Saturday, October 16, 2004
Does Kerry Really Flip-Flop? You Decide
From David Frum in NRO:
"I am embarrassed to say that it has taken me until now to read the Boston Globe's excellent and careful campaign biography of Sen. Kerry. It is a book that should be of special interest to anyone who might be tempted to believe Sen. Kerry's self-description as a man who 'never wavers.'
"The Globe reporters catch Kerry in vacillation after vacillation. They remind us for example of the damning story of Kerry's sudden decision to give a speech denouncing affirmative action in 1992 just in time to position himself as a 'new Democrat' worthy of the vice presidential spot on a Clinton ticket - and then of his hasty and abject retreat when criticism erupted.
"Probably no story in the whole book is more telling, though, than Kerry's flip-floping on the first Gulf War.
"If ever a war passed 'the global test,' it was the first Gulf War. Yet Kerry denounced it at great length on the Senate floor. 'There is a rush to war here. [Because we think our military force can overwhelm Iraq], we are willing to act ... with more bravado than patience.'
"Then, as soon as the war was won, Kerry turned around and denounced President Bush for not driving all the way to Baghdad."
Read the whole thing here.
"I am embarrassed to say that it has taken me until now to read the Boston Globe's excellent and careful campaign biography of Sen. Kerry. It is a book that should be of special interest to anyone who might be tempted to believe Sen. Kerry's self-description as a man who 'never wavers.'
"The Globe reporters catch Kerry in vacillation after vacillation. They remind us for example of the damning story of Kerry's sudden decision to give a speech denouncing affirmative action in 1992 just in time to position himself as a 'new Democrat' worthy of the vice presidential spot on a Clinton ticket - and then of his hasty and abject retreat when criticism erupted.
"Probably no story in the whole book is more telling, though, than Kerry's flip-floping on the first Gulf War.
"If ever a war passed 'the global test,' it was the first Gulf War. Yet Kerry denounced it at great length on the Senate floor. 'There is a rush to war here. [Because we think our military force can overwhelm Iraq], we are willing to act ... with more bravado than patience.'
"Then, as soon as the war was won, Kerry turned around and denounced President Bush for not driving all the way to Baghdad."
Read the whole thing here.
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