File under "political hack"

Last Saturday, May 9, Senator Mitch McConnell gave the convocation address at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. It created a small stir locally -- probably because the Senator did not shy away from controversial political subjects. And his take was purely partisan.

Of course, McConnell was also dead wrong on several key facts. For example, McConnell wants to pretend that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been unique evil-doers:

the current Administration has announced a deadline to close the secure detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within nine months—without having any kind of plan to contain these deadly killers.

“I hope it does not take that step without a plan to make America safer as a result. And I certainly hope it does not transfer these terrorists to American soil. Such a move will likely raise more legal questions than it settles. And it will increase the risk to the American people.

“The men housed at Guantanamo are ruthless killers.

Yet, as Ken Ballen and Peter Bergen reported last October, this is factually incorrect:

...according to the Pentagon itself, only 5 percent of detainees at the prison were ever apprehended by U.S. forces to begin with. And only another 4 percent were ever alleged to have actually been fighting at all.

Why is that? Almost all of the detainees were turned over to U.S. forces by foreigners, either with an ax to grind or, more often, for a hefty bounty or reward. After U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, they doled out rewards of about $5,000 or more to Pakistanis and Afghans for each detainee turned over. Contrary to standard law enforcement practice, the U.S. military accepted the uncorroborated allegations of the award claimants with little independent investigation.

Now, under much pressure, the Pentagon has released more than 500 detainees over the past three years ...new statistics provided to us by the Ministry of Interior in Riyadh, zero of the 121 Guantánamo detainees received by the Saudis were deemed dangerous and ineligible for release.

It gets worse. Of those detainees returned to Saudi Arabia from Guantánamo, more than half have been released and are now free, most after spending a period of time in a halfway house designed to promote a smooth return to society. Only six former Guantánamo detainees have been rearrested in Saudi Arabia for any reason—an astonishingly low recidivism rate of less than 9 percent among those released.

Although the Saudi efforts to reintegrate these prisoners into society are certainly commendable, the only reasonable explanation for such a low recidivism rate is that the detainees were never guilty of terrorist acts in the first place.

Don't want to take the word of the Saudis? Consider this:

Information released in May by the Department of Defense further buttresses the Saudi findings of a very low recidivism rate. The department’s list of named released detainees who have subsequently engaged in militant or terrorist activities anywhere in the world shows that 12 have done so, a recidivism rate of just 2 percent. In fact, the Pentagon can cite only six instances in which an inmate released from Guantánamo actually took up arms against the United States.

...new statistics from the Saudi Ministry of Interior, corroborated by the Pentagon’s own findings, show that the overwhelming majority of individuals detained at Guantánamo not only were not terrorists, but were likely innocent of any crime.

McConnell also played fast and loose with the facts about the interrogation memos recently declassified by the Obama administration:

It was a mistake for the administration to reveal to al Qaeda terrorists the interrogation methods they can expect to face if captured. Releasing those memos has made America less safe.

As I've blogged before, scholars have been studying American torture techniques for years. They are well-known already.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel pointed out that the Bush administration had already disclosed most of the techniques:

Let me say this, one of the reasons the president was willing to let this information out was that much of the information was already out. So if they're saying that you've basically exposed something, it's been written . Go get the New York Review of books. It's there. So the notion that somehow we're exposing something -- it's already out. In fact President Bush let a lot, a lot of this information out. So the notion that somehow this is all of a sudden a game-changer, doesn't take cognizance that its already in the system and in the public domain. Therefore, it's not new.

If you don't believe Emanuel, look at this article in the October 4, 2007, NY Times. Or this piece from June 2004 in the NY Review of Books.

Numerous Bush officials were questioned about waterboarding by Congress over the past few years, especially after the November 2006 Democratic victory. John Kerry opposed Bush Attorney General Mike Mukasey over this issue in 2007.


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...So Goes the Nation

Last night, on IFC, I caught most of "...So Goes the Nation," a documentary about the 2004 election with an emphasis on Ohio. The title takes its name from that old adage, "As Ohio Goes, So goes the Nation."

It was not a great film. Much on-screen time is given over to insiders from the Bush campaign explaining why their strategy worked -- and to Democratic insiders expressing lament at the way the Kerry campaign was managed. These perspectives are worth discussing, but I was hoping the film might address some of the odd results and election official shenanigans in Ohio. The Dem insiders were mainly old Clinton hands -- Paul Begala and Terry McAuliffe. Karl Rove apparently did not talk to the film makers.

The film directed some attention at the provisional ballots, but not much, and some on-screen talking heads bashed Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio Secretary of State.

Yet, there was nothing about voting result oddities in Butler, Clermont, Warren and Hamilton counties. Warren was the "security lockdown" county. Moreover, they didn't make much of the exit poll results, saying only that Kerry had been ahead in the "early" polls.


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Did the wrong guy win?

It's been a long time since Something's rotten in the state of Denmark posted anything. 10 months.

Still...did the wrong guy win? Harper's revisits the question.

The National Election Data Archive seems to think it was likely:

The discrepancies between election results and exit poll results in the 2004 presidential race have not been explained and are consistent with significant vote count errors. Examination of limited election data shows irregular patterns of vote counts in Florida, Ohio, Washington, New Mexico, and other states....

On May 15th, our National Election Data Archive Project released a scientific paper, updated September 8th, that disproves the theory that the 2004 presidential exit poll discrepancies were caused by exit poll response rates that varied by party. This discredited hypothesis was proposed by the exit pollsters and used to dismiss the exit polls. This paper follows our earlier scientific paper released on March 31st, and summary on the 2004 election exit poll discrepancies.

It has been officially confirmed (by the exit pollsters themselves) that on election night the final set of exit polls showed John Kerry defeating George Bush by 3% of the popular vote and a clear majority of 316 electoral votes. Our statisticians analyzed Edison/Mitofsky's own explanation of their exit poll discrepancies, and found serious flaws in their argument. Exit polls have been used for years to detect corruption of official vote tallies - most recently in Ukraine.

Thanks to Thomas Leavitt at Seeing the Forest for the first link.

Ohio Mess?

According to the news reports, there are apparently 200 to 400,000 provisional ballots outstanding in Ohio and none of those have been counted.

None.

The Bush-Kerry margin is currently about 102,000 votes with 92% of precincts counted. Dems claim that the lead will likely be cut to 50,000 by the time all the rest of the regular ballots are counted. I assume they know where the missing precincts are and how those areas usually vote.

