A MAN OF CONSTANT ERROR:

The Many Faces of John Kerry: They'll Never Call Him a Radical (or Even an Alternative) (ELIZABETH SCHULTE, February 10, 2004, CounterPunch)

"A man defined by inner conflicts."

That’s how the Boston Globe described John Kerry in a five-part series in June 2003. "The gung-ho Vietnam hero turned articulate antiwar protester; the shaggy-haired liberal rebel turned feisty prosecutor; a politician whose core beliefs included a skeptical view of government," wrote the Globe.

Sounds familiar? Someone wrote a book about it in the 1800s--it’s called Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. During his 19 years as a career politician and Washington insider, Kerry has never let a little thing like principle get in his way. He’s made a career out of balancing between the Democratic Party’s conservative and the liberal wings.

That’s why, last week in Greenville, S.C., Kerry declared that he was going to "hold Bush accountable" for the war in Iraq. But just as easily, he could boast to his Republican critics, "I have voted for the largest defense budgets in the history of our country."

Kerry has taken several liberal positions during his career, only to take them back years later. Since 1984, when he won his first campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts, Kerry backed canceling weapons systems, such as the B-1 bomber, B-2 stealth bomber, the Apache helicopter and the Patriot missile. Kerry now calls those positions "ill-advised, and I think some of them are stupid in the context of the world we find ourselves in right now, and the things that I’ve learned since then."

In the 1980s, Kerry harshly criticized Ronald Reagan’s order to invade the tiny island nation of Grenada in 1983. Today, he says: "I was dismissive of the majesty of the invasion of Grenada. But I basically was supportive. I never publicly opposed it."

Kerry voted against the congressional resolution authorizing military force in Iraq in 1990. But after Washington’s quick victory, Kerry did a quick turnaround and became a supporter of the war. Kerry’s own office could hardly keep up with the changes.

At one point, it mailed out letters to constituents that voiced both positions. Likewise, in October 2002, Kerry voted to give congressional authorization for Bush’s invasion of Iraq, only to criticize the war afterward.

To listen to Kerry criticize the civil liberties-shredding USA PATRIOT Act today, you’d never know that he voted for the legislation in 2001.

The willingness to acknowledge that your first instinct on every single major issue of your times has been wrong is sort of admirable, but it hardly inspires confidence in your judgment.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 10, 2004 2:26 PM