“Unprincipled” versus “Steady Leadership”

As readers of this blog know, one of my major gripes with John Kerry – whom I often refer to as “Senator Splunge” – is that he’ll take all sides of an issue. He refuses to answer a straight question with a straight answer. Yet he’ll be the first to take credit if things turn out OK and the last to claim responsibility if trouble starts.

The Bush campaign has released a video (which I haven’t seen) called “Unprincipled” describing the flip, flops, and straddles of John Kerry. Apparently, Senator Splunge’s vacillations are wearing thin already – here’s Chris Suellentrop in Slate on the Dems last debate:

How bad was Kerry's night? It wasn't disastrous, but it's as bad as I've seen him. He sounded like the meandering, orotund Kerry of last summer. His answers to questions about diversity and gay marriage were muddled incoherence, and he claimed that it wasn't his fault that the Bush administration has abused the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the congressional Iraq war resolution. But if you vote for broadly written laws that are abused by the administration in power when you passed them, aren't you at least partly to blame for the consequences? [Emphasis added]

William Saletan agrees:

John Kerry lost his lead in 2003 because he couldn't give straight answers to simple questions. Then the guy with the straight answers, Howard Dean, started giving answers so brutally straight (your taxes will go up, sit down and let me finish) that people decided a bit more diplomacy was in order. But Kerry has to watch his bad habits in this area. He never walks into a sentence without leaving himself a way out. His evasiveness smells fishy.

. . . . . .

The pattern went on. Panelist Lester Holt asked Kerry to explain why he had voted for—but then criticized—the Patriot Act and the No Child Left Behind law. Kerry gave another lawyerly answer, blaming Bush for implementing both laws improperly. Gilbert asked Kerry, "Would you see yourself as a war president?" Kerry replied with a ridiculous litany: "I'd see myself first of all as a jobs president, as a health care president, as an education president, and also an environmental president." Later, Holt asked, "If it were to come before you today for a vote—the issue of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as that between a man and a woman—would you vote yes or would you vote no?" Kerry replied, "Well, it depends on the terminology ..."

In case you've forgotten why so many people soured on Kerry in 2003: This is why.

I’ve heard the Kerry people blather on incessantly about how their man will “fight back” against the Bush “smear machine.” But how can they possibly do so when nobody can understand where Kerry stands on critical issues? His war policy is a jumbled mess, especially when viewed through the prism of his 1991 and 1998 positions in Iraq. And his energy, trade, and education positions have diminished into the clean-hands excuse of “Bush didn’t enforce the laws.” Yet, somehow, Bush managed to dupe Kerry over and over again.

When you look at Kerry’s positions, both past and present, there’s really no other conclusion to reach than he took the most politically expedient position at the time and now he can’t square his record. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily wrong: it’s what politicians do. But Senator Splunge really can’t stand tall and define himself a “principled man” when his record tells a different story. No wonder he can’t answer a straight question.