Larry King Live, Ann Coulter, Dick Gephardt, and the John Kerry’s Multiple Personality Disorder on Iraq

October 11, 2004

As I said while liveblogging the debate Friday night, Kerry said he’d never changed his mind on Iraq, which would have been the biggest whopper of the century, had he said, “I’ve never changed my position on Iraq.” But changing his mind is a different matter. But the truth is that he meant both. He meant that he’s been consistent throughout on Iraq, both in his mind and in his stated positions on the issue.

Now we know what the latest iteration of that position is, don’t we? I’m pretty sure it is currently that he believed Saddam that George Bush ought to have more negotiating power so he voted to authorize him to use force to give the president more leverage. He also did so relying on George Bush’s reliance on the same intelligence that John Kerry had access to indicating that Saddam was a threat in the WMD department.

He also voted for the resolution based on the understanding that the president wouldn’t strike militarily until he’d exhausted all diplomatic channels (and allowed the inspections time to work — which itself is worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit, given that we’d given him 12 years and he played cat and mouse with the inspectors the whole time.) Now we also have Kerry saying he always regarded Saddam as a threat. So in summary, Kerry’s current position on Iraq is: a) he always regarded Saddam as a major threat — notice that when he says that he’s not even qualifying it by saying that he regarded him a threat because President Bush duped him with false intelligence; b) he regarded Saddam as a threat because President Bush duped him with false intelligence; c) He voted for the resolution only on the conditions that: 1) President Bush would build a stronger coalition first; 2) would exhaust all diplomatic avenues with inveterate liar Saddam Hussein; 3) that President Bush would allow weapons inspectors indefinite time to continue to play hide and seek with Saddam; 4) President Bush would first use this show of authority for negotiating-leverage with Saddam; d) that no combination of these positions is now or ever has been inconsistent.

Now I must tell you that though I was out of town over the weekend I TiVo’d Larry King Live mainly because I wanted to see my friend Ann Coulter eviscerate a few libs. She performed excellently, as usual. After Ann made a very cogent case, Dick Gephardt, shilling for Kerry, said that Kerry’s position has been consistent, but that Ann simply didn’t understand it. Kerry and he and all the rest of the commie libs have always understood that Saddam constituted a threat and that something had to be done about him. They just disagreed with the “how” thing. That is, they think President Bush went about the war wrong — you know, the unilateralism thing. So now we have Gephardt too saying they always recognized Saddam was a threat and something had to be done.

Now I can understand how they can say these things: Saddam’s a threat but we don’t want to take him out. That’s vintage liberalism. We will appease anyone and everyone, from Nazis to Communists to terrorists. We’ll negotiate them to death, even if negotiating is not a language they speak.

But folks, how do you square that position with: “we were duped by the president on the WMD?” That is, these guys are not saying “We thought Saddam was a threat because Bush lied to us about the WMD.” They say that other times.

No, they are saying, “We have always recognized Saddam was a threat, from as far back as Clinton. And we recognize this because by golly we are tough as nails; we are strong on defense; we are pro-military and dadgummit, we can be trusted to lead the nation in the War on Terror.” So Gephardt and Kerry are now saying they’ve always known Saddam was a threat because they want to be perceived as having defense-savvy and the willingness to be tough. They know they have to be seen as bullish on defense to win this election during wartime. But they just don’t think people have the mental tools to understand how this current position simply can’t be reconciled with their statement, which they’ve never backed down from, that they only thought Saddam was a threat because the president lied to them about WMD — which, by the way, the 9/ll Commission and David Kay soundly rejected.

Now, while we’re on this subject I don’t want you to forget what Kerry told Don Imus on an interview with him a few weeks or a month ago, I don’t remember now.

But I do remember that he told Imus he couldn’t imagine any circumstance under which he would have used military force against Saddam, knowing what we know now about his WMD. This statement was made to clarify his recent statement made under the duress of a pointed question from President Bush about whether he would use force against Iraq knowing what we know now. Well, if you’ll recall Kerry tried to be cute with that one too, saying that knowing what we know now he would still have voted for the resolution authorizing the use of force, but of course, he only did that because it was subject to all the conditions I mentioned earlier. Imus was trying to flush him out on this as even he — staunch Kerry supporter Imus, was scratching his head over it. Basically Imus was asking him: Are you pro Iraq war or not? Kerry, backed into a corner said, “Not under the current circumstances, not that I see. I voted on the basis of weapons of mass destruction.”

You see? That doesn’t sound like what he and Gephardt are saying now, does it, i.e., that he’s always recognized Saddam as a threat. No, it sounds like he only thought Saddam was a threat because George Bush duped him into thinking there were WMD there. So we are left to believe that John Kerry even knowing what he presumably knows now about weapons of mass destruction (that there aren’t any stockpiles of them in Iraq) would still have voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force because basically he understood that President Bush would never use that force.

But of course this is the same President who was so trigger happy to use force that he lied to John Kerry et al about the WMD in Iraq. And John Kerry wants us to believe that he(John Kerry) essentially wouldn’t have used force in Iraq EVEN THOUGH HE’S ALWAYS CONSIDERED SADDAM A THREAT. Forget the inconsistencies otherwise detailed here, but that insanity alone disqualifies this irresponsible peacenik as commander in chief. He’s always known Saddam was a threat but he sure wouldn’t use the military option no matter what.

This stuff is beyond dizzying. You may have just read this post and concluded that I’m confused. You would be mistaken. I’m quite clear about what I’m saying. I am describing the positions of a man who apparently is quite conflicted, but in reality is quite consistent. He will say whatever he has to say on any given day to better position himself before the crowd he’s currently communicating to. That’s it. And it’s scary and amazing. And it’s further reprehensible that an entire party has prostituted itself to go along with his charade, such is their contempt for President Bush.

If it were not Iraq it would be something else. Neither Kerry nor Gephardt nor any of the other major liberal Democratic leaders has any business near that Oval Office these days. They treat the issue of national security as if it has no more gravity than whether the sixth grade student body president at Franklin School could make good on her promise to get a soda fountain in the elementary school corridor. I guess these people think the general public will not hold them accountable even for the things they said just the day before. I’ve never seen anything like Kerry and his multiple personality disorder on Iraq –not even during the Clinton years. And boy is that saying a mouthful.

Sorry for this stream of consciousness, but I’m a bit tired after the weekend traveling and watching Gephardt talking this nonsense just set me off a little bit. I hope it’s coherent, but if not I’m sure someone will let me know. I’m too sleepy to try to proof it, but wanted to get this posted before going to bed.

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