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October
25, 2002 10:35 a.m.
Waffling
on War
John
Kerry’s split personality.
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ohn Kerry,
the junior senator from Massachusetts and a candidate for president in
2004, is renowned for his foreign-policy expertise — at least in
certain circles. "[N]o Democrat has offered a more coherent criticism
of the Bush national security policies," wrote Al Hunt in the Wall
Street Journal yesterday. So much the worse for the Democrats, one
might conclude. Kerry spent the run-up to the Iraq vote taking shots at
President Bush from right and left before finally voting with him. Hunt
quotes Kerry remarking of Bush's national-security team: "These guys
are fakers."
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On the subject of
fakers, Kerry surely knows whereof he speaks. Consider his record on the
first Gulf War, which he voted against. In early January 1991, constituent
Walter Carter sent Kerry a letter urging him to back the war. He received
two responses. A January 22 letter from the senator, addressed to Carter
as though he were an opponent of the war, indicated that Kerry favored
sanctions and opposed war. A January 31 letter said, "From the outset
of the invasion [of Kuwait by Iraq], I have strongly and unequivocally
supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals
he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf."
Kerry aides at the
time said that a computer error was responsible for the screw-up. The
"unequivocal support" letter dated from the previous September,
when the Iraqi invasion and American deployment had just happened but
senators were not voting on war. Carter should have gotten yet a third
letter saying that Kerry had thought war inadvisable but supported the
troops. Kerry's press secretary explained that the senator's "position
has been 100 percent consistent on this issue." Maybe so, but it
sure sounds as though constituents were hearing different tunes from Kerry
depending on their own beliefs and the shifting political circumstances
of the moment.
In March 1991, our
modern Morgenthau said this about his opposition to the first Gulf war:
"If the president had told me that there would be only 100 casualties
and it would just take a week, I would have voted in favor of using military
force." Give him points for candor, anyway.
Hunt's larger point
about Kerry — that he's had a great year politically — also
seems dubious. Kerry gets credit for the clever ideological modulation
of his speech to the DLC this summer. A momentary quasi-endorsement of
school choice, with some conditions, a few years ago also stirred some
heads. But until Kerry has a Sister Souljah moment, and actually takes
on one of his party's interest groups head-on, he's going to be perceived
as a Massachusetts liberal. Which is fitting, since that's what he is.
Hunt says that such
perceptions will be trumped by Kerry's war heroism. (How well did that
work out for George McGovern?) His proof? A quote from someone who, presumably,
caught Kerry in Michigan as he stumped for gubernatorial candidate Jennifer
Granholm: "You might not like everything you hear from him. But he's
a stand-up guy. He served his country during a very unpopular war."
The speaker is Bob Denison, "a 34-year UAW veteran and now a state
legislative candidate." In other words, Hunt expects us to take a
fellow Democratic politician's word that Kerry's views won't be a problem.
If I were a Democrat seeking to field a strong candidate in '04, I'd need
a little more convincing.
DICK
GEPHARDT, THE INVESTOR'S FRIEND
"I have my own ideas for long-term tax reform. . ." — Dick
Gephardt, October 15, 2002
These are ominous
words, considering the speaker. The American Shareholders Association,
a division of Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, has issued a
press release reminding us what Gephardt considered "tax reform"
to mean in 1998, which is presumably what he's talking about in his quote.
Gephardt's plan was in keeping with liberal tax theory, which holds that
any failure to double tax savings and investment is a tax break —
a subsidy — from the government.
His plan eliminated
Roth IRAs and eliminated tax deductions for IRA contributions. It ended
the tax deduction for employers' contributions to 401(k) accounts. It
also hiked taxes on capital gains. People would, however, still be able
to rely on an unreformed Social Security for their retirements.
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