In any case, Kerry would have to win 60% of 250,000 provisional ballots to take the state if that information is true. Obviously, this would mean a higher portion of fewer ballots or a lower portion of more.

The Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, says that provisional ballots won't be counted for 11 days. That's the election law in Ohio. The absentee (military) ballots from abroad are also going to trickle in over the next 10 days too.

During the next 10 days, Ohio will look at the jackets on the provisional ballots to try to reconcile them. In other words, they are going to try to figure out why the people weren't listed on the voting roster. Some are going to turn out to be valid, others are likely going to be tossed.

I'm confident that both Democratic and Republican lawyers will be deeply involved in this process.

Kerry's camp says the candidate is not going to concede until those provisional ballots are resolved, which makes ABSOLUTE SENSE. How can a candidate concede if the number of uncounted ballots significantly exceeds the margin of the lead?

The networks that have called Ohio for Bush already are jumping the gun. How do they know what those provisional ballots say? Where are they? Who cast them? Why are there so many?


Update: 96% of precincts, the lead is closer to 125,000. Not good for Kerry. Where are the last precincts?

Update 2: Ohio had about 100,000 provisional ballots in 2000; 90% of them were good, and were thus counted. The Secretary of State just said on TV (2:15 am ET) that it looks like there might be 175,000 this time. Kerry would have to win 6 out of 7 of them if the current 125,000 lead holds.

That seems unlikely. I wonder how they went in 2000?

Where are the missing precincts? Can the Dems cut the lead in the last few percent of uncounted precincts?

I think I'm going to bed.

Ohio? Tie?

As for the Electoral College, it looks like Kerry simply has to win Ohio. I haven't really looked at the uncounted precincts yet. I wish the media would say whether those are traditionally Democratic or Republican areas...and the margin in those areas from 2000.

Apparently, some of the uncounted votes are in the Cleveland area.

Also, just how many uncounted votes exist in Florida? Absentees? Early voters? What is left to count?

In any case, likely the next best hope without Ohio is 269-269 if Kerry holds New Mexico. In this tie scenario, Kerry wins all the Gore states, plus New Hampshire and Nevada -- a scenario I blogged about in late September.

In that case, the election would go to the House unless some individual elector was unfaithful (like one Bush elector in West Virginia). Presumably, the Republican advantage would give them the edge there, but that seems to be a place for all kinds of public democratic (small d) pressure.

Indeed, electors could be strongly encouraged to vote for the popular vote winner. It was impossible in 2000 when more than 1 Bush elector would have had to defect, but it seems more plausible in the case of a tie that would otherwise send the election to the House of Representatives.

Some states also send mixed messages and could perhaps be influenced between today and the potential vote in the House. Arkansas, for example, has more Dems in the Congress than Republicans; yet, the state has apparently gone for Bush.

Popular vote for Kerry?

I know Bush has been leading the popular vote all night, but I just took a look at the CNN national exit polling, which has already been posted.

Consider the demographic data...actually there's no need to be complicated. I was going to break it down by all the ages, but CNN conveniently provides this simple split of the data:

Ages 18-64 Kerry 51, Bush 48 (84% of electorate)
Ages 65 & older Kerry 50, Bush 50 (16% of electorate)

Quick, tell me who won the popular vote?

Clearly, Kerry.

It looks like about 50% Kerry to 48.5% Bush.

Exit polls

I'm getting a lot of google hits today for people trying to find "exit polls." Thanks for coming, there's plenty of political analysis on this blog.

However, for exit poll data, I'm visiting MyDD or Daily Kos. Apparently, Slate and Wonkette have also posted them.

Enjoy the parties tonight!

Kerry is going to be President-elect by morning!

Election Day

It is officially election day and I'm pleased to report the first bad news for George W. Bush.

As reported on MSNBC by Ron Reagan, Dixville Notch, NH, just released its complete returns and the result was 15 Bush, 15 Kerry and 1 Nader.

Traditionally, this town votes first in the nation.

Does their vote simply reflect the entire country? Is this a microcosm of what's to come?

No.

Like a bad Gallup Poll, however, Dixville Notch is solid red. They've gone Republican in every presidential election except for 1968 since at least 1960. I found this Detroit News article from January 2004:

In general elections, Dixville Notch went solidly for losers Richard Nixon in 1960, Barry Goldwater in '64 and, Hubert Humphrey in '68, then finally picked a winner with Nixon in '72, only to see him quit at midterm. In 1976, their choice was Michigan's Gerald Ford, who lost to Jimmy Carter. In 1980 and '84, they liked Reagan, as did most of the country. George H.W. Bush was their pick in 1988, but Dixville Notch didn't back another winner until George W. Bush in 2000.

Kerry is going to win.

CORRECTION Update: It was actually Hart's Location, NH that went 15-15-1, MSNBC reported it incorrectly. Dixville Notch went for Bush 19-7.

In 2000, these two towns went for Bush by a combined total of 38-15, according to Mark Kleiman and this year it was 34-19. Here's what Kleiman wrote:

That's a swing of nearly eight percent away from Bush and toward the Democrat. Using a likely voter model I just pulled out of my hat, this station can now project a Kerry landslide...

Regular commenter E-Mart pointed this out. Thanks.

Election Prediction

OK, it's time for a prediction.

1. I think John Kerry is going to win the popular vote by a narrow margin: 49.15% to 48.75% for George W. Bush. That leaves 2.1% for Ralph Nader and the rest.

Kerry 57.0 million votes
Bush 56.55 million votes
Other 2.44 million votes

2. The Electoral College vote is probably going to be fairly close, and I think this is even harder to predict than the popular vote. Essentially, the thin national vote margin might be repeated in various states, which makes it very difficult to predict the outcome in a number of key places.

I'll go with Kerry 279 EVs; Bush 259.

I've given Kerry all the Gore states, save for New Mexico, plus taken 2000 Bush states New Hampshire and Ohio. There are numerous possible alternatives, and I genuinely think most of them end in a Kerry win given the current polling data at the state level.

Bush is apparently doing really well in his most solid 2000 red states, and Bloomberg recently reported that Bush may win as many as 2 million new votes in Texas, California and New York. However, none of those new Bush voters are going to shift even 1 electoral vote (EV) in 2004.

