There was a sidebar link (the top one as of this writing) posted recently linking to two stories about John Kerry, one a speech from 1992 and the other a story from just a few days ago, containing a 180° reversal on his feelings about whether Vietnam service should be brought up during a presidential campaign (the first concerning Clinton, the second against his current opponent, Bush).
Now, in defense of Kerry (whom I do not like, but whom I like more than Bush by a few orders of magnitude), you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who keeps an opinion like that stable in the face of 12 years and totally different circumstances — let’s face it, when humans are in a contest we’re going to do whatever it takes to win. Show me a politician who doesn’t get down and sling a little dirt and I’ll look him in the eye and say “Hello, Mr. Carter, how are you?” Doesn’t make it right, of course, but it’s reality.
But, just to make sure that everyone understands that this sort of reversal isn’t limited to the left, here’s a juicy little tidbit from Bush’s appearance on Meet the Press on February 8th (the entire transcript is available):
Russert: The night you took the country to war, March 17th, you said this: “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
President Bush: Right.
Russert: That apparently is not the case.
President Bush: Correct.
Now, please read the entire transcript if you didn’t catch the broadcast, because I did pull out one little section and there is Bush’s defense following it (which is too lengthy to post here), though he does seem to eat his own feet a couple of times during the rest of the interview.
My enduring question, though: Bush says that the US tried to “achieve a disarmament of Saddam Hussein peacefully” by sending in UN inspectors to find things that the President now says aren’t actually there. Iraq maintained that they weren’t there, we said they were lying, and because of that we went to war. So, really, was there any chance of not going to war?
My biggest problem with Bush was not that he was apparently wrong, it is that he hasn’t seemed to admit flat out intelligence was wrong, he continues to emphasize that removing Sadaam was a good thing. (Though the quote above is about as close as I’ve seen it). I agree, I think everyone knows it was a good thing, the question is whether or not Bush believed the WMD existed or whether that was a pretext. At this point, I don’t really know. It’s hard to say, but I think he’s a better liar than I give him credit if he knew the weapons weren’t there and he made it up or covered it up just to force a war.
At worst he tried to cover up contrary intelligence and lied about the WMD, at best the information the government was working on was wrong. I’ll play with Mr. Occam’s razor here and follow the simplist explanation for now. I think he was just wrong. Who knows, and we may never, but I hope we do find out at some point.
Kerry’s position is certainly a minor one, but he can’t exactly claim that his information was false, it was merely as you put it slinging political dirt, and I’m just as disappointed by Bush when he does it.
Left by Jordan on February 12th, 2004
How can you copyright an interview with the president? That seems to be so utterly bogus to me.
The transcript you linked to says
“Copyright© 2004, National Broadcasting Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.”
right at the top. I would hope that the words of the #1 public servent would be public domain, but… I suppose they aren’t because NBC copyrighted that interview.
Left by David on February 15th, 2004
Hey, picking holes in what people said a few years ago is all the fun of mudslinging American politics
I guess I can say that since I don’t have to live under the system and all 
Left by Pete on February 17th, 2004
Jimmy Carter was awesome. Too bad he got stuck with a recession while he was in office.
Left by Matt on February 17th, 2004
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Left by fgereferw on March 23rd, 2006
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Left by MADA on April 8th, 2006
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Left by 11 on May 8th, 2006
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Left by 11 on May 8th, 2006
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Left by 11 on May 8th, 2006