Tim Blair

Yeah, Scarlett, and tomorrow is another day.

The man is like a bubble in a piss pot.

Meanwhile The Nation has really nailed one of the top ten reasons to get out of Iraq:

"5) ... Moldova's forces have dwindled to twelve."

The difference, of course, is that John Kerry DOES have new information that he didn't have in August...the latest poll numbers. It's no wonder he keeps changing positions more often than a truckstop hooker in Stuckey's parking lot.

Is this good news for Jon Stewart or not? At this point I'm pretty lost.

No, no, see you guys have it all wrong.....

Kerry voted for the war before he served in Vietnam.......and once he came back and realized the VC didn't actually have any WMD's, he voted against the $87 billion, thus ending the war in Vietnam, which by the way John Kerry served in.

Now, who wants a fudge pop?*

(*shamelessly stolen From Goldstein.....)

"We should not have gone to war knowing the information we have today."

Duh.

What's obvious is that we didn't have the information we have today back when the decision was made. A leader has to make decisions based on the best information available at the time, taking into consideration all the related factors.

Kerry took 4 weeks to decide on a campaign logo. It seems that decision making under pressure isn't a strong suit with him.

Kerry doesn't have positions so much as eigenvalues.

Monday morning quarterbacks are a dime a dozen and they always claim they are better than the real thing.

Kerry doesn't have positions so much as eigenvalues.

I love it! The quantum mechanics of John Kerry.

I think that one time he tried to explain that he thought it was right for Kerry to vote to give Bush the authority to go to war, but wrong for Bush to actually use that authority and actually go to war.

See? It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

"I think that one time he tried to explain that he thought it was right for Kerry to vote to give Bush the authority to go to war, but wrong for Bush to actually use that authority and actually go to war."

If you watch The Daily Show, Jon Stewart has fallen for that hook, line, and sinker. He never fails to bring it up when he's interviewing the political guys they're always bringing on now. I just have to turn off the TV.

Oh wait, you were talking about Stewart, right? Yeah. I just don't get it. He's a smart guy.

I also seem to recall that yes, Kerry did vote to give the authority to the President, but later (much later) said that he didn't think Bush would actually use it.

Either Kerry is a true idiot or he's just completely lost track of what he's said and when. Or both.

Bush asked for the authority, made it clear that he would use the authority, and proceeded to actually use the authority. And the congress pretty uniformly cheered at the time.

Kerry did vote to give the authority to the President, but later (much later) said that he didn't think Bush would actually use it.

Ya know, it all just came clear to me. Kerry isn't running for President. He's running for Secretary General of the UN!

Jim Treacher,

I did not see the Stewart program in question but read a piece last week on OpinionJournal.com how Pat Buchanan and Stewart found common ground in their hatred of Bush.

Pat was hurling invective at "neo-cons" and Stewart sat there cluelessly nodding, not realizing Pat was slagging the Jooooos.

I think Stewart is hilarious but not necessarily all that smart or well informed.

The difference, of course, is that John Kerry DOES have new information that he didn't have in August...the latest poll numbers.

Just wait until JFK hears about what Rasmussen wrote today:

By a 66% to 17% margin, voters believe that finishing the mission in Iraq is more important to George W. Bush than getting U.S. soldiers home as soon as possible.

By a 64% to 18% margin, voters believe that John Kerry has the opposite view.

As for voters themselves, 52% believe that finishing the mission is more important while 42% say getting the troops home should be the top priority. This alignment helps explain why the President has taken the lead over Senator Kerry while heading into the first Presidential Debate.

Here comes the next flip-flop...

According to the wisest politician in OZ (John Howard) it's not a sin to change your mind.

How about when you do it more often than most people change clothes?

that sounds like John Howard, are you reading from the same hymn sheet as me?

Steve, the thread is about John "Flip-Flop" Kerry.

[sarcasm]

Perhaps you didn't realize that?

