I am embarrassed to say that it has taken me until now to read the Boston Globe's excellent and careful campaign biography of Sen. Kerry. It is a book that should be of special interest to anyone who might be tempted to believe Sen. Kerry's self-description as a man who "never wavers."As I said, it's "An 'F' No Matter How You Grade It".
The Globe reporters catch Kerry in vacillation after vacillation. They remind us for example of the damning story of Kerry's sudden decision to give a speech denouncing affirmative action in 1992 just in time to position himself as a "new Democrat" worthy of the vice presidential spot on a Clinton ticket - and then of his hasty and abject retreat when criticism erupted.
Probably no story in the whole book is more telling, though, than Kerry's flip-floping on the first Gulf War.
If ever a war passed "the global test," it was the first Gulf War. Yet Kerry denounced it at great length on the Senate floor. "There is a rush to war here. [Because we think our military force can overwhelm Iraq], we are willing to act ... with more bravado than patience."
Then, as soon as the war was won, Kerry turned around and denounced President Bush for not driving all the way to Baghdad. Kerry condemned the decision not to shoot down Saddam Hussein's helicopters as they attacked Shi'ite rebels in southern Iraq as "a backhanded intervention in support of Saddam Hussein." And the Globe describe with some humor how Kerry went on to try to organize a Democratic campaign against Bush for his non-interventionist policy inside Iraq: "Bush has had a standstill, misguided policy, not unlike the lack of leadership seen prior to the war."
(All these quotes from pp. 260-266.)
Today of course Sen. Kerry denounces the younger Bush for doing what he denounced the father for failing to do back in 1991.
The overwhelming message of the Globe book is that Sen. Kerry's foreign policy ideas can best be summed up as "opportunistic oppositionism." It's a tactic well suited for a man trying to make his way by mobilizing angry out-of-power constituencies. But the conclusion I take away is that if Sen. Kerry should ever find himself in a position where he has to make the decisions - rather than react to decisions made by others - he would have absolutely no idea of what to do ... and would very likely do nothing at all while blaming others for everything that went wrong as a result of his own inaction.
If it wasn't for the MSM mass brainwashing, Kerry would be headed toward the biggest electoral landslide loss since McGovern. But no -- he still could win. Amazing spelled with an F.
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