Friday, October 22, 2004

Kerry's flip-flops

I once had a liberal friend try to describe John Kerry's "more waffles than a house of pancakes" as an ability to understand the "grey" areas of life. OK, but I think things are a little more black and white than all these different positions (via Right Wing News):

-- "(John Kerry) even, at one point, declared himself as an anti-war candidate. And now he says he's pro-war candidate. At this rate, with 64 days left, he still has time to change his position four or five more times." -- Rudy Giuliani
-- "Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president." -- John Kerry 12/20/03
-- "...(T)he satisfaction we take in (Saddam's) downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure." -- John Kerry, 9/20/04
-- "Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that and I disagree with the Governor [Howard Dean]." -- John Kerry, 12/15/03
-- "...(W)e must have a great honest national debate on Iraq. The President claims it is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists." -- John Kerry 9/20/04 -- "If you don't believe ... Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me." -- John Kerry, USA Today on 2/13/03
-- "If you think I would have gone to war the way George Bush did, don't vote for me." -- John Kerry, Jan 2004
-- "It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world....He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel. ...We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future." -- John Kerry 10/9/02
-- "Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no - because a Commander-in-Chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe." -- John Kerry, 9/20/04
-- "I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq - Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991." -- John Kerry, 7/29/02
-- "It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." -- John Kerry, 9/06/04
-- "It's awfully hard to convey a sense of credibility to allies when you voted for the war and then you declared: Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time. You voted for the war, and then you voted against supporting the troops when they needed the equipment, the fuel, the spare parts and the ammunition and the body armor. You're not credible on Iraq because of the enormous inconsistencies that John Kerry and you have cited time after time after time during the course of the campaign. Whatever the political pressures of the moment requires, that's where you're at. But you've not been consistent, and there's no indication at all that John Kerry has the conviction to successfully carry through on the war on terror." -- Dick Cheney in his debate with John Edwards

And after all that, with less than two weeks until election day, I still don't know exactly where he stands on Iraq and the war on terror (I really have been trying to understand. Really). He says he'll wage it more effectively, bring in more allies (NATO's starting to come around already). How exactly? Will the French all of a sudden say, "Mais Oui!" to Kerry, and even if they do so what? Will the terrorists run with fear? For some reason I just can't hear terrorists thinking, "Since they've got the French involved finally that must mean they're really serious about this whole war on terror thing now." He's had too many opposite positions for me to believe he'll be effective at all in defending our country or attacking the terrorists.

UPDATE: Fraters Libertas posts the latest most important flip-flop (at least if you're in Minnesota): Kerry for snowmobiles before he was against snowmobiles. Where will this madness stop? Soon he'll say he was against the RedSox before he was for them. Who knew?