Morning Reads: Kerry Shifts on Democracy for Iraq
John Kerry changes his position on Iraq (again) -- and today's Washington Post lead editorial doesn't let him get away with it. What the Post finds particularly troubling is Kerry's abandonment of the goal of a free and democratic Iraq:
Contrast that with what Mr. Kerry told reporters last week: "With respect to getting our troops out, the measure is the stability of Iraq. [Democracy] shouldn't be the measure of when you leave. I have always said from day one that the goal here . . . is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that's a full democracy."
Mr. Kerry contends that he has not shifted his public position. But there are major differences between what he said in December -- right after Saddam Hussein's capture, when Mr. Kerry was seeking to discredit dovish Democratic challenger Howard Dean -- and his remarks last week, which followed several weeks of bad news from Iraq and growing public disenchantment with the course of the war. Where once he named democracy as a task to be completed, and the alternative to "cutting and running" or a "false success," Mr. Kerry now says democracy is optional. Where once he warned against setting the conditions for an early but irresponsible withdrawal of U.S. forces, now he does so himself by defining the exit standard as "stability," a term that could describe Saudi Arabia or Iran -- or the Iraq of Saddam Hussein.
The Post highlights the fundamental differences between Kerry's changing position and the President's steady and consistent work for a free Iraq:
Now he differs with Mr. Bush on the crucial issue of what the United States must achieve in Iraq before it can safely end its mission. "Iraq," Mr. Bush said at his news conference last week, "will either be a peaceful democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terrorists, and a threat to America and to the world."
What would Kerry's Iraq strategy be? He can't say -- and the newspaper is left to surmise that it would be something well short of the freedom the Iraqi people deserve:
Mr. Kerry now argues that there is a third option. But what would that be? "I can't tell you what it's going to be," he said to reporters covering his campaign. "That stability can take several forms." True; in the Middle East, there is the stability of Islamic dictatorship, the stability of military dictatorship and the stability of monarchical dictatorship.
The Post draws these final conclusions: "Yet on goals Mr. Bush is right, not only in a moral sense but from the perspective of U.S. security too... Mr. Kerry's shift on such a basic question after just a few months is troubling and mistaken." Read the whole thing.
The Boston Globe's Anne Kornblut takes a look at the state of the race, citing the new strategy memo from Matthew Dowd, BC'04 Chief Strategist.
An analysis in The Hill shows the President doing very well in Florida.
USA Today runs a piece on Journeys with John, the new Kerry travel tracker:
Want to dog Democrat John Kerry as he travels from Florida to Louisiana to Texas this week? You can â?? virtually through President Bush's campaign Internet site...
The site, part of the Bush campaign's overall rapid-response operation, also allows people to add their comments.
Check out Journeys with John -- and watch as we add new states where Kerry is traveling.
In the New York Post, John Podhoretz writes that on balance, Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack "offers a persuasive portrait of an extraordinarily serious Bush administration and the 17-month process that led to the war."
Yesterday we reported on Senator Kerry's peddling the mysterious theory of a secret Saudi oil deal divined from Woodward's book -- something Woodward has said he never suggested. Today, the Washington Times notes just how ridiculous the charge is:
Mr. Kerry cannot have it both ways on this point. Mr. Bush cannot be in intimate collusion with the Saudis to reduce oil prices at the precise moment he needs an election boost, while at the same time having completely ineffective negotiations with them to increase oil supplies.
