Wall Street Journal Editorial
Kerry vs. Kerry
September 10, 2004; Page A12
John Kerry could well be our next President, which is why we keep looking for signs that he’d be a good one, especially on national defense. Even a hint of Harry Truman would make us sleep better. But the more he talks about Iraq, the more the Senator seems bent on proving that his critics are right: He really is in a Presidential debate with himself.
First, back in October 2002 when the polls showed large public support, Mr. Kerry voted for the war. “I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein,” he said in one of the early Democratic debates. “And when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.”
But then Howard Dean rose in the polls as the antiwar candidate, and Mr. Kerry suddenly turned against the war too. “Are you one of the anti-war candidates?” asked Chris Matthews back in January on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” Mr. Kerry: “I am – Yes…”
Or at least he was until he routed Mr. Dean, when he became prowar once again. Throughout the spring he vowed to stay the course, saying in April that “it would be unwise beyond belief for the United States of America to leave a failed Iraq in its wake.” His positions were so close to Mr. Bush’s that pundits were suggesting Iraq wouldn’t be an issue in the fall. Only last month, Mr. Kerry declared that even knowing everything he knows now about events in Iraq, “yes, I would have voted for the authority” of President Bush to wage war.
But now, suddenly and in the campaign’s home stretch, Mr. Kerry has again turned antiwar – and with a passion that would make Mr. Dean proud. His latest line is that Iraq is “the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” and that he would have done “everything differently” from Mr. Bush. Presumably by “everything” he means voting against the war that only three weeks ago he repeated he would have again voted for.
Mr. Kerry is even reviving the old liberal isolationist line that money spent fighting our enemies in Iraq should be better spent at home. “$200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can’t afford after-school programs for our children,” the Democrat said in Cincinnati on Wednesday. “$200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can’t afford to keep the 100,000 police officers we put on the streets in the 1990s.” And like George McGovern promised about Vietnam in 1972, he’s clearly signaling that he’ll bring Americans home from Iraq, as early as his first six months in office.
It’s anyone’s guess why Mr. Kerry has taken this latest flip. Perhaps now that he’s trailing in the polls, and his image on national security has suffered, he feels he can only win as the antiwar candidate. Perhaps he’s trying to win back those of his core liberal supporters who’ve drifted to Ralph Nader in the wake of Mr. Kerry’s spring-summer hawkishness. Or perhaps he’s hoping that nasty events in Iraq in the next 50 days will somehow sour enough Americans on Mr. Bush to sneak him into office.
Perhaps, but we doubt it. Americans aren’t looking for perfect consistency in a candidate. But in the wake of 9/11 in particular, they do want some proof of conviction and constancy, especially on national security. Agree with him or not, President Bush has told Americans pretty clearly where he stands – on Iraq, and on the war on terror, which he argues are part of the same fight. Mr. Kerry argues – what, exactly?
We’re not the only ones who’ve noticed that Mr. Kerry’s statements on Iraq aren’t so much “nuanced” as simply irreconcilable. Just yesterday the New York Times implored him to stake out a clear position on the war. And the liberal and anti-Bush New Republic magazine recently observed that on Iraq Mr. Kerry has gone from “inscrutable” to “indefensible.”
The great lost Democratic opportunity here is that Mr. Bush’s Iraq policy is open to criticism: his under-estimation of the postwar insurgency, preventing the Army and Marines from dealing decisive blows to Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf and the Baathists in Fallujah, failing to train enough Iraqi allies quickly enough, and prolonging the U.S. occupation. But all of these criticisms come from the prowar right, for not fighting in Iraq with the force and tenacity to win.
Other Democrats – Joe Lieberman, Dick Gephardt – could have made that critique with some credibility, but Mr. Kerry seems incapable of it. Now even if Iraq blows up in October, as it well might, Mr. Kerry will find it just about impossible to convince voters that he would prosecute the war with any more vigor than Mr. Bush.
Back in February, we warned Mr. Kerry as he followed Mr. Dean into the antiwar fever swamps that voters would likely be looking for “some sort of consistency on matters of war and peace.” Everything he has done and said since only reinforces his image as a sailor who tacks with the political winds.