I think there's a greater than 50% chance that Kerry will receive more than 300 EVs, which would be great.

Get out the vote (GOTV)!

Greens

Over at See the Forest, Thomas Leavitt blogged recently about a Green Party Press Release called, "Top 12 Issues Censored From the Bush-Kerry Debates." I left a comment, but decided to elaborate here.

I'm not going to publish the entire press release. Rather, I will respond to the main charges (as I have before); the Greens claim the two-party candidate debates "effectively censored numerous issues important to Americans."

Leaving aside the fact that the candidates didn't write the questions, meaning that they literally could neither set the agenda nor censor specific items, what are the issues Greens want to emphasize?

First, Greens say the Iraq invasion violated international law. OK, this may be true, but Kerry's "global test" for preemptive war and his discussion of legitimacy are about preserving international law, which only matters because of legitimacy (there's no coercive power of a global state, since no such central authority exists). Preemption under imminent threat has long been viewed as legal, by the way.

Charges two through five are about Iraq and I've blogged extensively about them. Leavitt skips them too. It's hard to argue that Iraq issues have been censored in the 2004 campaign.

Sixth, the Patriot Act. Kerry voted for it, but now calls for changes, especially in application. This came up in the second debate.

Seventh, climate change: Kerry supports the US re-entering the Kyoto negotiation process. He also supported the McCain-Lieberman Stewardship bill that would have required EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. 43 Senators voted for it in October 2003. This issue also came up in debate #2. Did the Greens miss that one?

By the way, I argued with my Green friends that Al Gore was a stronger environment candidate than Ralph Nader in 2000, and given Kerry's very strong record on this issue, it is probably true in 2004 as well.

Eighth: Ah, the familiar Green argument that the Republicans and Democrats have abandoned working people and suck up to corporations. Kerry supports a higher minimum wage, which is clearly a step towards a living wage (an issue mentioned in the press release). Moreover, Kerry supports a wide variety of reductions in corporate welfare, which he did mention in the second debate. Kerry's positions on media, health care, and long-term military bases in Iraq aren't popular with the corporate crowd.

Ninth: health care. OK, so Kerry doesn't advocate a single payer system in 2004, but he does offer a plan to insure millions more Americans and the issue was not "censored" in the debates.

Tenth, the drug war is bad. True, this hasn't received much attention in the campaign, but TalkLeft had a nice summary of Kerry's progressive positions back in August.

Eleventh: media concentration. Kerry is against further corporate consolidation of media and wants greater diversity. He would reverse many recent decisions that promote corporate media growth.

Twelfth: Election reform. Kerry supports paper ballots, of course, and has sought amendments to McCain-Feingold that would move towards partial public financing of campaigns. He has also sought to make election day a half-day national holiday (to allow voting).

Summary: The green agenda isn't all that different from the Democratic agenda.

Really.

And Kerry is arguably the most progressive Democratic Presidential candidate since JFK in 1960. Certainly, he is the most progressive Democratic Presidential candidate with a very good shot of winning the election (just in case readers favor Walter Mondale).

Greens are going to reward that choice by voting for Nader?

Update: Or David Cobb, who is the Green party candidate in 2004.

I said Nader because polls show that more people looking for an alternative to the Kerry Democratic ticket and sympathetic to the above "Green ideas" are going to vote Nader, rather than Cobb.

Third Presidential Debate: Instant Analysis

Though I'm not much of an expert on domestic politics, I thought John Kerry did a better job debating them than did George Bush.

So, here's my quick rundown on the debate:

1. Kerry really bashed Bush on the assault weapons question. Prosecutors and police Departments are on his side (mostly) and this issue resonates with many swing voters. That's why Clinton pushed it, right?

2. I still wish Kerry had answered Bush's claim that 3/4 of al Qaeda leaders have been arrested or killed.

3. Kerry completely deflated the administration's claims about the new jobs created in the past year or so. In Arizona, Kerry noted, these jobs pay nearly $13,700 less and all Americans face cut benefits (fewer and fewer provide health care). Plus, many costs of living, like gasoline and health care, are increasing rapidly.

4. Bush told some boldfaced lies in this debate and they'll be easily checked. Kerry quoted Bush correctly on Osama bin Laden, and the President said Kerry exaggerated?

5. The Tony Soprano line was funny -- and resonated with Kitty Kelley readers! It was Kerry's Dred Scott moment -- red meat for the base that the other side's masses don't recognize!

6. The Mitch McConnell minimum wage proposal is lower than the one proposed by Ted Kennedy and other Democrats. Plus, Bush never advocated an increase. It's just like the assault weapons issue -- lack of presidential leadership kept a bad status quo in place.

7. Kerry was very good on the draft question, though he still doesn't say how he'll obtain the 2 new divisions. Bush tried to turn this into a "global test" question -- and Kerry passed it.

Second Presidential Debate

I'm on the road, but here are my reactions to the latest presidential debate:

1. I cannot believe the President of the US said this:

I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons

Does this mean George W. Bush wanted Saddam Hussein to have these weapons?

2. Apparently, the President fundamentally misunderstood the UN sanctions:

Remember the last debate, my opponent said that America must pass a global test before we use force to protect ourselves. That's the kind of mind-set that says sanctions were working. That's the kind of mind-set that says let's keep it at the United Nations and hope things go well.

Saddam Hussein was a threat because he could have given weapons of mass destruction to terrorist enemies. Sanctions were not working...

Why did Bush think sanctions were failing? Ah, because "the United Nations was not effective at removing Saddam Hussein."

How many of the UN Resolutions required this? Hint, it's a very small number.

To his credit, John Kerry quick pointed out that the UN aim was to disarm Hussein, not remove him from power. And Kerry noted that the disarmament mission worked.

3. This is related to #2: the President didn't pay attention to months of UN/IAEA inspections:

"we didn't find out he didn't have weapons until we got there."

I guess Bush missed ElBaradei's conclusion from March 2003, days before the war:

"After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq."

I realize that I quote this passage frequently, but it would be great to hear Kerry and/or the media note it.

4. Finally, I also wish Kerry had answered this Bush claim:

Of course, we're going to find Osama bin Laden. We've already got 75 percent of his people

Experts generally believe that al Qaeda has developed new leaders and recruited many more terrorists. The leader of Egypt, Hosni Mubarek, famously predicted last year that the Iraq war could produce "100 bin Ladens." The British Ambassador to Italy, Sir Ivor Roberts, said recently that "Bush is al Qaeda's best recruiting sergeant."

