IT'S HIS JOB:

Kerry said to weigh politics in 2002 vote (Michael Kranish, May 28, 2007, Boston Globe)

[Bob] Shrum, who was brought into the campaign to help provide Kerry with a strategic overview, provides a vivid de scription about the events leading up to Kerry's decision to vote for the war.

He writes that Kerry telephoned him on the eve of the Oct. 11, 2002, vote. Shrum said Kerry was skeptical of Bush's claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that he "didn't trust Bush to give the diplomatic route a real chance." Nonetheless, Kerry asked Shrum whether he would "be a viable general election candidate if he was in the small minority of senators who voted no."

Shrum wrote that he told Kerry it was "impossible to predict the political fallout if we went to war." But he wrote that Jim Jordan, Kerry's former Senate press secretary and future campaign manager, "was insisting that he had to vote with Bush."

Shrum wrote that Jordan had "hammered" Kerry with a warning: "Go ahead and vote against it if you want, but you'll never be president of the United States." Kerry voted for the war resolution and Jordan became Kerry's campaign manager three months later.

You don't get to be head cabana boy by talking back to the boss, and for a politician the people are the boss.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 28, 2007 8:36 AM