This link, via Josh Marshall, traces the CONSISTENCY of Kerry’s stance: Hussein is not trustworthy, he should be held accountable, INspections should tighten and increase, and a coalition should be strengthened. As Bush’s team slowly dissolved all of those safeguards, and arrogantly shunned the rest of the world, who , on the day after 9/11, said “We are ALL Americans”, Kerry ‘s criticism has become louder and louder, as lies and deceptions of the Bush administration have become evident.
President Bush, seated beside Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said Tuesday: “My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all.”
Over and over, Kerry enthusiastically supported a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even as he aggressively criticized Bush for the manner in which he did so.
Kerry repeatedly described Hussein as a dangerous menace who must be disarmed or eliminated, demanded that the U.S. build broad international support for any action in Iraq and insisted that the nation had better plan for the post-war peace.
There were times when Kerry’s emphasis shifted for what appear to be political reasons. In the fall of 2003, for example, when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean surged to the top of Democratic polls based on an anti-war platform, Kerry’s criticism of the president grew stronger. There are many instances in which clumsy phrases and tortuously long explanations make Kerry difficult to follow. And there are periods, such as last week, when the sharpness of Kerry’s words restating old positions seem to suggest a change.
Yet taken as a whole, Kerry has offered the same message ever since talk of attacking Iraq became a national conversation more than two years ago.
Who, in their right mind, can not understand the concept of supporting the idea of giving a president “Authority”, even while that President is promising coalition , inspections, and “last resort”, and then, when seeing all these items that were the basis of that trust get swept aside , to begin to questrion the use of that authority, given in all true faith? Do the words “betrayal” mean anything, or is that too “nuanced”? The absolute intellectual ineptitude of these GOP talking points is staggering. I don’t understand how it flies. It seems awfully telling of how high the GOP’s esteem of the American publich really is. It also is a sad tale of deception, blind allegiance, and psychosis on the part of the “they should know better” , usually smart people who are Bush supporters.