Josh Marshall: Kerry isn't waffling; the others are being simplistic [View All]

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http://www.johnkerry.com/news/clips/news_2003_0902d.html

Kerry isn't waffling on war; the others are being simplistic


September  02,  2003
The Hill
By Josh Marshall


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Kerry coolly - but not too coolly - noted that many points that Russert presented as contradictions were really no such thing. And he acquitted himself well on the Iraq question.

But even if Kerry slipped by Russert's big guns, his ambivalent stance on the war clearly will remain a target of his political opponents for the remainder of the campaign.

That's a problem for Kerry, but it's an even bigger one for the country.
Here's why:

The key dig against Kerry is that he waffled on Iraq. His critics say that he voted for the war resolution when President Bush and the war were popular but as the president's popularity declined and the facts piled up about deceptions, poor planning and incompetence, Kerry shifted toward mounting criticism.

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But what to do about Iraq was always an issue that required a careful weighing of one priority against another, and that's not something we've seen much of from Kerry's opponents, who appear on the surface to have positions both clearer and more consistent than his.

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Now let's look at Kerry's prime competitor for the Democratic nomination.
Kerry's early and unambiguous opposition to the president's Iraq policy has fueled Howard Dean's electric charge to the front of the Democratic pack. Now that the argument of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has close to collapsed and key parts of Iraq are teetering on the edge of anarchy, those positions make for good politics, especially among Democratic partisans.
But let's rewind to a year ago.

Just because the president blundered his way into Iraq, that doesn't mean that Saddam Hussein wasn't a problem that had to be dealt with or that dealing with him might not have required a military solution.

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As nearly as I can figure it, Kerry's position was to get inspectors back in the country and then see if America's national interests could be safeguarded short of war.

If war was necessary, he was willing to wage it. But if he did so, it would be with the mix of planning and international support that would avoid the parade of deadly misjudgments we've seen over the last few months.

To me, that sounds not like waffling but like a much sounder approach than the one we've been following for the past year.

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But from where I see it, we already have enough folks in the field who spout dogmatism, inflexibility and maximalism and mistake those qualities for leadership.