Trying to address this monotonous and false accusation about mixed signals and flip-flopping…

Kerry said that it was "the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein," but that Bush should have made greater use of diplomacy to accomplish that. The quote Bush uses in his ads and speeches is from May 3, 2003, at the first debate among Democratic presidential contenders, barely three weeks after the fall of Baghdad. Kerry: "I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him."

Or see from Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s "Hardball" program Jan. 6, 2004:
Q: Do you think you belong to that category of candidates who more or less are unhappy with this war, the way it’s been fought, along with General Clark, along with Howard Dean and not necessarily in companionship politically on the issue of the war with people like Lieberman, Edwards and Gephardt? Are you one of the anti-war candidates?
Kerry: I am — Yes, in the sense that I don’t believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely. Do I think this president violated his promises to America? Yes, I do, Chris.
Q: Let me…
Kerry: Was there a way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable? You bet there was, and we should have done it right.
(Note: Hussein accountable for other things, not 9/11~!!!)

From Chris Matthews "Hardball," May 19:
Q: All this terrorism. If you were president, how would you stop it?
Kerry: "Well, it’s going to take some time to stop it, Chris, but we have an enormous amount of cooperation to build on other countries. I think the administration has not done enough of the hard work of diplomacy, reaching out to nations, building the kind of support network. I think they clearly have dropped the ball with respect to the first month in the after — winning the war. That winning of the war was brilliant and superb, and we all applaud our troops for doing what they did, but you’ve got to have the capacity to provide law and order on the streets and to provide the fundamental services, and I believe American troops will be safer and America will pay less money if we have a broader coalition involved in that, including the United Nations."

When Kerry called Iraq "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time" he was once again criticizing Bush for failing to get more international support before invading Iraq. He criticized Bush for what he called a "phony coalition" of allies:

Kerry (Sept 6, 2004): "You’ve got about 500 troops here, 500 troops there, and it’s American troops that are 90 percent of the combat casualties, and it’s American taxpayers that are paying 90 percent of the cost of the war . . . It’s the wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Earlier that same day at another campaign appearance he repeated pretty much what he’s said all along:

Kerry (Sept 6, 2004): "I would not have done just one thing differently than the president on Iraq, I would have done everything differently than the president on Iraq. I said this from the beginning of the debate to the walk up to the war. I said, ‘Mr. President, don’t rush to war, take the time to build a legitimate coalition and have a plan to win the peace."

This exchange was on Fox News Sunday, with host Chris Wallace:

Q: But isn’t it, in a realistic political sense going to be a much harder case to make to voters when you have that extraordinary mug shot of Saddam Hussein…looking like he’s been dragged into a police line-up?
Kerry: "Absolutely not, because I voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. I knew we had to hold him accountable. There’s never been a doubt about that. But I also know that if we had done this with a sufficient number of troops, if we had done this in a globalized way, if we had brought more people to the table, we might have caught Saddam Hussein sooner. We might have had less loss of life. We would be in a stronger position today with respect to what we’re doing. Look, again, I repeat, Chris, I have always said we may yet even find weapons of mass destruction. I don’t know the answer to that. We will still have to do the job of rebuilding Iraq and resolving the problem between Shias and Sunnis and Kurds. There are still difficult steps ahead of us. The question that Americans want to know is, what is the best way to proceed? Not what is the most lonely and single-track ideological way to proceed. I believe the best way to proceed is to bring other countries to the table, get some of our troops out of the target, begin to share the burden."

And for once and all, folks, stop doing the Pavlov dance – just because Bush talks about 9/11 and Iraq in the same breath doesn’t change the fact that Hussein didn’t do it.

While there may be some room to critize Kerry on his vote against the $87 billion, please do note that Kerry did vote for an alternative resolution that would have approved $87 billion in emergency funds for troops and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it was conditioned on repealing much of Bush’s tax cuts in order to pay for it, and it failed 57-42. He wanted fiscal responsibility – and Republicans, the new kind, seem to be against this. The vote was not about whether congress would spend the 87 billion – everybody knew the troops had to be funded – but about how we were going to pay for it.

According to Kerry’s blog, "This president made a huge miscalculation as to the cost of the war. He originally told us one figure and he got every penny of it. But he then came back and asked for 87 billion dollars more. Now that’s a lot of money so we tried to rearrange the budget in order to pay for it. The result was a morally and fiscally responsible bill that paid for the 87 Billion by rolling back a tax cut on the wealthiest 3% of Americans. I supported that bill. Unfortunately because of the efforts of the White House and Republican leadership in Congress it did not pass. The second bill had NO PLAN for raising the 87 billion. It was an irresponsible budget-buster so I voted against it. Had it been defeated, a third bill would have been proposed that at least would have found a way to pay for part of the 87 billion and that’s what I was hoping for. That’s the whole truth and the president has known it all along."

The Bush ad says Kerry "voted . . . for military action in Iraq" and then "voted against funding our soldiers." In fact, Kerry did vote October 11, 2002 to grant Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq at his discretion, and a year later Kerry also voted against Bush’s request for $87 billion to fund military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. But granting Bush the authority to use force is not exactly the same thing as favoring its actual use. As Kerry explained in the debate, it always has to be an option – but he thought Bush made a huge mistake in using it at the time and in the way that he did. Is this too complicated for us Americans to understand? Also, Kerry did not cast separate "no" votes on popular items contained in the $87-billion package, as the Bush ad depicts him doing. There was one vote on the entire package.

John Kerry has a better plan than imperialistic invasion of multiple foreign countries, throwing uniforms on people and calling them trained, and coaching his CIA-experienced and US-controlled Iraqi ruler on what to say to Congress.

I. Use Direct Military Action: Use military force when necessary to capture and destroy terrorist groups and their leaders, increase active duty end strength and tailor forces to be better prepared for post-conflict and stability operation.

II. Improve International Intelligence and Law Enforcement: Strengthen communication networks between intelligence agencies, build cooperative capacity with international law enforcement agencies, increase the number of linguists trained in critical languages and create a real Director of National Intelligence with budget and personnel power.

III. Cut Off the Flow of Terrorist Funds: Impose tough financial sanction against banks or nations that engage in money laundering or fail to act against it and will launch a “name and shame” campaign against those that finance terror.

IV. Control the Spread of Weapons on Mass Destruction: Appoint a high-level Presidential envoy to lead the effort and expand the languishing Nunn/Lugar program to buy up and destroy stockpiles of loose WMD materials.

V. Win the Peace in Iraq and Afghanistan: Bring real security in Iraq by broadening the coalition, including the United Nations, and creating a real Iraqi security force that can take care of itself and the people it is supposed to protect. In Afghanistan, Kerry would put forward a major increase in security and fund the promised a Marshall Plan for reconstruction.

VI. Win the War of Ideas and the Future of a Young Generation: Build bridges to the Arab and Islamic world by supporting and assisting human rights groups, independent media, and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture.

VII. Secure America’s Homeland: Restore funding for the COPS program, add 100,000 firefighters to our streets, secure and protect our nuclear and chemical facilities, bolster port and aviation security.

On terrorism, Bush said in September 2001 that he was determined to capture Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Six months later Bush said, "I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him… I truly am not that concerned about him." He has alienated much of the world from projects that need to be global projects. Terrorism is a global phenomenon – and all means of addressing it need to be utilized. You can’t fight terrorism by dedicating our resources and exhausting our global support on cowboy psychology to see who has the bigger….. missiles.