Another "Nuance"
Today Senator Kerry answered President Bush’s challenge to answer the question of whether or not he would have changed his vote for the Iraq war resolution knowing what we know now about the intelligence failures regarding Saddam’s WMD with the following:
By not using it. But of course, Bush still “pushed allies out of the way” to “rush to war.”
Kerry is essentially saying that 20/20 hindsight only applies to Bush and not himself. Or maybe it’s that he thinks Bush did everything wrong, but he still wouldn’t do anything to try and stop it. What a strange manifestation of campaign bipartisanship. He sure must be complacently self-assured about his hard-left support; a gaffe like this has got to be driving them up the flipping wall.
As TV ad fodder this is on a par with “I voted for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.” Particularly with the counter-questions with which he followed it up:
I love the second query – as if clairvoyance is a prerequisite for high office. The other three only undermine his answer to Bush’s question, and it’s that answer that was his big mistake, both on this core campaign issue and in exposing what is one of Kerry’s biggest vulnerabilities: his towering hauteur. Dubya challenged him and Kerry couldn’t resist taking the bait. Now Lurch is on record as contradicting everything he’s said about Iraq for the past year, and it’s all because of the same old dynamic that has thwarted the Democrats time and again in their tussles with Bush: they insist upon underestimating him. Kerry may be more refined and erudite than Al Gore was, but both still look down their noses at Mr. Bush as if he’s some nitwit country bumpkin whose blanket inferiority is so self-evident as to make public preference of them a foregone conclusion. It’s the other side of the Bush-hating coin – and has long since set like concrete around the left, blinding them and debilitatingly clouding their judgment.
Combine this blunder with such other nuggets of dissembling as Kerry’s Christmas 1968 “hokey-pokey” on the Cambodian border and he’s going to be so busy trying to explain himself that Dubya’s clarity will be a powerfully attractive contrast all by itself.
UPDATE: Here is Bush’s response, as reported by Reuters:
I don’t care for the hint of defensiveness in the second paragraph, and ideally such follow-up would be conducted by the media. But given that that’s never going to happen, and that the President issued the challenge to Kerry personally, I can understand why he offered up this punch line.
And you gotta like the “thanks for clearing that up” tweak at the end.
“I'll answer it directly. Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have but I would have used that authority effectively."
By not using it. But of course, Bush still “pushed allies out of the way” to “rush to war.”
Kerry is essentially saying that 20/20 hindsight only applies to Bush and not himself. Or maybe it’s that he thinks Bush did everything wrong, but he still wouldn’t do anything to try and stop it. What a strange manifestation of campaign bipartisanship. He sure must be complacently self-assured about his hard-left support; a gaffe like this has got to be driving them up the flipping wall.
As TV ad fodder this is on a par with “I voted for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.” Particularly with the counter-questions with which he followed it up:
"Why did the President rush to war without a plan for the peace? Why did he use faulty intelligence? Why did he mislead Americans about how he would go to war? Why did he not bring other countries to the table?"
I love the second query – as if clairvoyance is a prerequisite for high office. The other three only undermine his answer to Bush’s question, and it’s that answer that was his big mistake, both on this core campaign issue and in exposing what is one of Kerry’s biggest vulnerabilities: his towering hauteur. Dubya challenged him and Kerry couldn’t resist taking the bait. Now Lurch is on record as contradicting everything he’s said about Iraq for the past year, and it’s all because of the same old dynamic that has thwarted the Democrats time and again in their tussles with Bush: they insist upon underestimating him. Kerry may be more refined and erudite than Al Gore was, but both still look down their noses at Mr. Bush as if he’s some nitwit country bumpkin whose blanket inferiority is so self-evident as to make public preference of them a foregone conclusion. It’s the other side of the Bush-hating coin – and has long since set like concrete around the left, blinding them and debilitatingly clouding their judgment.
Combine this blunder with such other nuggets of dissembling as Kerry’s Christmas 1968 “hokey-pokey” on the Cambodian border and he’s going to be so busy trying to explain himself that Dubya’s clarity will be a powerfully attractive contrast all by itself.
UPDATE: Here is Bush’s response, as reported by Reuters:
“Now, almost two years after he voted for the war in Iraq, and almost 220 days after switching positions to declare himself the anti-war candidate, my opponent has found a new nuance," Bush said. "He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq."
"After months of questioning my motives, and even my credibility, Senator Kerry now agrees with me that even though we have not found the stockpiles of weapons we all believed were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power. I want to thank Senator Kerry for clearing that up," Bush said.
I don’t care for the hint of defensiveness in the second paragraph, and ideally such follow-up would be conducted by the media. But given that that’s never going to happen, and that the President issued the challenge to Kerry personally, I can understand why he offered up this punch line.
And you gotta like the “thanks for clearing that up” tweak at the end.
posted by JASmius at 11:49 AM
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