As a kerry supporter I don't like this....

[Ignatius J.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29230-2004Apr20.html

Mr. Kerry Revises

Wednesday, April 21, 2004; Page A22

"WE NEED A reasonable plan and a specific timetable for self-government" in Iraq, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said in December. "That means completing the tasks of security and democracy in the country -- not cutting and running in order to claim a false success." On another occasion, he said: "It would be a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle to speed up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops."

Contrast that with what Mr. Kerry told reporters last week: "With respect to getting our troops out, the measure is the stability of Iraq. [Democracy] shouldn't be the measure of when you leave. I have always said from day one that the goal here . . . is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that's a full democracy."

Mr. Kerry contends that he has not shifted his public position. But there are major differences between what he said in December -- right after Saddam Hussein's capture, when Mr. Kerry was seeking to discredit dovish Democratic challenger Howard Dean -- and his remarks last week, which followed several weeks of bad news from Iraq and growing public disenchantment with the course of the war. Where once he named democracy as a task to be completed, and the alternative to "cutting and running" or a "false success," Mr. Kerry now says democracy is optional. Where once he warned against setting the conditions for an early but irresponsible withdrawal of U.S. forces, now he does so himself by defining the exit standard as "stability," a term that could describe Saudi Arabia or Iran -- or the Iraq of Saddam Hussein.

In December Mr. Kerry's Iraq policy differed with that of President Bush not in its goals but in its tactics. Mr. Kerry rightly insisted, and still does, that the United States cannot succeed without greater international collaboration and reliance on the United Nations. Now he differs with Mr. Bush on the crucial issue of what the United States must achieve in Iraq before it can safely end its mission. "Iraq," Mr. Bush said at his news conference last week, "will either be a peaceful democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terrorists, and a threat to America and to the world."

Mr. Kerry now argues that there is a third option. But what would that be? "I can't tell you what it's going to be," he said to reporters covering his campaign. "That stability can take several forms." True; in the Middle East, there is the stability of Islamic dictatorship, the stability of military dictatorship and the stability of monarchical dictatorship. In Lebanon, there is the stability of permanent foreign occupation and de facto ethnic partition. None is in the interest of the United States; all have helped create the extremism and terrorism against which this nation is now at war.

There is no question that achieving even a rudimentary democracy in Iraq will be tough, and weakness in administration planning and implementation has made it tougher. At best democracy will take years to consolidate; at worst, it will prove unachievable during the U.S. mission. The past weeks of violence have been, or should have been, sobering to any observer. Yet on goals Mr. Bush is right, not only in a moral sense but from the perspective of U.S. security too. Iraq is a country of diverse communities; if its differences are not arbitrated by some form of democratic politics, then it can be held together only by brute force. The wielder of that force is likely to be hostile to the democratic world and, like Saddam Hussein or the mullahs of neighboring Iran, to seek defense by means of terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.

We believe a successful political outcome is still possible; others disagree. But Mr. Kerry's shift on such a basic question after just a few months is troubling and mistaken.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

There really can't be another choice. America's involvement has become democracy or bust. Unless we wish to pursue an entirly isolationist policy in the coming years, cutting short here does irreperable damage to our image overseas. Funny thing is, that image is one of kerry's strong points.

-DB

[Sarge]

Flip...........flop

Flip...........flop

[Guest SkinsHokie Fan]

Will the Post endorse Bush this year? I would be shocked but so far the tone of their editiorials could point to that

[chomerics]

Originally posted by Sarge

Flip...........flop

Flip...........flop

Wow Sarge, did you think up that one all on your own?

[Destino]

Originally posted by Sarge

Flip...........flop

Flip...........flop

I love this, people are only honest if they are too stupid to ever change their mind. A quality of leadership is rigid stupidity? No thanks.

[Sarge]

John Kerry's Waffles

If you don't like the Democratic nominee's views, just wait a week.

By Michael Grunwald

Posted Wednesday, March 3, 2004, at 2:46 PM PT

Last week, President Bush offered a wry critique of his Democratic challengers. "They're for tax cuts and against them. They're for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They're for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They're in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that's just one senator from Massachusetts." Now that John Kerry is the presumptive Democratic nominee, Republicans are sure to focus the spotlight on his history of flip-flops. Kerry did vote for the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq, even though he constantly trashes the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq. He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited marriage to a man and a woman, but he now says marriage should be limited to a man and a woman. (Although he also points out that he once attended a gay wedding.) And those are just the better-known issues on which Kerry has "evolved."

