January 26, 2004
LUUUUUCCCCCCYYYYYYYYYY!:
The Great Explainer: John Kerry has a lot of explaining to do. (Fred Barnes, 01/26/2004, Weekly Standard)
His emergence as the Great Explainer is a problem for Kerry. Politicians prefer to be on offense, not defense. And while the need to explain isn't a major problem for Kerry now while Democratic presidential candidates are being nice to each other, it could get far worse. As the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, Kerry is sure to be closely scrutinized by the media, as Dean was when he was the frontrunner. And if Kerry wins the nomination, the Bush campaign will try to put him on the defensive by playing up inconsistencies in his record.On "Fox News Sunday," Kerry also was forced to explain his conflicting positions on gay marriage and the CIA. He voted against enactment of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which says a state is not obligated to recognize a gay marriage legalized by another state. But Kerry said he's actually opposed to gay marriage.
So why not vote for DOMA, which passed overwhelmingly? Kerry said he thought the Senate was gay bashing and "being used to drive wedge issues." In fact, gay marriage "was no issue" at the time, he said. "That was politics."
On the CIA, Kerry sponsored a bill to cut $1.5 billion from the budget for intelligence gathering. Then after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, he asked why America's intelligence wasn't better. His explanation: He wanted the CIA to devote more money to human intelligence and less to technical means. He sought, he explained, "to change the culture of our intelligence gathering." He didn't explain, however, how slashing the CIA budget would achieve that. [...]
He criticized President Bush for withdrawing from the Kyoto global warming treaty in 2001. "You don't just walk away from a treaty [negotiated by] 160 countries over 10 years," he said. But in 1997, Kerry voted for a resolution, which passed 95-0, saying the United States "should not be a signatory" to the treaty. So on Kyoto, he'll have some explaining to do.
It speaks volumes about why congressmen don't get elected president that John Edwards is considered to have an advantage over John Kerry precisely because he has so little experience and thus fewer votes to explain away. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 26, 2004 02:08 PM
Rather than Lucy, I think of Ralph Kramden's "Hummina, hummina, hummina" reaction when Kerry's explanations about his conflicting votes/positions over the years come up (though I think with his personality, Howard Dean would make a more suitable "Chef of the Future,")
Posted by: John at January 26, 2004 02:32 PMI get a chuckle out of people like Glenn Reynolds and Sullivan thinking that this election will be hard for Bush. They keep forgetting who he will be running against, one these buffoons.
Posted by: BJW at January 26, 2004 04:01 PMNow, to be fair, the Clinton & Kerry approach to Kyoto appears to have been to perpetually ignore it, occasionally make encouraging noises, and pester other signatories for a better deal on the off chance it could made affordable.
I don't really think that's better than admitting we were never going to ratify it, but it's not lunacy.
Posted by: Mike Earl at January 26, 2004 04:39 PMNo explaining would be necessary for the consistent and/or principled...
Posted by: jsmith at January 26, 2004 04:44 PM