by Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | August 17, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/08/17/kerrys_lack_of_decisiveness_on_iraq_is_suffocating_him/IRAQ IS the paper bag John Kerry cannot punch his way out of, suffocating himself even though the top is wide open. Last week, Kerry said he would have still voted to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, even if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had no tie to 9/11. "Yes, I would have voted for the authority,'' Kerry said. ``I believe it is the right authority for a president to have.'' <SNIP>
The catch-up questions only make it more obvious that Kerry should have said, "If I knew now that we did not have a plan to win the peace, if I knew now that we were rushing to war on faulty intelligence, if I knew now that the president was not doing the hard work necessary to give America the truth, if I knew now that he was misleading America about how he would go to war, if I knew that we were not going to bring other countries to the table in a way that truly supported American troops, why of course I would have never voted to give the president the authority to go to war. You never give the president authority to go to war unless he can prove beyond a doubt that war is necessary.''
You do not have to be a conscientious objector to say that. Kerry could have even gone as far as saying, sure, he and the Clinton administration were as adamant in the 1990s as the Bush administration has been these last three and a half years that Saddam was a bad man who they thought had bad weapons. But that never had to extend to giving a president power when it was clear all along that Bush was rushing toward unilateral action. Bush He dismissed international weapons inspectors and even the concerns of US military veterans such as 1991 Gulf War commander Norman Schwarzkopf, who said the rush to war by the hawks in the administration, without proof of weapons, was "scary.''<SNIP>
Bingo, Mr. Jackson!