Here, then, since John Edwards was too polite to mention them (though President Bush won't be), is a guide to some of Kerry's other reversals on substantive issues. This list doesn't include quickly withdrawn gaffes, such as Kerry's recent suggestion (retracted after an uproar from Jewish groups) that he might make James Baker or Jimmy Carter his Middle East envoy. It doesn't include long-renounced youthful indiscretions, such as his proposal after returning from Vietnam to eliminate most of the CIA. It doesn't include less clear-cut sins of omission and opportunism, such as his stirring denunciations of companies caught in accounting frauds, even though he supported a 1995 law protecting those companies from liability. And it doesn't include the inevitable fund-raising hypocrisies that accompany all modern campaigns, such as his donations from some of the "Benedict Arnold" companies he routinely rips on the trail, or his bundling of contributions from special interests despite his high-minded rejection of PAC money. Even so, the list is long, and it isn't all-inclusive. Kerry's supporters cite his reversals as evidence of the senator's capacity for nuance and complexity, growth and change. His critics say they represent a fundamental lack of principles. Either way, we'll be hearing a lot about them over the next eight months.

Issue Kerry's Original Position Kerry's Revised Position

Welfare Reform In 1988, Sen. Kerry voted against a proposal to require at least one parent in any two-parent welfare family to work a mere 16 hours a week, declaring the work requirement "troublesome to me."

During his 1996 re-election campaign, when his Republican challenger, Gov. William Weld, was calling him soft on welfare, Kerry voted for the much stricter welfare reform law that Clinton signed into law.

Mandatory Minimums In 1993 and 1994, the senator from liberal Massachusetts voted against mandatory minimum sentences for gang activity, gun crimes, drug trafficking, and drug sales to minors, explaining in an impassioned speech that long sentences for some dealers who sell to minors would be "enormous injustices" and that some convicted drug offenders were "so barely culpable it is sad." He also said congressionally imposed mandatory minimums made no sense and would just create turf battles between federal and local prosecutors.

Today, presidential candidate Kerry strongly supports mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, including the sale of drugs to minors.

Affirmative Action In 1992, Kerry created a huge stir among liberals and civil rights groups with a major policy address arguing that affirmative action has "kept America thinking in racial terms" and helped promote a "culture of dependency."

Today, Kerry's campaign Web site vows to "Preserve Affirmative Action," noting that he "consistently opposed efforts in the Senate to undermine or eliminate affirmative action programs, and supports programs that seeks to enhance diversity." It doesn't mention any downside.

Death Penalty During one of his debates with Weld in 1996, Kerry ridiculed the idea of capital punishment for terrorists as a "terrorist protection policy," predicting that it would just discourage other nations from extraditing captured terrorists to the United States. Kerry still opposes capital punishment, but he now makes an exception for terrorists.

Education Reform In a 1998 policy speech the Boston Globe described as "a dramatic break from Democratic dogma," Kerry challenged teachers unions by proposing to gut their tenure and seniority systems, giving principals far more power to hire and fire unqualified or unmotivated teachers.

Today, Kerry once again espouses pure Democratic dogma on education. His Web site pledges to "stop blaming and start supporting public school educators," vowing to give them "better training and better pay, with more career opportunities, more empowerment and more mentors." It doesn't mention seniority or tenure.

Double Taxation In December 2002, Kerry broke with Democratic dogma yet again in a Cleveland speech, calling for the abolition of the unfair "double taxation" of stock dividends in order to promote more investment and more accurate valuations of companies.

Five weeks later, after President Bush proposed a second round of tax cuts that included an end to this double taxation, Kerry changed his tune. He voted against the dividend tax cuts that were ultimately enacted by Congress and now hopes to roll them back as president, along with Bush's other tax cuts for upper-income Americans.

Gas Taxation In 1994, when the Concord Coalition gave Kerry a failing rating for his deficit reduction votes, he complained that he should have gotten credit for supporting a 50-cent increase in the gas tax. Today he no longer supports any increase in the gas tax.

Social Security During the 1996 campaign, when I was a Globe reporter, Kerry told me the Social Security system should be overhauled. He said Congress should consider raising the retirement age and means-testing benefits and called it "wacky" that payroll taxes did not apply to income over $62,700. "I know it's all going to be unpopular," he said. "But this program has serious problems, and we have a generational responsibility to fix them." Kerry no longer wants to mess with Social Security. "John Kerry will never balance the budget on the backs of America's seniors," his Web site promises.

