“I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”
The words above would seem to have been articulated by an elected official standing alongside President Bush in the war on terror, a conservative hawk convinced that Saddam must be stopped and his stockpiles of weapons taken away.
The above statement is, in reality, from John F. Kerry, the junior Senator from Massachusetts and the Democrats’ chosen horse—or donkey—in 2004. Does this hawkish statement sound drastically different from Senator Kerry’s current statements of American actions in Iraq? Judging by his record, it is surprising that the Senator stuck with his view for as long as he did.
John Kerry’s voting record in the United States Senate can be broken down into four categories: those bills he voted for or against, those bills he voted for or against and then changed his mind about, those bills which he did not bother to vote on at all, and those he lied about.
This discussion will begin with items Senator Kerry voted for or against, only to later change his stance. The clearest examples of this flip-flopping tendency are Kerry’s actions on the first Gulf War and Operation: Iraqi Freedom. On January 12, 1991, Senator Kerry voted against the “joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces [against Iraq] pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678,” a resolution with 34 Senate co-sponsors. Yet, soon after President George H.W. Bush’s war effort began to go well and public support swelled in favor of the action, Kerry characteristically jumped ship and supported the war.
The second time, Senator Kerry decided to play the Iraq issue differently. He followed up on his above statement, voting in the 77-member majority on House joint-resolution 114, authorizing the President to use force in Iraq pursuant to UN resolution 1441. Yet, in 2003, when the action became more difficult than first expected, Kerry switched sides, stating that President Bush had not gone far enough down the diplomatic road and that Iraq was turning into a disaster. He even refused to fund the action he earlier supported when he voted in the 12 member minority on Senate Bill 1689. The 87 Billion dollar supplemental gained even more support than the initial resolution, yet as Kerry saw the wind of public opinion changing, his stance on the issue also changed.
Senator Kerry seems to check the way the wind is blowing more often than a meteorologist.
His current persona of “war hero-extraordinaire” conflicts with his disgruntled, peace-protesting veteran persona after the Vietnam War. Although less well known, Kerry does not reserve his change of hearts to military actions. The Senator voted for the No Child Left Behind Act to bring accountability back to the nation’s union-run public school system. Yet he is now campaigning to revise the act and complains that President Bush has failed to back up the law with enough money to help schools raise academic standards. Kerry needs the teachers’ union in November, so the classic Democratic answer of drowning problems in more and more money seems to suit him better today.
Kerry blames the Bush administration for not doing enough to prevent corporate outsourcing and the loss of jobs domestically, yet he voted for and supports the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other multi-lateral trade treaties. Kerry favors affirmative action today, yet in a 1992 speech, he commented that “There exists a reality of reverse discrimination that actually engenders racism. We cannot hope to make further racial progress when whites believe that it is they and not blacks that suffer most from racial discrimination.”
Senator Kerry voted against all of President Bush’s tax cut legislation, yet he once stated that he supports reducing the capital-gains tax to zero in key investment-driven industries and offering other business tax incentives to reward companies that keep jobs in the United States. When George W. Bush was still in his first term as Governor of Texas, Kerry advocated a dividend-tax cut if “done right.” Yet on the stump today, dividend-tax cuts are lumped into “tax cuts for the richest Americans.”
Kerry’s nature of indecision and riding the fence can be summed up by a recent remark: “[there] is . . . difficulty in any vote: You can vote ‘no, but’ and there are a whole lot of qualifiers, or you can vote ‘Yes, but,’ and there a lot of qualifiers sometimes,” he said. “The way people read the votes, they don’t see any of the qualifiers.” That sounds like the antithesis of strong and steady leadership.
The next aspect of this discussion focuses on the left-wing and radical bills Senator Kerry supported in his long career in the Senate. In 1998 and again in 2000, Kerry voted to support the Murray/Snowe Amendment to Defense Bills. These quaint pieces of legislation aimed to “to repeal the restriction on the use of Department of Defense facilities for abortions.” The amendment has been unsuccessful as of yet, no thanks to Senator Kerry. He also voted against the death penalty in almost every case, even in cases involving “cop-killers.”
Do you think our nation’s young people have a drug problem? Senator Kerry voted against minimum sentences for drug dealers who sell narcotics to children. Do you dislike high gas prices? Senator Kerry voted to increase gasoline taxes. Do you disagree with partial birth abortion? Senator Kerry disagrees with any restriction on abortion. Do you think the government already gives out too many entitlements? Senator Kerry supported extending disability payments to citizens whose disability is alcohol or substance abuse.
Yet, many voters will still be interested in what Senator Kerry has done lately. This takes our discussion to its third topic, Kerry’s truancy. Kerry’s current stance on the issues may be hard to discern, considering that the Senator managed to make only 28 percent of his votes in 2003. Many Senators make upwards of 90 percent. Even Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts’ Senior Senator, puts a halt to his “road rage” long enough to make 97 percent of Senate votes in 2003.
What does Kerry think about the addition of prescription drugs to Medicare? He was a no-show at that vote. What’s his stance on the crucial infrastructure and highway bill? No one knows, he missed that vote as well. Critical votes like pension stability and outsourcing control were also skipped. Even fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005 budgets, which he criticizes on the campaign trail, were not important enough to demand his presence.
Finally, Kerry’s little white lies must be addressed. In a 2001 interview with CNN, Kerry stated that “I don’t take soft money [or money] . . . from PAC’s [Political Action Committees].” This boasting has been a characteristic of Kerry for years. Yet, a few months before the McCain-Feingold campaign reform laws were to take effect, Kerry founded his own PAC, “Citizen Soldier”
Kerry’s PAC did not accept contribution from other PACs, as promised. The PAC simply accepted money from corporations like Ameriquest, AIG, Bell South, and AT&T directly, as well as from “the wealthiest Americans,” or Bostonians at least. Citizen Soldier closed it doors when McCain-Feingold took effect, raking in almost 1.4 million in just a few months. Almost half the contributions from Senator Kerry’s PAC were donated to, you guessed it, himself. The rest went to other Democratic candidates.
So, Kerry didn’t really lie. But can this conduct really be called truthful?
Senator Kerry is far too indecisive, far too reliant upon popularity and polls, far too radical, far too truant, and far too dishonest to hold this nation’s highest office. Maybe, if the American people wait a while, he’ll change.
Comments