John Kerry is trying to inoculate John Edwards against the charge that he's a greenhorn when it comes to foreign affairs. Edwards, he said on CBS' "60 Minutes," "is eight years older than Jack Kennedy was when he became president." Edwards, he added, is "more qualified" to become president than George W. Bush was four years ago.
He's right. Edwards, 51, is getting a bum rap. His involvement in foreign policy vastly outstrips candidate Bush's in 2000.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday July 15, 2004 Home Edition California Part B Page 13 Editorial Pages Desk 2 inches; 76 words Type of Material: Correction
Article on Edwards -- In an Op-Ed article Wednesday on John Edwards, it was Edwards, not John Kerry, who in responding to a journalist's question on Osama bin Laden's possible role in the 9/11 attacks said: "I don't remember the specifics of what we were told about this." Also, the date of a different Edwards quote, about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, was incorrect. The date was Sept. 12, 2002, not Sept. 12, 2003.
The real problem is not lack of experience; it's that the experience he does have is marked by intellectual slovenliness and opportunism.
Edwards, elected to the Senate five years ago, has been on the Senate Intelligence Committee since 2001. But what has he made of it? When PBS' Margaret Warner asked Edwards on May 16, 2002, whether the committee had been briefed before Sept. 11 on possible hijackings and on Osama bin Laden's role, Edwards responded: "We're just responsible for sort of broad oversight." Warner pressed harder: "So you don't really remember?" Kerry replied: "I don't remember the specifics of what we were told about this."
That may sound banal but, in fact, it's astonishing. Not only was Edwards unaware, half a year after the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, what he'd been told on the subject, but he apparently didn't even believe it was his job to look into it.
Like most of his colleagues on the committee, Edwards acquiesced easily to the administration's bogus claims about Iraqi weapons. Indeed, as the preparation for war was underway, Edwards almost outdid the administration in his fervor for toppling Saddam Hussein.
On Sept. 12, 2003, for instance, he described Iraq as an issue of "national security." "We know that for at least 20 years Saddam Hussein has obsessively sought weapons of mass destruction through every means available.... Each day he inches closer to his longtime goal of nuclear capability -- a capability that could be less than a year away." The next month, Edwards added that "Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel."
Firm in these beliefs, Edwards agreed to cosponsor the resolution giving Bush a blank check for war. (Which, incidentally, Kerry also backed.)
Should Edwards have known better? Of course he should have. Even as Edwards was signing on to Bush's plan to declare preemptive war in Iraq, there was one member of the Intelligence Committee -- Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), then the chairman -- who declared the CIA estimates unreliable.