[/sarcasm]

"Kerry did vote to give the authority to the President, but later (much later) said that he didn't think Bush would actually use it."

In fact Kerry TRUSTED Bush not to use it, proving that Bush cannot be trusted.

EvilPundit is right: Kerry is a quantum particle, flipping from one state to another and back again without any intermediate transition phase. And of course he has two positions on whether Schroedinger's cat is dead or not. Unless of course that's how he got his purple heart scratch, before the cat was killed in a friendly fire incident on the upper Mekong in '68.

"We should not have gone to war knowing the information we have today."

There is a subtle nuance here which we may have missed: *knowing* as compared to merely *having* the info

At some point he just *knew*
It came in a flash on the road to Damascus...

If he becomes President, who knows what further flashes he might have, or rather come to *know*?

In fact Kerry TRUSTED Bush not to use [the authority to go to war], proving that Bush cannot be trusted.

So you're saying that the President can't be trusted to not use the authority that he requested and Jean Kerry voted to give him? I think I missed the part where President Bush promised not to exercise the authority for which he was asking. But assuming this was just an oversight on my part, I guess I have to agree with your ridiculous conclusion.

"...he keeps changing positions more often than a truckstop hooker in Stuckey's parking lot."

Is this a genuine Ratherism? Or is this fake but accurate?

I love Treacher's comment: "The truth -- it burns, it burns!" The incomparable Bob Somerby explains it best:

What is Kerry’s stand on Iraq? Readers, get ready for some real brain-work! Here goes: Kerry says Bush should have had the authority to go to war, but then went to war prematurely. Wow! Have you finished scratching your heads about all the nuance involved in that statement? It’s hard to believe that any grown person could pretend that this is complex or confusing. But that’s the official RNC line—Kerry is simply filled with nuance—and obliging scribes are typing it up, pretending this claim makes good sense.

A candidate with 20/20 Fore/Hind-Sight. Is he running for President of the US or Gallifery?

Actually, Kerry's position wasn't quite as nonsensical is it might sound.

I think the basic idea was that if Bush had a formal authorization for war, that was supposed to give his diplomacy teeth so others would give in and he wouldn't actually have to fight.

But that's just a bit too nuanced for me. It's fine for a Senator from Massachusetts. It isn't fine for the POTUS. The President isn't supposed to go to Congress for an authorization for war just in order to posture for our enemies. That isn't what the Founders had in mind when they included that provision in the Constitution.

Steven, a credible threat to go to war is a very powerful tool for a president. It is not "posturing". Saddam allowed the weapon inspectors back in because of that threat.

Wow, the weapons inspectors!

Tim, the "credible threat" is that the President might go to Congress.

But Congress isn't supposed to pass an authorization for war unless they really mean that we should fight.

Om:

On the road to Damascus? Was that the scene of Kerry's latest epiphany? Christmas in Cambodia, Memorial Day in Syria?

Tim L:

The US Congress has declared war several times. I suppose it's possible that they declared war on the Kaiser's Germany in order to "send a message" or a warning, or whathaveyou, in order to get him to stop torpedoing merchant ships, rather than to actually declare war. The same applies, I suppose, to FDR or LBJ w/ the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, or even George Bush I.

The problem is that there is no reason to believe that this was the actual case. Woodrow Wilson asked for a declaration of war, not to send some sort of bargaining signal, but to send a simple message: WE ARE AT WAR. The same applies to all the other examples.

More to the point, this bizarre idea flies in the face of Kerry's previous behavior regarding Iraq. Was Kerry, in 1991, somehow opposed to even sending a signal to Saddam, when he voted against a war declaration for Bush-I? Is there any reason, at all, to believe that, having understood in 1991 that a vote on such a resolution would result in war, a similar vote ten years later would not?

Finally, as a long-time serving Senator, surely, surely John Kerry knows that the only such codicil that applies is one that is written into the law.