Who will help Kerry fix Bush's mistake?

John Kerry claims that he can rebuild America's alliances to help with the "hard work" needed in Iraq. Remember what Kerry said in the debate?

I believe America is safest and strongest when we are leading the world and when we are leading strong alliances.

I'll never give a veto to any country over our security, but I also know how to lead those alliances. This President has left them in shatters across the globe. And we're now 90 percent of the casualties in Iraq, and 90 percent of the costs. I think that's wrong, and I think we can do better...

I know I can do a better job in Iraq, where I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies, something this President has not yet achieved, not yet been able to do to bring people to the table.

The President countered by arguing that allies will not follow Kerry -- because he's sending such a mixed message about Iraq. The US cannot gain more allies unless it signals to the world that it is on the bright and shining path in Iraq:

...[Senator Kerry] says the cornerstone of his plan to succeed in Iraq is to call upon nations to serve. So what's the message going to be? Please join us in Iraq for a grand diversion? Join us for a war that is a wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time?

I know how these people think. I deal with them all the time. I sit down with the world leaders frequently and talk to them on the phone frequently -- they're not going to follow somebody who says this is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The past two days, interesting news reports from Germany and France suggest that both these states may well be willing to provide more assistance in Iraq -- even though they think President Bush has fought the wrong war in the wrong way. Both states argue that the situation in Iraq is precarious and that there could be a common interest in preventing Iraq from becoming a failed state.

This line of analysis completely undercuts Bush's position and provides support to Kerry's. In short, perhaps Germany and France can be rather easily convinced to help fix Bush's mess. Note, however, that both states currently maintain that they will not send troops to Iraq.

Let me begin with the Germans. August Hanning, who heads Germany's Federal Intelligence Service today offered an interesting analysis of the situation in Iraq. His speech at a terror conference (and the subsequent news conference) was reported by ABCNEWS.com:

Hanning also warned that violence in Iraq risks plunging the country into the chaos of a disintegrating "failed state" resembling terrorist havens like pre-Sept. 11 Afghanistan....

A breakdown in Iraq would destabilize the Middle East, boost Islamic terrorism worldwide and might allow terrorists to put scientists involved in Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to work for them, the intelligence chief added.

Extending security across Iraq, with its diverse ethnic and religious groups, is "a tough task that will still claim many victims," he said.

"The outlook is dark if this task is not mastered," Hanning said in a speech at a terrorism conference. "In this case a trend like in Afghanistan or Lebanon in the past is a very likely scenario."

Stoked by radical Islamic views inspired by bin Laden, terrorist attacks and military action by U.S.-led troops are pushing Iraq toward "a crossroads" that could end with peaceful reconstruction or chaos, he said.

Setting Iraq firmly on the path to security and democracy "is by no means ensured because the way there is still very rocky," Hanning said.

Hanning suggested that Western nations are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of young disaffected Arabs.

"I detect a still growing, generally anti-Western mood in the Muslim countries," he said.

Now, look at what Hanning says about the solution to this:

Hanning said all countries now have a stake in the country's future because Islamic radicalism posed a global threat.

"That is why all of us have a common interest, whether we take part in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq or not," he said. "This country must be stabilized."

Doesn't that sound like someone hinting that Germany might be brought into the coalition?

The latest news about France isn't quite the same, but is interesting nonetheless and potentially suggestive of a willingness to cooperate about Iraq in 2005. This is from the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, yesterday:

French officials were prepared to provide as many as 15,000 troops for an invasion of Iraq before relations soured between the Bush administration and the French government over the timing of an attack, according to a new book published in France this week.

The book, "Chirac Contre Bush: L'Autre Guerre" ("Chirac vs. Bush: The Other War"), reports that a French general, Jean Patrick Gaviard, visited the Pentagon to meet with Central Command staff on Dec. 16, 2002 -- three months before the war began -- to discuss a French contribution of 10,000 to 15,000 troops and to negotiate landing and docking rights for French jets and ships.

The book, by two French journalists, claims that Chirac was willing to send troops if Saddam Hussein had blocked UN weapons inspectors. According to Kessler's account of the book, "French President Jacques Chirac decided that the Americans were pushing too fast to short-circuit inspections by U.N. weapons inspectors."

The book apparently describes an intense personal hostility between Bush and Chirac that sets the tone for US-French foreign policy.

What about the future? Do the French provide the same diagnosis as Kerry and the Germans? They do. This was from the French Embassy in the US last month:

"Yes, we had a real divergence of opinion," Jean-David Levitte told about 150 people at the World Affairs Council of Greater Richmond. But now, "let's work together to rebuild Iraq," he said.

The two countries want to see the international community stand united on the challenges of Iraqi reconstruction.
"The mood in Europe is we have to make Iraq a success story," Levitte told the group, which met at the Omni Hotel Richmond.

Levitte said French President Jacques Chirac believes that "what is at stake in Iraq is huge" - the future of the Middle East.

Failure to build a stable Iraq would mean the further spread of Islamic terrorism, Levitte said....

Though Saddam Hussein was a bloody dictator, Levitte said, in France's view he posed no imminent threat to western interests.

"Now after the war, you have terrorists in Iraq," and the U.S. military occupation of that country could trigger greater resentment among Iraqis, Levitte said....

"Our dream is to see a moderate, democratic regime in charge," he said. "It will not be a French democracy. It will not be an American democracy. It will be an Iraqi democracy.

"However, "for the time being, it is a real nightmare," Levitte said.

"It's going downhill. That's where we have to join forces."

It's almost entirely consistent with the Kerry view of the situation.

Would a new President be able to mend that relationship and encourage French help? It seems a lot more likely that Kerry could attain French cooperation than could Bush, that's for sure.

Republicans for Kerry

As my regular readers know, I have blogged often about former (or current) Republican public officials who have either blasted the Bush administration or embraced John Kerry's political campaign.

Let me add 3 other names to the list.

As Senator Kerry himself mentioned in the first debate, John Eisenhower, the son of the former president, has strongly endorsed the 2004 Democratic challenger. Eisenhower had been a registered Republican for 50 years, but he wrote a powerful op-ed in the Manchester (NH) Union-Leader"

With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.

Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.

Eisenhower expressed dismay about the loss of privacy and individual liberties, the budget deficit, and the distributive effects of the President's tax cuts.

It's a thorough indictment and complete repudiation of today's Republicans.

Next, consider Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. He's anti-Bush, but will not vote Kerry either:

[Chafee] has opposed Mr. Bush on everything from tax cuts to gay marriage and the war in Iraq. Now, this life-long Republican has concluded that he cannot cast his ballot for the leader of his party.

"I'll vote Republican," he said, explaining that he would choose a write-in candidate, perhaps George Bush the elder, as a symbolic act of protest.

This is perhap the equivalent of the British "no confidence" vote. Still, the lack of confidence says a great deal and I would not be surprised to see Chafee join Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords and become an Independent in 2005, depending upon how the 2004 election goes for the Democrats in the Senate. Jeffords is apparently talking to Chafee.

The third name to note is Rita Hauser, who served in the Bush adminstration as a political appointee in the area of national security! This is from the Washington Post, October 3, 2004:

Kerry does have some surprising names among his GOP endorsements. They include Rita E. Hauser. She is not exactly a household name, but is certainly known in foreign policy circles. She serves as vice chairman of the prestigious President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, appointed by none other than George W. Bush in December 2001.

Via google, I learned that there are multiple websites authored by Republicans for Kerry. The Kerry campaign has its own page too. Clyde Prestowitz worked for the Dean campaign. Owsley Brown (of Brown-Forman) is an influential member of my community.

The post-debate spin

President George W. Bush on the campaign trail yesterday, October 1:

Let me say one other thing, one more thing I want to share with you about last night's debate. Perhaps it was the most disturbing aspect of the debate. Senator Kerry said that America has to pass some sort of global test --

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: -- before we can use our troops to defend ourselves. Think about that. He wants our national security decisions subject to the approval of a foreign government.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, I'll continue to work with our allies. I'll work with the international community. But I will never submit America's national security to an international test. (Applause.) The President's job is not to take an international poll. The President's job is to defend the United States of America.

Did Kerry actually say that foreign governments would have to approve US national security decisions?

No, of course not.

Here's Senator John Kerry in Thursday's debate:

The President always has the right and always has had the right for preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War, and it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control. No President, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you've got to do in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test, where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

Ah, so the global test is about political legitimacy. The domestic population has to understand the rationale, and that needs to be something can be proved to the world.

In other words, the President should only go to war if the action can and will be viewed widely as appropriate.

Gee, does the President disagree with that? Let's look at the Bush White House's September 2002 National Security Strategy document:

The United States will not use force in all cases to preempt emerging threats, nor should nations use preemption as a pretext for aggression. Yet in an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather. We will always proceed deliberately, weighing the consequences of our actions. To support preemptive options, we will:

• build better, more integrated intelligence capabilities to provide timely, accurate information on threats, wherever they may emerge;
• coordinate closely with allies to form a common assessment of the most dangerous threats; and
• continue to transform our military forces to ensure our ability to conduct rapid and precise operations to achieve decisive results.

The purpose of our actions will always be to eliminate a specific threat to the United States or our allies and friends. The reasons for our actions will be clear, the force measured, and the cause just.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in October 2002 explained the importance of the caveats to the NSS:

But this approach must be treated with great caution. The number of cases in which it might be justified will always be small. It does not give a green light -- to the United States or any other nation -- to act first without exhausting other means, including diplomacy. Preemptive action does not come at the beginning of a long chain of effort. The threat must be very grave. And the risks of waiting must far outweigh the risks of action.

So, basically, the Bush White House claims to have essentially the same standard Kerry mentioned Thursday night. They've clearly said that preemption must be coordinated with allies so that there's a common understanding of the threat -- and that it should only be employed as a last resort. Diplomacy [hmmmm, wonder if that includes talking to US allies?] must first fail.

According to Kerry, of course, the White House failed to pass the "global test" in advance of the Iraq war. And that was pretty obvious at the time, wasn't it?

Here's some polling data from US allies in the Iraq war, from a March 2003 Pew Survey. Note that neither the "willing" or "unwilling" populations were enthused about war:



Numerous governments opposed the war, including most prominently, France, Germany, Russia, China, and India. Neither Turkey nor Saudi Arabia cooperated.

Gallup-International had an extensive poll in January 2003 as well.

The population [30,000 polled] in 41 countries think military action is likely to be launched against Iraq in the next few months. But half of this population is not in favour of military action under any circumstances....In general, a war against Iraq declared unilaterally by the US and its allies does not receive much public support. Only the Americans seem to be mildly interested in this approach to events (33%).

So Iraq failed the White House's own "global test." Bush is not only twisting Kerry's words from Thursday, but he's also not telling the truth about his own administration's stated views of preemptive war.

Debate analysis

Bush in the September 30 debate:

Saddam Hussein had no intention of disarming. Why should he? He had 16 other resolutions and nothing took place. As a matter of fact, my opponent talks about inspectors. The facts are that he was systematically deceiving the inspectors.

No intention of disarming? Nothing took place?

Look, Saddam Hussein simply wasn't armed -- at least not with weapons of mass destruction! How could the UN further disarm someone without arms?

Likewise, how could the inspectors have been deceived if there were no weapons of mass destruction? He was disarmed. Period.

To quote David Kay, the President's hand-picked hawkish head of the Iraq Survey Group, "we were all wrong." Kay admitted that he expected to find WMD and simply did not. Lately, Kay says the President may be "delusional" for talking about the Iraqi WMD as if they existed.

Too bad Kerry didn't emphasize the point in this way. They may both have thought Saddah had WMD in October 2002, but Kerry was skeptical about the invasion by March 2003, and now recognizes the lack of WMD.

Personally, had I been debating, I would have pointed out that the major difference between Kerry's war vote and the President's decision to start fighting: The UN and IAEA had just reported that Iraq was actively cooperating. Indeed, the IAEA had conducted more than 200 instrusive inspections at over 140 sites and "found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq." The inspectors conducted interviews, reviewed newly provided documents, studied aluminum tubes and magnets, tested soil, air and water samples, etc.

Again, they "found no evidence or plausible indicaction of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq."

That's a pretty powerful statement, and the President himself acknowledged the ongoing importance of the IAEA in Iran. Has the administration, er, "flip flopped" on the way it views the IAEA...precisely because it was right about Iraq?

