Reply #174: "a right way and a wrong way"

[GreenArrow]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44506-2004Feb15?language=printer

From the Wisconsin Democratic Debate, in a response to whether or not he felt responsible for the war and its casualties:

KERRY: And I know what it's like when you lose the consent and the legitimacy of that war. And that is why I said specifically on the floor of the Senate that what I was voting for was the process the president promised.

There was a right way to do this and there was a wrong way to do it. And the president chose the wrong way because he turned his back on his own pledge to build a legitimate international coalition, to exhaust the remedies of the United Nations in the inspections and to go to war as a matter of last resort.

<snip>...And later, in the same torturuous exchange:

KERRY: He didn't do it. My regret is not the vote. It was appropriate to stand up to Saddam Hussein. There was a right way to do it, a wrong way to do it.

My regret is this president chose the wrong way, rushed to war, is now spending billions of American taxpayers' dollars that we didn't need to spend this way had he built a legitimate coalition, and has put our troops at greater risk.

<snip>

He used the right way and wrong way phrase, quite a bit during both the Democratic primaries, and the general election.

It's worth going back to the transcript and reading his entire, labored answer to the question. Compare Kerry's answer to Kucinich's comments on a similar question later in the debate:

BORGER: This is to Congressman Kucinich.

President Bush last week said that yes, he had expected to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that he was using the same intelligence that had been provided to President Clinton, also the same intelligence that had been used by the heads of other nations.

Do you believe that the president knowingly lied to the American people? And if so, why would he do that?

KUCINICH: I think that this administration knew full well that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, with Al Qaida's role in 9/11, with the anthrax attack on this country, that Iraq had neither the capability nor the intention of attacking the United States, that Iraq was not trying to get uranium from Niger and that, in fact, Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.

This is the singular issue upon which this election will turn. And I, as the only one up here who voted against the war and voted against the Patriot Act, as the ranking Democrat on a subcommittee that has jurisdiction over national security, an investigative subcommittee, I never saw any evidence that suggested that there was a reason for this country to go to war against Iraq.

It was wrong to go to in it's wrong to stay in it is time that we start talking about bringing our troops home, bringing those guardsmen, guardswomen, those reservists back home. Stop this war get out of Iraq.

BORGER: So I take it the answer is yes that the president knowingly lied to the American people?

KUCINICH: The president lied to the American people.

<snip>

"The President lied to the American People." Rather refreshing, isn't it? I guess as one of the "vanity" candidates, Kucinich can get away with saying that, but I'll take the truth over the vanity of personal ambition anyday.

It's ironic, in that if the war were going well, we wouldn't be having this debate, yet the justifications for it, and the war itself would remain just as wrong. When the Kerrys, Clintons, and McCains can start admitting that, then they may earn some respect, but I won't be holding my breath waiting.