No such condition exists in the actual bill. Rather, it EXPLICITLY states that the President is authorized to use force at the time and place of his choosing. Congress could have required him to return for further authorization, or stipulated conditions for Dubya's use of force. But they didn't. So, NOW John Kerry says, "It didn't mean what I meant it to mean?"

What happened in his 20 years of Senatorial experience to so decay his understanding of how legislation works??

The POTUS does not need the permission of the Congress to credibly threaten the use of force. Only the Congress can declare war but the President has a tremendous amount of leeway when it comes to the use of American military power.

John Kerry is either full of himself and full of shit since they are not mutually exclusive. I think that about sums it up.

I know it's not fair to interpret it this way, but it's almost as if he wanted Bush to go to war, get "stuck" in a "quagmire" and then criticise him for going to war.

I wonder if having the authorization vote before the 2002 polls was a good idea. I suspect many Democrats voted in favour of the resolution for political reasons rather than because they were truly committed to dealing with Iraq.

He claimed his "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." comment was made late at night (it was made at noon), and when a Bush campaign manager joked that maybe Kerry was on Paris time, the Kerry campaign manager said:

"This is the kind of cynical, 'gotcha' politics that the Bush campaign is using to try to distract from the mess in Iraq and its failed record,"

Sheesh - can't they lighten up a bit?

I was watching Jon Stewart last night when he showed clips from GMA interview. You could tell Jon was torn between banging his head on the desk ( ala Imus ) and deep desire to ask John Kerry "WTF are you talking about ?"

Jon Stewart favorite things to say during any interview is " Maybe if we had debate about Iraq before going to war. We wouldn't be in the mess were in now." I wish I could of been next to him at that head banging moment and point out. There was a debate , and your side lost. Now you know why they lost.

Ron Hardin, you are a god, to wit:

Main Entry:ei·gen·val·ue
Pronunciation: 'I-g&n-"val-(")yü, -y&(-w)
Function: noun
Etymology: part translation of German Eigenwert, from eigen own, peculiar + Wert value
:a scalar associated with a given linear transformation of a vector space and having the property that there is some nonzero vector which when multiplied by the scalar is equal to the vector obtained by letting the transformation operate on the vector; especially : a root of the characteristic equation of a matrix

Oh, would that Monsewer Kerry was so complicated, at least he'd have an excuse for the pompous dullard that is him.

...and just this moment watched the Daily Show morning rerun. The only thing they didn't play was Kerry accusing a very, very confused Dianne Sawyer of 'twisting' his words. I loved Stewart's 'Did ja think maybe you shoulda thought they'd ask about Iraq?'

'Kerry said he would have voted to authorize the war knowing what he does now ... "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have." '

This was the position supported by 100% of weasels and at that time Kerry thought weasels could vote.

So I looked at Kerry's speech giving the authority:

In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.

Um, Mr. Lambert,

And Pres. Bush did exactly that. Went to the UN got the resolution and inspections, when resolution ignored as per Hans Blix himself, got our allies and attacked Hussein.

Granted that Blix wanted to keep on being ignored but, that's the problem isn't it? The UN was powerless and irrelevant as noone, save the US and it's allies (that term no longer includes France or Germany), wanted to inforce the consequences.

As we have since learned, those consequences were as harmful to UN, French and Russian bank accounts as they were to Husein. Imagine that

Tim:

As Dean points out, Mr. Kerry's finger-crossing conditions were not part of the authorization. Kerry's ass-covering conditions were strictly his own.

Further, Kerry states, "I'm giving the President this authority . . ." when, in fact he has no such individual power to grant such authority. And people wonder why so many of us consider this under-productive political weathervane to be pompous and haughty.

In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--

to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, -- Check

and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. -- Check

If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.

If contrary to his own lying eyes, Kerry truly believed that the President failed to do either of these things, why did he wait until the last few weeks to speak out? I'll leave it to the reader as an exercise in futility to figure out a logical answer to that question.

kerry changes his position more often than his skin tone