Nuance

John Kerry has been repeatedly criticised for "flip-flopping" because of his nuanced position on issues. He's been criticised about the Iraq war for voting for the $87 billion then voting against it. He's been hit this week for saying that he would still have voted for the Iraq resolution even knowing what we know today about the lack of WMD.

Bernard Kerek, the former Police Commissioner of NYC when 9-11 occurred, was on Hardball tonight slamming Kerry for voting to send troops to war and not voting for the money they needed. Now I think Bernie Kerek was a great leader during the 9-11 crisis, but I don't believe that this fact gives him a blank check to shill for the Bush Administration.

Kerry never voted for WAR. He voted to give the President authorization to take whatever action the President deemed necessary to get Iraq to comply with the UN resolutions. Kerry thought Bush should use diplomacy, UN inspections, and the threat of war to get Saddam to comply. He thought all along that the President should go to war only if all other efforts failed. Kerry has been very consistent in his statements about this. I suggest Commissioner Kerek read this William Saletan article from Slate, which effectively discusses Kerry's position from late 2001 until this past week.

Here's the key part:

"Take Kerry's stated principles: inspections, process, allies. Apply these to the trends of the winter of 2002-03: restored inspections and grudging Iraqi concessions. Combine the principles and the trend with the evidence we have today that Iraq's WMD programs had disintegrated. The most plausible conclusion is that if Kerry were president, we would still be doing inspections, as he suggests."

-William Saletan, Slate, August 12, 2004.

I urge everyone to read the whole piece.