Those of us who already like him are well aware of this, but it’s nice to see it in print.
Sen. John Kerry set his jaw, and even sighed at one point, as he confronted anew the confusion over his stand on the Iraq war, a fog that has enveloped his candidacy for months.
“I have one position on Iraq,” Kerry insisted this week during a rare news conference. “One position.”
In fact, he’s right, his image as a “flip-flopper” notwithstanding.
Kerry voted in October 2002 for the congressional resolution that authorized President Bush to go to war in Iraq. He now says that the invasion was not justified and has made the United States less secure.
These positions are not contradictory….
No, of course they’re not. Every time Kerry says anything about Iraq, the Bush campaign adds another number to an absurd list, saying Kerry has unveiled yet another position on the war. It’s either an intentionally dishonest smear or a sign that Bush aides have trouble with arithmetic (i.e., counting beyond one).
I’ve never understood what’s so complicated about Kerry’s position — voted to give Bush authority; Bush screwed it up — and it’s a genuine treat to see a reporter make that clear.
[B]eneath the torrent of campaign verbiage, Kerry’s position on Iraq for the past two years has been consistent and defensible – just difficult to sell in a sound-bite world.
Kerry always called for a broad international coalition to confront Saddam Hussein, and going to war only as a last resort. Like most senators, he thought Bush needed the authority — it passed the Senate 77-23, and Kerry was one of 29 Democrats who supported it.
But once Bush got the authority, Kerry believes, he misused it.
There, a mainstream reporter explained this “difficult to sell in a sound-bite world” position in three sentences. Was that so hard?