Confused and Confusing

John Kerry's position on the Iraq war has vacillated wildly over the past two years - first supporting it, then being both for and against it, and now against it (although as would be expected, this piece of news is not being reported by the mainstream media.)

John Kerry has finally spoken the words that make the November election an unambiguous choice. On "60 Minutes" on Sunday night, according to the official transcript released by CBS News, Kerry said: "I am against the - the war."

He tried to qualify them, to fudge them a bit, but no matter. The words are now out there and can't be taken back.

The possible future president of the United States opposes the war in Iraq now being fought by 130,000 American troops.

Yet even this seemingly unequivocal statement seems to be open to interpretation. Rich Lowry looks at the tortured and completely inconsistent logic of Kerry and the Democratic Party on one of the most important issues of the day. The position of the Democratic platform is that they have no position.

“People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq." — Democratic-platform draft language.

What to make of a political party that doesn't officially have a position on the biggest policy question in our politics? The Democratic-platform language on Iraq is almost meaningless. People of good will disagree about most everything, up to and including abortion and child labor — yet the Democrats manage to have positions on those issues. Iraq war, yes or no? The Democrats answer with a definite maybe.

This campaign will witness a stark battle of dueling strategic viewpoints. President Bush's radical new national-security doctrine is "preemption." John Kerry's is "cognitive dissonance." The Massachusetts senator is a dovish-hawk or hawkish-dove depending on which set of feathers might suit his particular political circumstance at the moment, molting on command to avoid following any given statement to what might reasonably be considered its logical conclusion.

Despite the months of criticism of George Bush and the Iraq war, John Kerry's official platform is that he has no opinion on this. This is just another glaring example of the complete unseriousness of the Democratic Party.

Under the US Constitution, the President has very few actual powers. As has been acknowledged for the past 200 years, the main power of the presidency is in being a "bully pulpit" - in being able to convince the American people by the strength of one's belief. "No opinion" is simply unpresidential.