What happened to John Kerry on Sunday?

Obama surrogate John Kerry: does he actually care who wins the Presidential election?

One thing I failed to comment on in my post yesterday about John Kerry's sad performance on the 08/03/08 Meet the Press. It was bad enough that he allowed himself to be paired with pseudo-Democrat Joe Lieberman, enabling Lieberman's (and McCain's) phony "bipartisan" posturing. And that he praised McCain to the heavens for his awesome war heroism. (He used the word "awe".) And that he said he was glad to have good ole Joe stay in the Democratic caucus, even though Lieberman's whole public persona is now about bashing the Democrats.

This argument that Kerry made may be even worse:

Barack Obama is right about Iraq. Now George Bush, Prime Minister Maliki think we ought to set a deadline. ... He's been right about North Korea and Iran and the notion that we ought to negotiate. Now the Bush administration is negotiating. The Bush administration has moved towards Barack Obama, not John McCain. And John McCain's judgment has been wrong, and it's dangerous for America. (my emphasis)

Yes, that was Kerry's pitch: Vote for Obama because Bush agrees with him on the Iraq War! Obama and Bush, they're right on the same page there. Vote for the Obama-Bush plan on Iraq!

That's just so sad it's mind-boggling. Bush and his war are incredibly unpopular. And Kerry says vote for Obama because he agrees with Bush on the Iraq War! Plus, McCain has been working hard to create the impression that he's been a big critic of Bush on the war.

What was Kerry thinking on Sunday? Does he really just not care who wins the Presidency this year? That was worse than "phoning it in". Kerry was playing the McCain game all over the place. If he can't make a real case for Obama, he should just absent himself from this campaign. If that performance is any measure, Obama should be distancing himself from John Kerry, not from Wes Clark.

Tags: barack obama, joe lieberman, john kerry, wesley clark

Responsibility and the Iraq War

Can someone who voted for the Iraq War criticize the war he voted for?

That question is being raised against John Kerry in particular by hawks like columnists Charles Krauthammer and Linda Chavez as well as by war skeptic Joan Walsh. Kerry voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq. Now he's criticizing the dangerous mess Bush and Rummy have put our troops into there. Kerry's critics charge him with hypocrisy, inconsistency, changing his position.

I doubt it will be a political liability for him. After all, a large portion of the voting public made that same journey over the last year, from supporting the President on Iraq (with varying degrees of reservations) to asking, "How did we get into such a spot?"

My reaction to that line of attack - which could apply to a number of other Congressional war critics - is, "Gee, a politician hedged his bets? Gosh, whoever heard of such a thing?" More seriously, members of Congress who voted for war are morally obligated to follow the progress of the war with a critical eye. The real question is why more of them, especially Republicans, aren't raising questions over the missing "weapons of mass destruction" and the obvious problems our troops now face.

Chavez seems particularly eager to make Kerry sound like he was saying he had been duped, relating it to a comment along those lines that embarassed Republican Presidential aspirant George Romney 35 years ago.

But here, too, it seems to me that those who voted for war, and those like Krauthammer who cheered for it, should be out front demanding answers about cooked intelligence used to justify the war.

Don't get me wrong. My own view is that Congress shirked its responsibility last fall by hurriedly passing the war resolution without asking more hard questions, e.g., about the "WMD" claims.

But if some of those who were too hasty in voting for war are learning from their mistake, so much the better.

- Bruce Miller

Tags: iraq war, john kerry