More nuance from John Kerry:
COSTAS: If you had been elected president last November, by this point what would President John Kerry have done in Iraq?
KERRY: Well, I laid out — you know, I don’t want to get in — I mean, I think that’s not quite the way to go at it.
He still doesn’t get it, does he? He goes on to list a number of things he says should be done, but he can’t commit to saying he would have done it. Calling John Kerry wishy-washy was not unfair. It was one the only truly honest things that Republicans said in the 2004 campaign.
albedo
IMO, if the Dems had fielded someone who took a position and stood by it, whoever it was probably would have won. Bush was eminently defeatable. Kerry just turned people off.
NYCmoderate
I concur completely. I’m an independent leaning towards Democrats for the time being. When the Dem field was first shaping up, the two people I most didn’t want to be the nominee were Kerry and Lieberman. I registered as a Democrat specifically to vote against Kerry in the primary (tho by that time it made no difference, but I did it anyway).
Every time I hear talk about his potential run in ’08, a pain starts to build behind my eyes.
Jimmy Jazz
John: you’re right. When he talks, you can almost see Kerry’s beak sniffing the wind to see which way it’s blowing. I’m sorry he didn’t win, but I’m also sorry we (and when I say we I mean that hotbed of representative democracy Iowa) nominated him.
rilkefan
The other day Kerry suggested what Bush should say to the nation and you had a hissy-cow. Today he’s a little incoherent and you say he’s wishy-washy. Tomorrow Bush will read a telepromptered speech about as well as a 5th grader or answer questions at a news conference in irrelevant platitudes and the Kerry bashers will cheer.
Phaugh.
John Cole
Here is Kerry’s ‘speech:’ it is little more than calling Bush a fraud and telling him that what he needs to do is come forward, say he was wrong about everything, promise no permanent bases in Iraq, demand an ‘inclusive’ political process, and, oh yeah- that training of security forces should be put on a wartime footing.
Which is precisely what he can’t committ to saying he would have done had he been President.
The word, again, Rilke, is wishy-washy. it is not an unearned title.
rilkefan
Yes, John, but it’s the wrong word.
So Kerry’s plan for dealing with Iraq is leveling with the American people about the situation, owning up to mistakes as they occur, promising to the occupied people and to the skeptical world that we’re not planning on having a permanent ownership state there, and actually doing the one thing that’s possible given the Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld clusterf***s: training the Iraqi forces as if there’s a war going on which we’re not going to sustain ourselves indefinitely.
Ok, so that sounds pretty good to me, but what do you think Kerry should say? Remember that whatever you suggest is going to be critiqued by the Senate Republicans you posted about below as “the propaganda of U.S. enemies’.
Otto
You could see it in the primaries, with his squeemishness on coming out for or against the Iraq War. I believe he changed his position 3 or 4 times. Whichever way the wind blew. It drove me nuts. So when Kerry won the nomination it made me a bit sick. But i got over it for the general. And then was sick again when he lost.
foolishmortal
John: point taken, and granted.
However, if I may be allowed to quote fafblog:
“Well we agree to disagree”,; says me. “Like we do whenever we talk about Coke
The Disenfranchised Voter
“Calling John Kerry wishy-washy was not unfair. It was one the only truly honest things that Republicans said in the 2004 campaign.”
Agreed, but however, the Republicans didn’t call him wishy-washy. They called him a flip-flopper. John Kerry may have been vague about his position on Iraq but he had the same position throughout the campaign. Too bad he was wishy-washy though.
KC
Kerry lost the election and he needs to focus now on being a Senator. I’m pretty sure his fellow Senators feel the same way.
Kimmitt
The important thing is that he didn’t go hoarse during a speech. That’ll kill your career.
carot
Kerry is like the back seat driver yelling out criticism about your driving. Finally you pull up and ask them were would they go if they were driving and they don’t even know how to drive.
Otto
And Bush is like a drunk driver. Look at me Ma i can make stupid analogies!
eileen from OH
You can thank the stoopid primary system for the candidate choices. A caucus in Iowa (that looked and operated an awful lot like a combo swap meet/church supper) and a teeny tiny state (NH) that’s not only not a Dem stronghold but not representative of the diversity of the country, have a virtual lock on who gets the nod. Meanwhile, Ohio, the state everybody falls all over in the general, gets NO say in the choice because of its late (March) primary. So while the Dem candidates were running around spending time and money in states that wouldn’t matter in the general, Bush and Cheney were here so often they were passing buckeyes.
Not to knock IA or NH (great states, blah, blah, blah) or Kerry (good guy, great Senator, he wuz robbed, blah, blah, blah) but it seems to me kinda basic to find out who plays best in the states that actually determine the election. (And not just Ohio – PA, FL, MI. . .)
eileen from (you guessed it) OH
Mark Borok
Kerry was wishy-washy, but for the life of me I can’t think of a way he could have taken a position without alienating an important part of his voter base.
DecidedFenceSitter
Now here’s an idea that would never fly. But what if we had primaries 6 months before the November elections. Then from May till November we’d know who the two candidates are. It’d probably mean more than a year of election cycle, but then we would have any worry about which candidate took which tiny, but early voting state.
neil
And saying that someone can’t be president because they’re wishy-washy was the most vicious, harmful lie the Republicans told in the 2004 campaign.
bushkerry
“I know you are, but what am i?”
Sheesh.