The New Pollution

Well now that Kerry is the front runner there's a ready made mantra against him, one that both the left (meaning those who support other Democratic Presidential candidates) and the right can use. But of course the right will use it more aggressively.

The mantra is this; Kerry supported the war on Iraq and based his conclusion on the same information the President got, so it's hypocritical of him to not support the war now. Here's a few examples.

"So let's be honest, if President Bush lied about the threat, so did Democrats in Congress, including Kerry and Edwards. If he exaggerated the threat, those Democrats were conspirators in the act. If he made a mistake in attacking Iraq based on available intelligence, so did Kerry and Edwards."
-David Limbaugh, "Kerry, Edwards and company: Have they forgotten?"

"The leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, presents an inviting target of inconsistency, hypocrisy and opportunism when his statements about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction are examined."
-Cal Thomas, "Time to take the offensive"

So let's take a moment and consider. Kerry has explained his vote with the argument that he underestimated President Bush's desire to invade Iraq. He believed that a show of force was necessary; but that President Bush went further than he expected. I buy this. Back when Saddam was forced to let inspectors back in; I had hopes that war could be averted. But then it turned out that President Bush had no intention of playing fair with Iraq or the United Nations. So on that level Kerry's statement makes sense.

The other argument is that President Bush and Senator Kerry looked at the same information and came up with the same answer. Well, that's nonsense. If there was institutional pressure to come back with a specific answer in Iraq, that pressure took place in the executive wing of the Government. By the time the information got to Kerry, the damage had been done. I suspect that most of us, looking at what Kerry was shown, would have signed off to a certain extent on the idea that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction. But that doesn't answer the question of whether or not the information was not painting a complete picture in the first place.