Say What?

David Brooks provides a reminder of the kind of stirring rhetoric and clarity of thought we could have expected had we elected President John Kerry.

Kerry on the first Gulf War:

There is not a right or wrong here. There was a correctness in the president's judgment about timing. But that does not mean there was an incorrectness in the judgment other people made about timing. [...] Again and again and again in the debate, it was made clear that the vote of the U.S. Senate and the House on the authorization of immediate use of force on Jan. 12 was not a vote as to whether or not force should be used.

Kerry on Somalia:

The choice for the United States of America is not between two alternatives only: staying in or getting out. There are many other choices in-between which better reflect the aspirations and hopes of our country. [...] I think that the president today made the right decision to try to establish a process which will maintain the capacity of our forces, protect them, and to disengage while simultaneously upholding the mission we have set out to accomplish.

Kerry on Bosnia:

It is important to remember that this resolution does not authorize the use of American ground troops in Bosnia, nor does it specifically authorize the use of air or naval power. It simply associates the U.S. Senate with the current policies of this administration and of the Security Council.

Kerry on Iraq during the Clinton era:

We know from our largely unsuccessful attempts to enlist the cooperation of other nations, especially industrialized trading nations, in efforts to impose and enforce somewhat more ambitious standards on nations such as Iran, China, Burma and Syria, that the willingness of most other nations — including a number who are joined in the sanctions to isolate Iraq — is neither wide nor deep to join in imposing sanctions on a sovereign nation to spur it to "clean up its act" and comport its actions with accepted international norms.

Huh?? George Bush may be less articulate than the self-important Kerry, but at least you know where he stands.