Over the weekend, I was up in Massachusetts to attend a friend's wedding. This was a wonderful time, as the bride was beautiful, the groom happy and sober while saying "I Do" and the party kicking. I also got to see some friends and talk for a while on a wide range of subjects. One of my friends is part of that politically precious and ever shrinking group: undecided voters living in potentially swingable states (New Hampshire.) Saturday afternoon we had a short discussion in the car about the election, and he is concerned about Kerry as a "flip flopper." The following is the draft of a letter that I will send to him by 20:00 EST tonight. Hopefully it will help him make up his mind. Please comment and give me suggestions on how to strengthen my argument.
Joe,
I want to write a bit more on why I believe that John Kerry is the best choice to be President over the next four years. We started this discussion in the car on Saturday, and due to my need to listen to directions, we were not able to finish. First, I believe that you can confirm your registration by calling your town clerk, and if you are not registered in New Hampshire, this website ( http://www.sos.nh.gov/vote.htm ) states that you are allowed to register to vote on election day at the correct precinct. So call your town clerk and find out where your polling place is and vote next week.
You expressed concern that John Kerry is a "flip-flopper" and we discussed this a little bit. The two big points of contention are the Iraq War vote and the $87 billion dollar vote last year. I believe that John Kerry has held a consistent and coherent position on these two issues that is hard to express in a binary up down vote because there is nuance and conditions. John Kerry in the summer of 2002 believed the President and the intelligence community when it said that Iraq was or would soon be an imminent threat to the United States due to its chemical and nuclear weapon programs. President Bush went to Congress in order to "strengthen" his position when he decided to go to the United Nations. The credible threat of force would encourage vacillating UN members to give President Bush what he said he wanted; intrusive and effective inspections that would verify whether or not Saddam Hussein's regime had prohibited weapons.
John Kerry voted to give the President a credible threat of force. However he attached a couple of conditions to his vote that explained his thought process. He basically enumerated the Powell Doctrine in that he wanted President Bush to fully engage the international community, follow the evidence on whether or not Iraq was truly a threat, and go to war as the absolute last resort and with a successful plan of winning the peace. The credible threat of force that the Senate and House resolutions gave to President Bush were part of a successful diplomatic strategy that put effective inspectors back into Iraq. We were discovering that our intelligence on the threat that Iraq immediately posed to us was far, far less than the threat that President Bush was selling. Yet he still decided to go to war despite the inspectors saying "The US tips are crap" and we are finding nothing close to what the Americans are claiming that we should find.
We have not found anything new or hidden that we did not know (via UN inspectors) that Iraq had. The significant new information is that the United States knew far less about how bad the Iraqi military and WMD programs were and how they were failing, and not that they presented an imminent or vital threat to the national security of the United States. John Kerry voted to give the President the opportunity to gain more information from the diplomatic process via the credible threat of force, and to go to war as a last resort. I believe that President Bush did neither. So a critique that this is the wrong war at the wrong time is a perfectly valid critique because we knew that the immediate security threat from Iraq was minimal.
Now lets move onto the $87 billion dollar vote. I have to admit, that Kerry's line "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" is a damm dumb line, but again let's walk through the context.
There were two bills being considered. The bills shared many of the same features (funding for new equipment, funding for new supplies, reconstruction funds etc.) but there were three significant differences. In the bill that Kerry voted for, the ~$19 billion dollars in reconstruction funds were to be given as a loan to Iraq while the bill that the President signed had this as a grant, secondly in the bill that Kerry voted for, there were requirements that the President supply a plan to Congress before "slush fund" money was released or moved between accounts, and finally, in the bill that Kerry voted for, the entire tab was to be paid for by repealing a small portion of the previous round of tax cuts. The bill that passed was to be paid for by borrowing. So John Kerry voted for operational responsibility (a plan), accountability and fiscal responsibility. President Bush wanted and received funds without requirements of responsibility, accountability and by shifting the burden to the future. I find these principles consistent.
If you want to talk some more about this, just give me an e-mail or call me.
Later,
Fester
Crossposted at Fester's Place