Trade Kerry has been a consistent supporter of free trade deals, and as late as December, when reporters asked if there was any issue on which he was prepared to disagree with Democratic interest groups, Kerry replied: "Trade." Slate editor Jacob Weisberg came away impressed by the depth of Kerry's commitment to the issue: "Unlike Edwards, he supports international trade agreements without qualification." But that was three months ago! In recent weeks, when Kerry has talked trade, he has talked nothing but qualification, calling for "fair trade" rather than "free trade," claiming to agree completely with the protectionist Edwards on trade issues, and vowing to "put teeth" into environmental and labor restrictions in agreements like NAFTA.

[Nerm]

Originally posted by Destino

I love this, people are only honest if they are too stupid to ever change their mind. A quality of leadership is rigid stupidity? No thanks.

Well, I get the feeling that you stick to your guns. I have read a lot of your posts and I know one thing. You will wait until Kerry says something next week and you will tell us how right he is. What he says next week will be right, even if it is the opposite of what he says this week (which you also agree with). You remind me of a liberal Rush Limbaugh. Wait to see what the “good guys” are saying so you can agree with it and try to find fault in the “bad guys”.

I consider myself conservative, if I voted, I would have voted for Bush last time. This time I may vote for Kerry, if I voted. I would have voted for Bush but I thought it was a mistake to go to Iraq and the way he has increased spending is absolutely horrible. I don’t think we should pull out of Iraq now, but I think a Republican congress would limit Kerry’s spending more than they will Bush. The current congress acts just like you. They say “He is our guy, we have to do what he says... even if we think it’s a bad idea”. On issues that are not strongly related to taxes, spending, affirmative action, or the war... I agree with Kerry sometimes. He sometimes agrees with me, then he doesn’t agree with me for a few months, then he agrees with me again. Who knows, he may agree with me when an important vote comes up.

Of course you seem to always disagree with Bush. Unless Kerry agrees with him.

I'm glad I don't vote.

[The Wicked Wop]

See this is what I was getting at in other post......the man basically doesn't take a stand......basically his convictions are based on the days events not a long term goal. Destino, I do think your right in the sense it is stupid not to change a line of think depending on how a situtation unfolds, especially one regarding war. The problem is however he appears to have a history of changing his tune continually without giving any forthought I what his previous convictions were (if he had any) or what it will mean for the future.....basically he's living only for today. I understand its politics and these types of actions are not new.....but the fact is were talking about a candidate for the US presidency.....not someone you never heard about trying to get into congress. This position requires a kinda steadfastness that will lead a nation in the good times and in bad and has a long term goal........not a position that has the luxury to change his mind depending on how the daily news turns out.

[flashback]

Well, its starting to become clear why Kerry was so quiet on this issue when it looked like he could make a little political hay with it earlier this month. This is the 2nd very disturbing thing I've heard from the Kerry camp regarding security. The first was that he wanted to go back to treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter.

The position I'd like to see Kerry take is one of internationalism concerning Iraq. Bush is already moving that direction, for which I commend him, but Kerry could make the case that this could have been a UN approved coalition from the get-go, and that he is the better candidate to get more countries and troops from other countries involved and get more of our troops home sooner.

Is it too late to nominate Edwards?

[Kilmer17]

The problem isnt his constant changing of positions. It's the reason hes changing them.

Bush has changed many positions. Most glaring is his campaign promise to stay out of Nation Building. 9/11 changed his mind (and many others minds). The difference is Kerry is changing his stances based on the blowing tides of public opinion.

[thew]

WE NEED A reasonable plan and a specific timetable for self-government" in Iraq, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said in December. "That means completing the tasks of security and democracy in the country -- not cutting and running in order to claim a false success."

On another occasion, he said: "It would be a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle to speed up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops."

You see I don't see a flip flop there. I don't see how being for a "reasonable plan" controdicts being against speeding "up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal". Bush is advocating the former not advocating the latter, why is Kerry a flip floper for following the same policy?

Face it their isn't much difference between Kerry and Bush in how they're going to proceed now that we're in the war. Both state the need not to fail. Now that Bush has finally gone to the UN and turned over negotiations to them there is even less difference on strategy at this point.

Two things are disturbing about Kerry over the last few weeks....

#1 He doesn't seem to be running. Dude took a vacation for a week and now has come back and is as quite as a church mouse. He needs to get out and define himself before it's done for him. It doesn't look to me like he's engaged at all in this "race".

