Kerry DOES support war in Iraq...
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| Thu, 08-12-2004 - 4:03pm |
http://www.fcnp.com/423/whitehouse.htm
Nicholas F. Benton's White House Report:
Bush Gloats Over Kerry's 'Seeing the Light' on Iraq
By Nicholas F. Benton
President Bush didn't waste any time Tuesday jumping on an important electoral opportunity presented by Sen. Kerry's declaration that his October 2002 vote to authorize the president to invade Iraq was the right, even from today's perspective.
Instead of saying, as many chagrined congressmen who voted for that ill-advised measure have, that it was based on flawed intelligence forwarded by the White House, Kerry stuck out his big chin for a major electoral sucker punch by abandoning a fundamental moral high ground against for the unprovoked aggression into Iraq to his adversary.
"He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq," Bush gloated at a rally in Florida where he appeared with Sen. John McCain. "After months of questioning my motives and my credibility, Sen. Kerry agrees with me that, even though we have not found the stockpile of weapons we all believe were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq...I want to thank Sen. Kerry for clearing that up."
Kerry has apparently shifted his emphasis on Iraq from a flawed rationale for launching the invasion to a poor handling of the post-invasion developments. By so doing, in the minds of many eager to support him this November, he's betrayed a critical matter of principle that energized his powerful remarks at the Democratic National Convention only two weeks ago.
What happened so quickly to the Kerry who spoke so eloquently at the convention about bringing back "this nation's time honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to?"
Those remarks were the most moving part of a moving speech. Going on, he made it personal. "I know what kids go through when they are carrying an M-16 in a dangerous place and they can't tell friend from foe. I know what they go through when they're out on patrol at night and they don't know what's coming around the next bend. I know what it's like to write letters home telling your family that everything's all right when you're not sure that's true," he said.
He then added, "As President, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: 'I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values from a threat that was real and imminent. So, lesson one, this is the only justification for going to war."
This was substance. It was powerful substance in the context of the ugly realities in Iraq that President Bush had created. Two salient points in those remarks were understood by everyone in the Fleet Center as directed against Bush's virtually unilateral, pre-emptive and unprovoked invasion of Iraq:
1. "America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to, and,
2. (I would) "truthfully say, 'I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice.'"
Those both pertained to the motives and methods of launching the invasion of Iraq, not to the handling of the circumstances once the invasion was completed.
Now comes President Bush on Tuesday crowing that suddenly Sen. Kerry has "seen the light," and despite no weapons of mass destruction, despite no link of Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda, despite no imminent threat of Iraqi aggression, he's concurred that the invasion was the right thing.
We can only hope that Bush seized on some far out of context Kerry remark. But there's been no visible correction of the record from the Kerry side to date.
It forces me to recall that in the fall of 2002, Democratic support for the president's war resolution was hardly based on moral principle. The debate within the Democratic Party then was all about how to produce the best result in the November 2002 mid-term elections. The prevailing party wisdom was to not challenge the president on the war resolution, since the polls showed the Americans supported it, but to concede that and try to score points on the economy, instead.
It was a cynical and unethical decision that produced disastrous results both at the polls that November within the Democratic congressional leadership afterwards. It took the meteoric rise of Howard Dean's candidacy to put opposition to Iraq at the forefront of Democratic opposition to Bush, and now, under Kerry's leadership, the party apparently is slipping right back to where it was before.

He said that if Kerry wins the election, he will be the first President who will be able to deliver the State of the Union speech, as well as the rebutal afterwards.
That is really funny, and the sad thing is that it is partly true.