kerry: wrong on Iraq

12 Aug 2004

Time for a little bashing of my own candidate. Eric Alterman sums up nicely why Kerry’s position on the Iraq war is retarded:

Kerry’s position is pretty close to inexplicable, impossible to understand, and worst of all, contributes to Republican (and Nader/Republican) attacks that this is a man who cannot take a consistent position and stick to it. (It is also wrong on the merits. Kerry says he would have voted the same way today because he thinks a president “should have that authority.” But the Constitution specifically gives Congress the authority to declare war. Congress gives it to the president only when war is considered to be necessary. Clearly in the case of Iraq, that wasn’t the case. They had no significant weapons, no ties to terrorists and no nuclear program. The war was sold on the backs of lies. So why override clear Constitutional strictures against the abuse of presidential power?)

And his idea of the Right Position:

Anyway, you want a clear consistent position. Here’s one:
President Bush misled the country and the Congress into war and has conducted it incompetently.

The war also turns out to have been a dangerous diversion in the war against terrorism.

Even though we were misled, and even though we would be better off working with our (former?) allies to conduct a truly effective global war against terrorism, in Afghanistan and at home, we have no choice but to try to clean up this mess we’ve created.

But we should try and do so as quickly, inexpensively and painlessly as possible, so we can begin to repair some of the damage that’s been done to our nation’s reputation and get on with the business of defending the nation with the help and cooperation of our allies, as well as freeing up the resources we need to protect our homeland.

Amen. Oh, John, why won’t you flip-flop?!