#2 This is my biggest problem with Kerry so far. On face the nation last Sunday Russert asked him about an old vietnam interview he did. Showed Kerry "confessing" to committing "war crimes" as well as saying America was commiting war crimes. Kerry's responce.."Tim look at all the dark hair I had back then". Those shouldn't have been the first words out of his mouth. Not when discussing something as serious as war crimes.

His second words were "I was young, angry and I wish I had presented my war oposition using different words." Those should have been his first words. His first words were definitely worthy of critism..

[redman]

Originally posted by Kilmer17

The problem isnt his constant changing of positions. It's the reason hes changing them.

Bush has changed many positions. Most glaring is his campaign promise to stay out of Nation Building. 9/11 changed his mind (and many others minds). The difference is Kerry is changing his stances based on the blowing tides of public opinion.

Yup.

[Funkyalligator]

Kerry is weak.......and is losing ground to Bush...which really pisses me off because I hate Dubya.......I just wish somehow he fails utterly and the Republican party puts up a different candidate........someone with a backbone, who isn't a big business pawn and someone who is fiscally conservative......

[Mad Mike]

Originally posted by flashback

but Kerry could make the case that this could have been a UN approved coalition from the get-go

No he can't. Not without lying. The UN, France, Germany, and Russia were NEVER going to help. Here's why...

Investigative Report

Documents Prove U.N. Oil Corruption

http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57347

[chomerics]

Originally posted by Sarge

John Kerry's Waffles

If you don't like the Democratic nominee's views, just wait a week.

By Michael Grunwald

Posted Wednesday, March 3, 2004, at 2:46 PM PT

Last week, President Bush offered a wry critique of his Democratic challengers. "They're for tax cuts and against them. They're for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They're for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They're in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that's just one senator from Massachusetts." Now that John Kerry is the presumptive Democratic nominee, Republicans are sure to focus the spotlight on his history of flip-flops. Kerry did vote for the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq, even though he constantly trashes the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq. He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited marriage to a man and a woman, but he now says marriage should be limited to a man and a woman. (Although he also points out that he once attended a gay wedding.) And those are just the better-known issues on which Kerry has "evolved."

Here, then, since John Edwards was too polite to mention them (though President Bush won't be), is a guide to some of Kerry's other reversals on substantive issues. This list doesn't include quickly withdrawn gaffes, such as Kerry's recent suggestion (retracted after an uproar from Jewish groups) that he might make James Baker or Jimmy Carter his Middle East envoy. It doesn't include long-renounced youthful indiscretions, such as his proposal after returning from Vietnam to eliminate most of the CIA. It doesn't include less clear-cut sins of omission and opportunism, such as his stirring denunciations of companies caught in accounting frauds, even though he supported a 1995 law protecting those companies from liability. And it doesn't include the inevitable fund-raising hypocrisies that accompany all modern campaigns, such as his donations from some of the "Benedict Arnold" companies he routinely rips on the trail, or his bundling of contributions from special interests despite his high-minded rejection of PAC money. Even so, the list is long, and it isn't all-inclusive. Kerry's supporters cite his reversals as evidence of the senator's capacity for nuance and complexity, growth and change. His critics say they represent a fundamental lack of principles. Either way, we'll be hearing a lot about them over the next eight months.

Issue Kerry's Original Position Kerry's Revised Position

Welfare Reform In 1988, Sen. Kerry voted against a proposal to require at least one parent in any two-parent welfare family to work a mere 16 hours a week, declaring the work requirement "troublesome to me."

During his 1996 re-election campaign, when his Republican challenger, Gov. William Weld, was calling him soft on welfare, Kerry voted for the much stricter welfare reform law that Clinton signed into law.

Mandatory Minimums In 1993 and 1994, the senator from liberal Massachusetts voted against mandatory minimum sentences for gang activity, gun crimes, drug trafficking, and drug sales to minors, explaining in an impassioned speech that long sentences for some dealers who sell to minors would be "enormous injustices" and that some convicted drug offenders were "so barely culpable it is sad." He also said congressionally imposed mandatory minimums made no sense and would just create turf battles between federal and local prosecutors.

Today, presidential candidate Kerry strongly supports mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, including the sale of drugs to minors.

Affirmative Action In 1992, Kerry created a huge stir among liberals and civil rights groups with a major policy address arguing that affirmative action has "kept America thinking in racial terms" and helped promote a "culture of dependency."

Today, Kerry's campaign Web site vows to "Preserve Affirmative Action," noting that he "consistently opposed efforts in the Senate to undermine or eliminate affirmative action programs, and supports programs that seeks to enhance diversity." It doesn't mention any downside.