As anyone who reads this blog can guess, I also wish Kerry had taken on the "mixed messages" passage earlier and more directly, but otherwise I thought his performance was very good.

It was good to see Kerry take the gloves off and point out that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. It was sad to see the President of the United States do such a poor job.

It's time for Bush to lose his job.


Update: A slightly revised version of this post appears as an article on KentuckyDems.com.

Take the Gloves Off

As I noted a few days ago, the President keeps emphasizing that John Kerry "would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today." In fact, Bush has repeated this charge in various swing states: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Maine.

In Ohio, the President ramped the charges up even more:

Later this week, I'm going to have an opportunity to debate my opponent. (Applause.) It's been a little tough to prepare for the debates because he keeps changing his positions. (Laughter and applause.) Especially on the war. I mean, after all, he voted for the use of force, but against funding the troops. He said that we're not spending enough money to reconstruct Iraq, yet now says we're spending too much. He said it was the right decision to go into Iraq, yet now he calls it the wrong war.

AUDIENCE: Flip-flop! Flip-flop! Flip-flop!

THE PRESIDENT: I think he can spend 90 minutes debating himself.

As I've been saying for weeks, Kerry has to undercut Bush's position -- but I don't think Mr. Consistency can do this easily.

So, I think Kerry should come out firing in the debates. He needs to "take the gloves off." He should "go to the mattresses." Pick your favorite of these clichés.

Mr. President, in March 2003, as I clearly said at the time, I was not ready to send American soldiers to war in Iraq. Instead, I would have let the international weapons inspections finish their job. We would have learned then that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

So, yes, it is possible that Saddam Hussein might still be in power today. But he would be a defanged dictator, ruling a country that posed no significant threat to the security of the United States of America.

Rather than sending 1000 young American men and women to die in Iraq and pulling special forces out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, my administration would have relentlessly pursued public enemy #1, Osama bin Laden. I find it incredible that in March 2002 you claimed truly "not [to be] that concerned about him." Today, three years after 9/11, you virtually never talk about the man you once wanted "dead or alive," but you boast daily about toppling Saddam Hussein as if you personally slew Goliath.

Rather than wasting two or three hundred billion tax dollars on a war in Iraq that has left us less secure, my administration would have focused US resources on real threats to American security, like the dictator in North Korea who continues to rule and the ayatollahs who continue to govern Iran. You once said these states were part of an "axis of evil," but your administration has done almost nothing while these states relentlessly pursued nuclear capabilities.

The plain truth is that America cannot use force to topple every two-bit dictator in the world today. We must carefully and accurately access the most important threats and act on those. This administration has failed its most important job.

That's my Kerry debate advice.


Updates: A slightly different version of this post appears at KentuckyDems.com. Check out their site, one of my former students was a co-founder.

Also, the Iraq war has "only" cost about $140 billion to-date, but virtually everyone agrees the US will be there for another year or two, at about $4 billion per month. Some perfectly reasonable estimates suggest costs upwards of $350 billion from March 2003 through December 2005.

Did Kerry Vote for War or Leverage?

Commenter David Nieporent (of Jumping to Conclusions) was up late last night, leaving two comments (here and here) about my post on Kerry's consistent position vis-a-vis Iraq.

David does not really challenge the thrust of my argument. Instead, he goes after "Kerry's claim that he was merely voting for the resolution to give Bush leverage."

1) "It's complete and utter" BS. "Not one person on the planet viewed that congressional vote as anything other than a declaration of war."

Really? Then I guess you are saying President Bush was lying when he repeatedly claimed not to have made up his mind about whether force would be necessary. I've gone through his speeches from August 2002 through March 2003. He said it repeatedly. Indeed, as I've blogged before, Bush spent fall 2002 calling for debate and discussion, not war.

Here's Rumsfeld on August 7:

I would say that we're at a relatively early stage in the dialogue, the international dialogue and discussion and debate on this issue, and I think it merits thoughtful comment rather than trying to particularize it with a series of hypothetical compound questions, if there is such a thing

Bush said this, in fact, as recently as March 6, 2003:

"I've not made up our (sic) mind about military action. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully. Hopefully, that as a result of the pressure that we have placed -- and others have placed -- that Saddam will disarm and/or leave the country."

Bob Woodward claimed in his last book that Bush made up his mind in January 2003, but Condoleezza Rice denies even that:

She said she was with Mr. Bush in Crawford, Tex., in January 2003 when he expressed his frustration with how weapons inspections were proceeding in Iraq. "He said, `Now, I think we probably are going to have to go to war, we're going to have to go to war,' " Ms. Rice recalled today on the CBS News program "Face the Nation." "It was not a decision to go to war. That decision he made in March when he finally decided to do that."

And John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, who was all over mass media in fall 2002, said this on Jim Lehrer's "Newshour" on November 25, 2002 (after the congressional resolution):

I think that two things have happened to the Bush administration over the past few months. One is, I think they've become more aware of the down-side risks of attacking Iraq. And secondly, I think they are aware that there is a lot of opposition in this country to a war against Iraq. And as a result, the Bush administration appears to be willing to let the U.N. inspections regime work, and then maybe declare victory and avoid a war.

War was not certain when Congress voted. It was authorized, but with the caveat the the US should pursue diplomacy through the UN first.

2) "...except one person, and if he was right, then Kerry is wrong in a different way. That person was Robert Byrd, who repeatedly denounced the vote. Congress does not have the constitutional authority to delegate to the president the choice as to whether to go to war. Kerry had no business making such a vote, if that was really his motive."

As you undoubtedly know, Congress has not declared any war since December 1941. Your indictment of Kerry here applies to every member of Congress who has voted to authorize any use of force for decades. That would be a lot of members, including virtually every current Republican who served in 2001 or 2002.

In other words, it is hardly a compelling argument, and one the courts have not resolved since the passage of the War Powers Resolution in 1973. This case was different from most prior instances because Bush asked for the authority even as he was claiming that he might not have to use it. He said the leverage would be useful to attain US security goals. On November 8, Bush said this:

"If we're to avert war, all nations must continue to pressure Saddam Hussein to accept this [UN] resolution and to comply with his obligations."

Again, was Bush lying about the chances to avoid war? Was he lying about the use of leverage? Maybe he was just playing partisan politics in the 2002 midterm elections, hoping to trap Democrats in a Catch-22? I report, you decide.

