Counterpunch, August 11, 2004
Bush v. Kerry? Not Even a Dime's Worth of Difference By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Kerry goes from bad to worse. Last week he dropped Saddam's non-existent WMDs as a campaign issue. He did this huge favor to Bush via his (Kerry's) foreign affairs spokesman, the insufferable Jamie Rubin, formerly the top State Department flack in the Clinton years. Rubin told the Washington Post last weekend that knowing then what he knows today about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Kerry still would have voted to authorize the war and "in all probability" would have launched a military attack to oust Hussein by now if he were president. Up until the previous day Mr flip-flop O'Kerry had said he only "might" have still gone to war.
Then on Monday Kerry did some further clarifying in Arizona where he told the press he would not have changed his vote to authorize the war against Iraq, although he would have handled things "very differently" from President Bush. Kerry said the congressional resolution gave Bush "the right authority for the president to have." (Since Kerry voted for that resolution, what else could he say?)
But, Kerry went on, (as reported by CNN) "I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has."
After this blather, Kerry proclaimed that "There are four real questions that matter to Americans, and I hope you'll get the answers to those questions because the American people deserve them.
"My question to President Bush is why did he rush to war without a plan to win the peace? Why did he rush to war on faulty intelligence and not do the hard work [what "hard work"?] necessary to give America the truth? Why did he mislead America about how he would go to war? [What does this mean?] Why has he not brought other countries to the table in order to support American troops in the way that we deserve it and relieve a pressure from the American people?"
In other words, absolutely nothing separates Kerry from Bush's positions on Iraq except he claims he would have lied more efficiently and somehow wheedled the UN and NATO into giving support. This business about getting the Allies on board, you may recall, was Howard Dean's posture back in the spring.
So Bush, a lousy president but ludicrously over-demonized, is bracketed by a Democratic candidate, Al Gore, who was calling for immediate war on Saddam back in 1999, flanked by all the neo-Cons who subsequently flocked to Bush, and by Kerry who now says he holds exactly the same position, rationalized by the same neo-Cons.
If the war on Iraq bothers you, a vote for Kerry is a vote thrown away.
full: http://www.counterpunch.org/
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