A lot has been made regarding Kerry's discussion of the "Iraq authorization of force" bill that he voted for in 2002. Some people, especially on the Left, see this as hypocrisy, or even an act of betrayal.

I think the PR about the question was handled rather badly, but I think it's also important to point out that Kerry isn't saying anything now that he hasn't said before.

Here is the relevant part of the Joint Resolution in question:

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) Authorization.--The President is authorized to use the Armed
Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and
appropriate in order to--
(1) defend the national security of the United States
against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council
resolutions regarding Iraq.

The full text can be found here.

Based on his statements on the Iraq fiasco, I believe Kerry is saying this:

"There never was a vote to invade Iraq. Congress never declared war.

What there was was a vote to put restrictions on how and when Mr. Bush could use force. What I voted for, and what the bill specifically says, is that Mr. Bush could not go to war unless it was to deal with a threat posed by Iraq, and to enforce UN resolutions.

The vote in question was intended to give the President flexibility in putting pressure on Saddam. As Mr. Bush himself said at the time, 'this is a vote for peace, not war.'"

I would love to see Kerry come out and say, "yeah, it was a mistake to trust Bush with the power to invade another country", but it should be pointed out that Bush violated the Congressional resolution itself when he attacked Iraq without doing the honest work to determine whether there was a real threat, then misrepresented the threat to Congress and the American people. He wasn't acting on Congress' authority.

This being the case, a relevant question for people who think Kerry shares some blame for the Iraq War, and should express regret for having been so "stupid" as to have voted to "allow Bush to attack Iraq", is this: since Bush violated the resolution, and his administration indicated before the resolution that he didn't even think he needed Congressional approval, how did Kerry's vote have any impact at all on whether we invaded Iraq?

This has been spun by the Bush campaign and the right-wing media, of course. They've had a fairly good week, in terms of getting their slams into print. But this is hardly a disaster, and I can see several easy ways in which this can be turned back on Bush.

The bottom line is that Bush is trying to spread the blame, to put the onus for Iraq on Kerry. Kerry isn't interested in doing so. All Bush can do is misrepresent what Kerry said -- bad, to be sure, but not as bad as if he had actual, truthful material to use.

With the sudden flurry of terrorism warnings beginning in the middle of the Democratic National Convention (man, those terrorists have timing!), it's worth remembering that this administration basically took a two-year vacation from fighting terrorists in order to invade Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda.

Had Bush been concentrating on fighting terrorism like he should have, we might not now be dealing with new, unsubstantiated and non-specific terrorism warnings every day.

Truly ironic, then, that Bush looks to be planning on making 9/11 his sole basis for re-election. "We were attacked, and after Afghanistan I did basically nothing about it; re-elect me!"