3) "If Kerry felt that authorizing force was necessary to give leverage to the president, then how does that explain his vote in 1990, when he voted AGAINST giving President Bush authority in Iraq? Was he trying to sabotage Bush's diplomatic efforts then?"

Well, the context was completely different. Look at the chronology. The 1991 congressional vote was on January 12, 1991, just four days before war. Congress was being asked to support the use of force after the diplomacy was finished. Bush had already been pressuring Iraq and building an international coalition. Indeed, the UN had already given Hussein a deadline of January 15.

In 2002, the congressional debate began in September and the Senate vote was on October 11. That vote was genuinely before the UN diplomacy. Resolution 1441 passed 15-0 on November 8 and even the White House claimed all along that the congressional vote would help secure the necessary diplomacy.

The leverage of force was already apparent in the nearly half million American troops deployed (plus around a quarter of a million international troops). Kerry was among those arguing to give other means (including sanctions) more time to work. Look at his Senate speech on January 12, 1991 (which can be found via a search here), he said there was no hurry:

"If we go to war in the next few days, it will not be because our immediate vital interests are so threatened and we have no other choice. It is not because of nuclear, chemical, biological weapons when, after all, Saddam Hussein had all those abilities or was working toward them for years--even while we armed him and refused to hold him accountable for using some of them. It will be because we set an artificial deadline."

As George H.W. Bush's neocon foes argued at the time, the war did not topple Saddam Hussein, did not disarm or destroy his WMD, and did not save the thousands of Iraqis who were inspired to rebel by Bush's actions (comments and leaflets) -- but were killed by the regime.

Nieporent continues:

"And Kerry's full of [expletive deleted}...in another way. Bush and Dean were correct; Kerry is lying or dumb. (I assume the former.) The choice was "between force without diplomacy and diplomacy without force." The US could have chosen not to invade; it could not have chosen "more diplomacy."

If Kerry thinks we shouldn't have invaded, fine. But to pretend that there was any chance of getting more support is dishonest. It may not be "flip flopping" in the sense of changing his position, but it's "flip flopping" in the sense of trying to have it both ways, to pretend to be both a war opponent and supporter.

Bush could have sung La Marseillaise while wearing a beret, and it wouldn't have swayed France. Unless there were Iraqi troops marching down the Champs-Elysees, Chirac wasn't going to support this thing. Kerry knows that; he's hoping swing voters who supported the war don't.

Colorful, but wrong.

First, the inspections could have continued until they met serious opposition from Iraq and that would have constituted ongoing diplomacy. Why was that impossible? Iraq was not impeding them. This is what France and Germany clearly favored. Germany might never have agreed to go to war if Iraq started blocking inspections, but they had only a 2-year term on the Security Council. France had the veto.

And there was a chance to draft and pass a second resolution with French support. The Financial Times had a very good multi-part series about the buildup to war (in May 2003). They found that more effort might have brought the French on board for war. Here's some reporting from one of the articles in the series:

Looking back, French and British officials acknowledge a further irony. In the last few days before the resolution was withdrawn, Mr Blair was deeply concerned that France might in the end agree to a plan that would impose a 30-day deadline for Iraq to comply with some tough benchmarks. British officials believe that, at that late stage, Mr Blair would have been forced to accept the proposal. The Americans, they suspect, would have opposed it, splintering the small and fragile coalition. For their part, the French feared that they might have to accept an equally difficult outcome. If the British proposed a tough and serious deadline - of about 30 days - they might well have signed on.

Chile was proposing 30 additional days of inspections and France publicly supported it.

Without the rush to war, the coalition could have been larger and stronger. This would have meant more legitimacy and greater sharing of burdens if war had been necessary.

Of course, the counterfactual is difficult to prove because we don't know what Iraq would have done in those 30 days. If they continued to cooperate, obviously, no weapons would have been found. What then? Probabliy more inspections. At what point would trigger-happy Bush have gone to war? The pretext was collapsing.

Kerry: March 18, 2003

Project Vote Smart has a huge inventory of speeches and statements by John Kerry (and other major political figures).

In just a minute, I found this "Statement of Senator John Kerry Regarding President Bush's Announcement on Iraq" dated March 18, 2003, the day before the President started the war against Iraq (but after the 48 hour ultimatum). Does this sound familiar?

...the Administration's handling of the run up to war with Iraq could not possibly have been more inept or self-defeating. President Bush has clumsily and arrogantly squandered the post 9/11 support and goodwill of the entire civilized world in a manner that will make the jobs ahead of us -- both the military defeat and the rebuilding of Iraq -- decidedly more expensive in every sense of that word.

The Administration's indifference to diplomacy and the manner in which it has treated friend and foe alike over the past several months have left this country with vastly reduced influence throughout the world, made impossible the assembly of a broad, multinational effort against Saddam Hussein, and dramatically increased the costs of fulfilling our legitimate security obligations at home and around the world.

While Kerry next offers some bland words of support to the President for attempting to protect America's security in the post-9/11 world, he could not have been clearer about what he would have done differently:

My strong personal preference would have been for the Administration -- like the Administration of George Bush, Sr. -- to have given diplomacy more time, more commitment, a real chance of success. In my estimation, giving the world thirty additional days for additional real multilateral coalition building -- a real summit, not a five hour flyby with most of the world's powers excluded -- would have been prudent and no impediment to our military situation, an assessment with which our top military brass apparently agree. Unfortunately, that is an option that has been disregarded by President Bush.

In the colloquial, we are where we are. It will take years to repair the needless damage done by this Administration, damage to our international standing and moral leadership, to traditional and time-tested alliances, to our relations with the Arab world, ultimately to ourselves.

It's crystal clear.

Really, it is.

Bush went to war; Kerry would have waited and worked harder on diplomacy.

Then what?

Here's Kerry and Veep choice John Edwards on "60 Minutes," in July. They were being badgered by Leslie Stahl about their votes to support the October 2002 Iraq war resolution:

John Kerry: I think I answered your question. I think the way he [Bush] went to war was a mistake.

John Edwards: And I know you want to make this black and white, but the difference is... I'm going to finish this. The difference is, if John Kerry were president of the United States, we would never be in this place. He would never have done what George bush did. He would have done the hard work to build the alliances and the support system. We would have known... let me finish.

