Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics compares and contrasts John Kerry's unequivocal 1997 statements in favor of confronting Saddam Hussein with today's "wrong war" rhetoric. Citing chapter and verse, he concludes:
So is it plausible for John Kerry to have believed in 1997 that Saddam was a grave threat requiring the use of significant, preemptive, and unilateral military force but to now - more than five years later and in a post-9/11 world - stand before us and argue the opposite? It is not.John Kerry's own words both then and now damn him as a man who changes his beliefs and positions based on political expediency and nothing more.
Tip via NRO's Kerry Spot.
Actually, there is a bit more. The reason Kerry (and Clinton and Gore and many other Democrats...) felt utterly free to unleash such tough talk under a Democratic administration was that it was only empty blustering at the time. Ditto with tough talk at the halls of the U.N. When faced with the actual deed of taking real action, as Bush has done, these posturing politicians want nothing to do with it. Never have; never will. It's a flip-flop inside a lie.