Death Penalty During one of his debates with Weld in 1996, Kerry ridiculed the idea of capital punishment for terrorists as a "terrorist protection policy," predicting that it would just discourage other nations from extraditing captured terrorists to the United States. Kerry still opposes capital punishment, but he now makes an exception for terrorists.

Education Reform In a 1998 policy speech the Boston Globe described as "a dramatic break from Democratic dogma," Kerry challenged teachers unions by proposing to gut their tenure and seniority systems, giving principals far more power to hire and fire unqualified or unmotivated teachers.

Today, Kerry once again espouses pure Democratic dogma on education. His Web site pledges to "stop blaming and start supporting public school educators," vowing to give them "better training and better pay, with more career opportunities, more empowerment and more mentors." It doesn't mention seniority or tenure.

Double Taxation In December 2002, Kerry broke with Democratic dogma yet again in a Cleveland speech, calling for the abolition of the unfair "double taxation" of stock dividends in order to promote more investment and more accurate valuations of companies.

Five weeks later, after President Bush proposed a second round of tax cuts that included an end to this double taxation, Kerry changed his tune. He voted against the dividend tax cuts that were ultimately enacted by Congress and now hopes to roll them back as president, along with Bush's other tax cuts for upper-income Americans.

Gas Taxation In 1994, when the Concord Coalition gave Kerry a failing rating for his deficit reduction votes, he complained that he should have gotten credit for supporting a 50-cent increase in the gas tax. Today he no longer supports any increase in the gas tax.

Social Security During the 1996 campaign, when I was a Globe reporter, Kerry told me the Social Security system should be overhauled. He said Congress should consider raising the retirement age and means-testing benefits and called it "wacky" that payroll taxes did not apply to income over $62,700. "I know it's all going to be unpopular," he said. "But this program has serious problems, and we have a generational responsibility to fix them." Kerry no longer wants to mess with Social Security. "John Kerry will never balance the budget on the backs of America's seniors," his Web site promises.

Trade Kerry has been a consistent supporter of free trade deals, and as late as December, when reporters asked if there was any issue on which he was prepared to disagree with Democratic interest groups, Kerry replied: "Trade." Slate editor Jacob Weisberg came away impressed by the depth of Kerry's commitment to the issue: "Unlike Edwards, he supports international trade agreements without qualification." But that was three months ago! In recent weeks, when Kerry has talked trade, he has talked nothing but qualification, calling for "fair trade" rather than "free trade," claiming to agree completely with the protectionist Edwards on trade issues, and vowing to "put teeth" into environmental and labor restrictions in agreements like NAFTA.

I'm sorry Sarge, but I don't buy into this BS. Lets face it, Kerry is a politician. You know, as well as I do how politics works. Your instances are quick one liners. Look at the laws, what constituted their passing, and why they voted for or against them.

The classic flip-flop we hear from Bush is about the $87billion dollar funding for Iraq. The quotes go something like this. . .

"he voted for invading Iraq, but he voted against paying for it. . . cue carnival music. . . so Mr. Kerry how come you want to go to war but not pay for it?"

Well, there were a lot of people who voted against the $87billion dollar package. Kerry actually supported a measure (I forget which senator sponsered it) which would give the troops $87billion dollars and PAY for it by leveraging out the top 1/2% tax bracket. That was the only difference and Bush balked at it. Kerry's point, and a very good one I might add, was we voted in the tax break before we went to war, times change and we have to be responsible with our money. We should fund the war by leveraging out the top .5% tax bracket for 10 years. This would have paid for the $87billion increase in federal spending under Bush. So, now politicians say "he flip flops" when he was trying to halt the mad spending spree Bush has been on since Jan 01'.

I'm not going to bother looking up all the bills and votes which he supposedly flip-flopped on, but it's usually the last grasp of a desperate administration. Now we'll start to see the "he'll raise taxes" and "he's not a leader like Bush is". Well, I sure as hell hope he's not a leader like Bush!!!

[DjTj]

Originally posted by DrunkenBoxer

Contrast that with what Mr. Kerry told reporters last week: "With respect to getting our troops out, the measure is the stability of Iraq. [Democracy] shouldn't be the measure of when you leave. I have always said from day one that the goal here . . . is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that's a full democracy."

[/b]

Does it bother anyone else that the word in brackets in this quote is the MOST IMPORTANT WORD? It makes me wonder what the question was that they asked...

I mean, the United States isn't a "full democracy" - we are actually far less democratic than other Western powers. I'm very wary of this being taken out of context.