Stahl: Why build an alliance if they didn't have weapons of mass destruction?

John Edwards: We would have found out. That's the point.

It is really pretty simple.

I'm going to keep repeating this point every so often until someone with a large microphone joins me.

I imagined Edwards will help clarify the entire thing when confronting Cheney:

Stahl: You just recently said, if you get elected, no young Americans will go to war needlessly.

John Edwards: That's true.

Stahl: That's a direct quote from you.

John Edwards: Yes, ma'am.

Stahl: It implies that president Bush sent young men and women to war needlessly.

John Edwards: Because he didn't do the things that should have been done before taking this country to war. This is not A... I mean, we've now said it ten times. This is not a complicated thing.

It really isn't complicated.

John Kerry: Mr. Consistency?

President Bush charged again today that John Kerry is a flip flopper who is increasingly sounding like anti-war former candidate Howard Dean. Bush and the Republicans are implicitly arguing that Kerry is a soul-less, unprincipled politician who blows with the winds of expediency.

Reciting a statement Kerry made at Drake University in Iowa in December, when he was battling Howard Dean, who opposed the Iraq war, Bush quoted Kerry as saying that "those who believe we are not safer with [Saddam Hussein's] capture don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president."

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Bush said, as the audience roared.

Yawn.

The trouble is that this can be fact-checked. This is what John Kerry actually said at Drake University on December 16, 2003:

I believed then - and I believe now - authorizing force was the only way to get inspectors in, and the only way ultimately to enforce Saddam Hussein's compliance with the mandate he had agreed to, knowing that as a last resort war could become the ultimate weapons inspections enforcement mechanism.

And I also believe that those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe we are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be President - or the credibility to be elected President.

A year and a half ago, as this campaign was starting, I argued that for Democrats to win America's votes we must first convince the voters that we will keep America safe.

I believed then and I believe now that Americans deserve better than a false choice between force without diplomacy and diplomacy without force.

Kerry has been saying these exact same things since the very beginning of the Iraq discussion. I've previously quoted at length from Kerry's s speech justifying his Iraq vote in the Senate.

Want more?

Here's Kerry in an op-ed in the New York Times, September 6, 2002:

It may well be that the United States will go to war with Iraq. But if so, it should be because we have to -- not because we want to....

Regime change in Iraq is a worthy goal. But regime change by itself is not a justification for going to war. Absent a Qaeda connection, overthrowing Saddam Hussein -- the ultimate weapons-inspection enforcement mechanism -- should be the last step, not the first. Those who think that the inspection process is merely a waste of time should be reminded that legitimacy in the conduct of war, among our people and our allies, is not a waste, but an essential foundation of success.

If we are to put American lives at risk in a foreign war, President Bush must be able to say to this nation that we had no choice, that this was the only way we could eliminate a threat we could not afford to tolerate.

...knowing ahead of time that our military intervention will remove him from power, and that we will then inherit all or much of the burden for building a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, is all the more reason to insist on a process that invites support from the region and from our allies. We will need that support for the far tougher mission of ensuring a future democratic government after the war.

...until we have properly laid the groundwork and proved to our fellow citizens and our allies that we really have no other choice, we are not yet at the moment of unilateral decision-making in going to war against Iraq.

Gosh, these are nearly identical arguments to the ones Kerry presented in July when he accepted the Democratic nomination! If only the President had been as consistent over the same 21 month period!

Here's Kerry at the Democratic Debate in New Hampshire, January 22, 2004:

there was a right way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable and there was a wrong way.

The right way was what the president promised, to go to the United Nations, to respect the building of an international coalition in truth, to exhaust the remedies of inspections and literally to only go to war as a last result.

Now, I've fought all my life for peace. I fought against the war in Vietnam when I came home. I fought against Ronald Reagan's illegal war in Central America. I fought with John McCain to make peace in Vietnam. I fought to hold the Khmer Rouge accountable in Cambodia. And on and on.

If anybody in New Hampshire believes that John Kerry would have in fact gone to war the way George Bush did, they shouldn't vote for me. But if they know that I would have stood up and exhausted the remedies and done what was necessary to hold them accountable but lived up to the values and principles of our country, then I'm the person to be president who actually can make America more secure without breaching relationships across this planet.

This is basically the exact same message he continues to use.

In the debate, in fact, Kerry reminded everyone that he'd been saying the exact same thing since March 2003:

[Use force] As a last resort was the promise of a president. And I wrote in the New York Times at that time, I said the United States of America should never go to war because it wants to. It should only go to war because it has to. And that means building legitimacy and consent of the America people, Brit [Hume, Fox moderator].

Look, I know there is a test as a commander in chief as to when you send young Americans off to war, because I know what happens when you lose that consent.

And you got to be able to look in the eyes of a family and say you exhausted every possibility and you only sent their son or daughter to die because you had no other choice.

I believe George Bush failed that test in Iraq. I said so at the time, and that's what I believe happened.

There is the right way to do it and wrong way to do it. He chose the wrong way. And he's run the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country.

Can't someone in the media do a little fact checking instead of just repeating what the President claims?

Just for the sake of consistency, here's Kerry on Monday, September 21, 2004...nearly two full years after the op-ed I quoted above:

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war.

The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure....

Two years ago, Congress was right to give the President the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable.

This president - any President - would have needed the threat of force to act effectively. This president misused that authority...

The president rushed to war without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work.

He went without a broad and deep coalition of allies.

He acted without making sure our troops had enough body armour.

And he plunged ahead without understanding or preparing for the consequences of the post-war. None of which I would have done.

Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious?

Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq?

My answer is no, because a commander-in-chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe...

It's exactly the same critique he's offered since the Bush administration went to war, which was grounded in his pre-war analysis of the situation.

John Kerry: Mr. Consistency.

The Republicans seem to believe they can win this election through obfuscation and lies about Kerry's position.

However, Kerry has clearly decided to fight back and will have to get his message across. And part of that message has to include highlighting this same history I've posted here.

The entire speech from Monday is worth reading, by the way, though it is basically a summary of key points raised in this blog over the past year.

Update: Robert Kagan and William Kristol attempt to make Kerry look like a flip flopper in The Weekly Standard of September 20. One of their quotes is the same one Bush used Monday.

I don't have time to do all the fact-checking, but William Saletan already covered some of this ground on August 12, in Slate.