Losing patience with Kerry's many stances

Watching John Kerry fumble around trying to find himself and his positions was at one point an utterly entertaining phenomenon. Now it's escalated to the point where, even for someone like me, it's just frustrating.

Now, in all fairness, I've been pretty tame toward Sen. Kerry since his coronation as unofficial-cum-official Democratic nominee. I haven't launched personal attacks, in spite of the fact that jokes seem to create themselves these days, I haven't called him a pinko-commie for his tax proposals and post-Vietnam behavior and I've abstained, with tremendous exertion, from pointing out how weak the Left deems his candidacy, partially due to some inconsistencies in stances he's taken on recent issues.

My patience has expired.

The election is just under a month away, and I find myself with precious little time to make my case for a contender. Even so, I need not become indignant to make my point as lucidly as possible.

Kerry has dug himself a rather deep hole. He has to defend his vote from October 2002 authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein, while now communicating a renovated anti-war stance to voters, mitigated by a tough outlook on domestic terrorism.

At this juncture, much of the American public still determines the success of the war based on day-to-day events. Kerry, of course, takes the contrary position to President Bush, regardless of what it is; he has to, if he wants disgruntled Republicans to stray across party lines while securing the Democratic base simultaneously. So when there's a good day in Iraq, Kerry looks bad. When there's a bad day, Kerry looks brilliant. Sounds so easy, doesn't it? But as Opinion Journal's Daniel Henninger noted last week, "Iraq and what now to do about it is an issue whose execution in office, by the next government, transcends whatever Tom, Dick or moderating Harry said about it last night" in the first presidential debate.

That's exactly the reason why so few can actually decipher what his take on the issue is. He's stated that we need to get out of Iraq, and when asked how he and President Bush differ on the issue, he claims that knowing what he does now, he wouldn't have invaded in the first place. He also recommended we stay the course in Iraq to ensure its security -- yet in this state on Sept. 6, he vowed to withdraw all troops in a prospective first term.

Kerry is, essentially, tripping over his own politics. "Running for [president] is a bizarre obsession," Henninger observed. "Running the country is a real job." Kerry's main criticism of the president is primarily over our alleged sidestepping of the United Nations and our paltry coalition. He claims his leadership skills would have garnered contributions from more nations than Great Britain and Australia, and established international alliances rather than animosity. (Kerry must be proud of his ringing endorsement from Kim Jong Il earlier in the year.)

While viewing the first presidential debate last week, I was particularly struck when John Kerry offered the following: "I'll never give a veto to any country over our security. ... I know I can do a better job in Iraq, where I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies, something this president has not yet achieved, not yet been able to do to bring people to the table." It's food for thought.

His statement created an interesting contrast from a speech months earlier, where he labeled this very coalition that he intends to expand the "coalition of the coerced and bribed." To make matters worse, he proclaimed before the same Pennsylvania crowd that we're fighting "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."

My question is this: How, Senator, do you intend to bring more foreign governments on board to join other countries that were duped into fighting the wrong war at the wrong time? What kind of diplomacy could one possibly employ to convince countries to sacrifice their soldiers? And more than anything, what kind of soldiers wants to hear their commander telling them they're fighting the wrong war in the wrong place?

In a column from late September aptly titled "The Art of Losing Friends," Charles Krauthammer echoed this very sentiment. He wrote, "If this is how Kerry repays America's closest allies -- ridiculing the likes of Tony Blair and John Howard -- who does he think is going to step up tomorrow to be America's friend?"

It's nothing short of naive to assume that undermining the war will win him more allies. It's lip service to anti-war Americans, but insulting to everyone else -- politics in its empirical form. Nobody really knows how Kerry will spread the burden on foreign shoulders, but he asserts that he will.

I'm skeptical. It's unlikely that any country would choose to immerse itself in a conflict that even the directing nation's president scoffs at. Diplomacy doesn't involve hindsight and offending allies to attract more; this isn't a game of "hard to get." Kerry needs to figure out what he can really do in Iraq and stop spewing empty rhetoric our way.

Michelle Dubert is a College sophomore from Closter, N.J. Department of Strategery appears on Thursdays.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.