War Hero -- and Waffling Windbag

Those minor problems paled, however, next to Kerry's positions on Iraq. To his credit, he was one of the Democrats who voted Oct. 11, 2002, for the resolution giving President Bush the authority "to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" in Iraq. This has caused Kerry a lot of grief among Deaniac Democrats, and he's twisted himself into a pretzel to explain away this vote.

He claims that "I voted for the resolution to get the inspectors in there, period," and that he had no idea that Bush would use the authority granted to him to actually go to war. If you believe this, Kerry is too naive to be president. A likelier explanation is that he's trying to be pro-war and antiwar at the same time.

That impression was reinforced in his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. He said that "we had to hold Saddam Hussein accountable," but only if we had united "the international community." He was asked: "Do you think you really could have brought the Germans, the French along in a commitment to use force?" Kerry brazenly answered "yes" but offered no credible explanation of how, beyond saying that he would have shown a lot of "patience and maturity." As if Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair hadn't spent six months dickering at the United Nations. Does Kerry also think that he could have gotten U.N. approval for military action in Kosovo -- something that Clinton failed to achieve in 1999?

Then Kerry had the nerve to criticize the Bush administration for a "cut and run strategy" in Iraq. That's pretty rich coming from someone who voted against the $87-billion aid package that's essential to our nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kerry's inconsistency is stunning: He (like Sen. John Edwards) supported the war -- kind of -- but then refused to give our troops the resources necessary to finish the job.

Kerry's waffling reminds me of someone. Asked about the Gulf War resolution in 1991, this candidate said: "I guess I would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the arguments the minority made." Taking both sides on Iraq worked for Bill Clinton. Now it seems to be working for Kerry.