I tried to find some answers on Kerry's web site, but it really feels like we're choosing between "Stay the course" and "Internationalize the effort." Why can't anybody come up with a real position?

[Phat Hog]

Originally posted by The Wicked Wop

See this is what I was getting at in other post......the man basically doesn't take a stand......basically his convictions are based on the days events, not a long term goal.

You are right on there! That's the very problem I have with him - maybe it will change as the election gets closer... but he had better construct a consistent and cogent message soon. Or...

[J33Edwards]

Originally posted by Sarge

Flip...........flop

Flip...........flop

[Duncan]

Originally posted by Destino

I love this, people are only honest if they are too stupid to ever change their mind. A quality of leadership is rigid stupidity? No thanks.

This is classic. Kerry "evolves" on core issues for political expediency, it’s mentioned, and you attack the messenger as stupid and inflexible.

[Duncan]

Originally posted by thew

You see I don't see a flip flop there. I don't see how being for a "reasonable plan" controdicts being against speeding "up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal". Bush is advocating the former not advocating the latter, why is Kerry a flip floper for following the same policy?

Face it their isn't much difference between Kerry and Bush in how they're going to proceed now that we're in the war. Both state the need not to fail. Now that Bush has finally gone to the UN and turned over negotiations to them there is even less difference on strategy at this point.

Two things are disturbing about Kerry over the last few weeks....

#1 He doesn't seem to be running. Dude took a vacation for a week and now has come back and is as quite as a church mouse. He needs to get out and define himself before it's done for him. It doesn't look to me like he's engaged at all in this "race".

#2 This is my biggest problem with Kerry so far. On face the nation last Sunday Russert asked him about an old vietnam interview he did. Showed Kerry "confessing" to committing "war crimes" as well as saying America was commiting war crimes. Kerry's responce.."Tim look at all the dark hair I had back then". Those shouldn't have been the first words out of his mouth. Not when discussing something as serious as war crimes.

His second words were "I was young, angry and I wish I had presented my war oposition using different words." Those should have been his first words. His first words were definitely worthy of critism..

I too thought it was rather odd those were the first words out of his mouth, and he really never answered the question.

"I wish I had presented my war opposition using different words."

He testified that men chopped off ears, raped, and indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of thousands of women and children, and he presented no evidence. A principled man would apologize and admit he made a mistake.

[chomerics]

Originally posted by Duncan

I too thought it was rather odd those were the first words out of his mouth, and he really never answered the question.

"I wish I had presented my war opposition using different words."

He testified that men chopped off ears, raped, and indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of thousands of women and children, and he presented no evidence. A principled man would apologize and admit he made a mistake.

He did answer the question, if you listened.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, when you testified before the Senate, you talked about some of the hearings you had observed at the winter soldiers meeting and you said that people had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and on and on. A lot of those stories have been discredited, and in hindsight was your testimony...

SEN. KERRY: Actually, a lot of them have been documented.

MR. RUSSERT: So you stand by that?

SEN. KERRY: A lot of those stories have been documented. Have some been discredited? Sure, they have, Tim. The problem is that's not where the focus should have been. And, you know, when you're angry about something and you're young, you know, you're perfectly capable of not--I mean, if I had the kind of experience and time behind me that I have today, I'd have framed some of that differently. Needless to say, I'm proud that I stood up. I don't want anybody to think twice about it. I'm proud that I took the position that I took to oppose it. I think we saved lives, and I'm proud that I stood up at a time when it was important to stand up, but I'm not going to quibble, you know, 35 years later that I might not have phrased things more artfully at times.

If your basing something the guy said 30 years ago as your main reason for not liking him, I feel for you.

[Commander PK]

Originally posted by Kilmer17

The problem isnt his constant changing of positions. It's the reason hes changing them.

Bush has changed many positions. Most glaring is his campaign promise to stay out of Nation Building. 9/11 changed his mind (and many others minds). The difference is Kerry is changing his stances based on the blowing tides of public opinion.

:applause:

As I have stated before, Bush is a leader. This shows once again that Kerry is a follower, and caters to public opinion.

[thew]

chomerics

If your basing something the guy said 30 years ago as your main reason for not liking him, I feel for you.

We're both basing our comments on him discussing his youthful looks ( Hair) in response to a clip where he accuses the US Army and confesses himself to having participated in War attrocities. It was messed up and it was a huge mistake to make light of his own accusations. His words you quote should have been the first words out of his mouth not his "make up".

First time Kerry's been on National TV recently and I think he blew it. I hope he does better next time because as you know I can't take another four years of Bush..