Res Publica 2005

The American Thinker reminds us:
It is with this mindset that Senator Kerry can claim to have “voted for the $87 billion dollars before voting against it”, or to call the military operations in Iraq [that he authorized with his vote] the “War of Mass Deception”. He refuses to characterize himself as a ‘flip-flopper’. From his perspective these divergent views can co-exist because there is not an absolute position on the issue(s). When asked by ABC Journalist Diane Sawyer if the operation in Iraq was worthwhile, Kerry’s response was that it ‘depends on the outcome.’ This type of relativism may serve a Senator in devising a multifaceted argument on an issue, but a commander-in-chief cannot function within this way of thinking. To put it bluntly, we’d all love to call the plays on Monday morning; unfortunately the game is played on Sunday afternoon. President Bush is correct to keep reminding Americans that Senator Kerry was privy to the same exact intelligence information as the Administration in deciding whether or not military force was justifiable in Iraq.

Kerry has attempted to portray himself as a strong leader, resolute in his commitment to defending America and not allowing the interests of other nations to dictate our foreign policy or national defense strategy. Yet in 1985 he opposed the Reagan Administration’s approach to the Soviet Union when he argued that

“it is time that we accept the idea that the Soviet Union is not going to bargain with the United States from a position in which we have grabbed the upper hand through the development of some new technology. They are only going to agree with the United States on arms limitations if they have parity, in overall force capacity.”

It can easily be inferred from Kerry’s orations on the floor of the Senate in the 1980’s that the Soviet Union should still exist in a dynamic based on nuclear parity. History has proven that Reagan was correct, and now Kerry evokes Reagan’s name and his selective support for the late President to lend credibility to his own Senatorial career. But the truth is that John Kerry’s Senate Record clearly shows his commitment to disarmament, nuclear freezes, and supporting an American Foreign Policy that is in compliance with the directives of the United Nations.

In a free society, it is perfectly acceptable to run for the Presidency on a record such as Kerry’s and let the electorate decide if this is in the best interests of the nation. Barry Goldwater wore his conservatism on his sleeve in the 1964 campaign while George McGovern ran on a very liberal platform in 1972. Kerry should stand by his record if he is truly proud of it; but that is not what we are witnessing....

The President is right to remind Americans that a President Kerry in 2001 would have conducted operations in Afghanistan limited in scope to the hunt for bin Laden and the Afghani peoples would still be under the thumb of the terrorist-sponsoring Taliban; that Saddam would still be in power, defying UN resolutions and colluding with our supposed allies in the oil-for food program. Senator Kerry has been on the wrong side of history in every crucial foreign policy crisis of his adult life; this simply disqualifies him as a credible alternative to President Bush at this point in our history.