004 06:57 PM

JK I sincerely wish I could disagree with you.

Posted by: Mad William Flint at March 8, 2004 07:25 PM

The only problem with Americans voting for Kerry deserving what they get is that Americans not voting for him will get it too, and not deserve it.

Posted by: Wterrrell at March 8, 2004 07:41 PM

Kerry's positions provide a target rich environment. The question is how many voters will buy "nuanced" as an explanation instead of the more obvious "pandering and unpredictable."

Posted by: Lynxx Pherrett at March 8, 2004 07:56 PM

It all this rhetorical dodgeball, let's not forget the Iraq Liberation Act. It passed the Senate with unanimous consent, I'm assuming that 'unanimous' includes Senator Kerry. Does anyone know if he actually voted? I can't find anything after a few google searches. Not that missing that vote would help clarify his position, either...

Posted by: john at March 8, 2004 09:13 PM

Maybe Kerry was brainwashed!!!!

Posted by: Hal at March 8, 2004 09:17 PM

I agree with everything John Kerry has said -- I think! Well, now wait a minute, maybe I disagree with everything he has said. Oh, it's all so confusing.

Posted by: Steve at March 8, 2004 09:46 PM

Target rich environment indeed!

It's the fixation on Bush's "lies" that has him chasing his tail. The war was worth it only if we found WMD in Iraq and nowhere else!

What if we had gone to war against Libya? Would it have had as many positive results as what we did? The whole media and the Democrats have missed the strategic value of Iraq in the overall war against terrorism. It was calculated not just to rid the world of Saddam Hussein, but to make a point with the rest of the regimes giving aid and comfort to terrorists. I'd say it's working, and it's worth it.

Posted by: AST at March 8, 2004 10:00 PM

I don't understand why people are using nuanced as a moral basis for decisions. Nuance is a political strategy and is, in general, morally neutral. Nuanced is neither good nor badl; I wish the media would wake up and smell the neutrality.

Posted by: SRD at March 8, 2004 10:21 PM

I am amazed that Kerry seems to be getting a free pass on his even worse comments in the New York Times on Saturday.

Among other things, he rejected the term "war on terror" and talked instead of an "engagement of economies". He also hinted that Colin Powell has to raise his hand in cabinet meetings if he has to go to the bathroom. It was an outrageous series of comments and nobody else seems to be talking about it.

Posted by: Pat Curley at March 8, 2004 10:44 PM

No-one is talking about it, because it is not important.

Kerry will lose the election by 20 %.

He has never been a good candidate, just ask the Dean voters, or Edwards voters. Many, many of them will vote for Nader because they cannot fathom voting for either President Bush or for Kerry. Or they will stay home.

Posted by: JBK at March 9, 2004 12:12 PM

I bet today's John Kerry wants to beat (in his own words) the "sh!t" out of the old John Kerry.

Posted by: Lupi at March 9, 2004 12:24 PM

All of your comments are informed and insightful about kerry,s past sins. However, we cannot miss the point that more than 50% of Americans are more concerned about jobs and the economy than what kerry said 2,5, 10 years ago( the uninformed and ignorant masses)!

Posted by: Jose Palacios at March 9, 2004 08:05 PM

I'm more concerned about someone with Kerry's positional track record,having the responsible of the Job market and the economy. We need someone who is not afraid to go after the problem and fix it, instead of worring about disagreeing with someone. Kind like what Bush did with Iraq.

Had Osama been taken care of before 9-11, the economy would better and many of us would have not been laid off. Unfortunately, the previous administration was more pressed to invade Monica.

Posted by: ts at March 10, 2004 02:37 AM

We are still struggling with an economic bust that resulted from excess and deceit during the Clinton administration. We were well on our way to the crapper when Bush was elected, not because he was elected.

About the loss of jobs. I was unemployed from 8/03 to 3/04 in Denver, not because President Bush is in office. I was laid off by a stupid manager who lied to his staff, his clients, and his own company. He was fired 6 weeks after he let me go.
I'm not stupid enough to think that was the President's fault.

Posted by: JBK at March 10, 2004 03:28 PM

If there is an "unanimous consent" in the Senate or the House to pass a resolution or a bill, then it is a Voice Vote and there is no Roll Call vote or record of attendance. You will be unable to tell if Kerry was there or not. So if he wasn't there, he got a free pass on that one.

With the way he is flip-flopping, he may come back and say he wished he asked for a recorded vote so he could be the "lone vote" against the resolution.

Posted by: Michael at March 11, 2004 10:19 AM