He voted for the power of negotiation...this week

The New York Times plants the seeds of a fallacy:

We're sure Mr. Kerry is right in claiming that the White House, in its negotiations with the Senate, played down the possibility that the vote would lead to actual conflict. That does not mean the public will be satisfied with an explanation that he authorized an invasion under the presumption it would not happen. After nearly two years of working with the Bush administration, Congress had a very good idea of how Mr. Bush viewed the world, what advisers he listened to, and what he was likely to do with American troops if Congress gave him a broad authorization to go to war. It was for precisely that reason that some senators, led by Joseph Biden and Richard Lugar, struggled unsuccessfully to narrow down the resolution. Senator Biden says Senator Kerry worked with him behind the scenes.

Yeah, Kerry voted to give the president the authority to go to war so that war would be avoided.

Uh huh.

The Senate had no illusions about the vote it was casting. There was little hope that Iraq was going to cower before the might of our diplomats. On the contrary, there was an understanding that any agreement signed by Saddam Hussein wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Public opinion had been gauged and it was generally pro-war. The UN believed Saddam was in violation, and it had given him yet another toothless warning.

John Kerry stuck his finger in the air, checked the wind, and he voted for war because he believed the voters wouldn't take him seriously if he didn't (and he was right).

Now he says he just wanted to improve our bargaining position (and the Times is subtly helping him out). But he would have voted to go to war anyway, even if he'd known Saddam had no WMD, or so he says. This week. But he would've done it differently: the vast armies of France (who have been kicked around the planet for a century) would have done it for us, if it was necessary, unless he determined at some later point that the war was wrong.

Complete bullshit. This guy is a mess.

- posted by total @ 8/17/2004 04:35:00 AM .