Much hay has been made about Kerry's statements on Iraq as well as his vote for authorizing the use of force, the point being to imply that Kerry supported Bush's war in toto, and has now flip-flopped and is against it. Folks, this is a Bush campaign talking point. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Independents for Kerry remind us of what Kerry's position towards Iraq has been all along:

When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. I will vote yes because I believe it is the best way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. And the administration, I believe, is now committed to a recognition that war must be the last option to address this threat, not the first, and that we must act in concert with allies around the globe to make the world's case against Saddam Hussein.

As the President made clear earlier this week, "Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice."

Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies.

In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.

Pretty straightfoward, when you don't put words in his mouth, huh?

It should be remembered that George Bush himself said the Authorization for the Use of Force Against Iraq was "a vote for peace, not war".

The long and the short of it is this: Bush said he'd use the authorization as leverage to get weapons inspectors back into the country, and if that didn't work he'd build a multinational coalition through the UN to force the issue. What did he actually do? He drove out the inspectors himself and attacked with a pitiful "coalition of the willing" (which could better be described as a "coalition of the bribeable and unwilling to criticize"). He alienated our allies, and attacked with no plan to win the peace.

It's also important to remember that even if you were for the war, it is still possible to be against the utterly incompetent manner in which the war has been waged. Bush has been warned time and again that his plans were inadequate. He's been presented with good ideas, and instead chose to take the worst path. Do we really want such a man to be given an extension on his contract?

An no one could possibly say that it was OK for the President to use known-bad intelligence to sell the need for holding Saddam accountable in the first place. He was warned that the intelligence he was using was shaky, but he and the administration used it anyway. He misled both Congress and the American people.

There is an ever-increasing rate at which our soldiers are being killed in Iraq. And make no mistake: that is because of Bush's incompetence and inadequacy as commander-in-chief. Some claim he, at least, has a "plan" for Iraq, while Kerry doesn't. Even if that were true (it's not), thus far, I'd take no plan over Bush's.

The Navy clinches it: proper procedures were followed in awarding John Kerry his medals. Moreover, Kerry's superiors (at least one of which is now slandering Kerry as part of the Bush-campaign-affiliated "Swift Boat Vets for Truth" smear group) correctly followed all procedures in awarding Kerry his medals.

What does this mean? To me, it means quite simply this: there's no evidence, as far as the Navy is concerned, that any of the Swift Boater's malicious charges are true. John Kerry told the truth about Vietnam and earned his medals by risking his life and showing true heroism. The "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" who have been airing ads attacking Kerry are lying through their teeth, period.

Why would they have done this, you may ask? That's a very good question. These guys are mostly veterans, after all (although not all members of the group, as I understand it, appear on a registry of Swift Boat veterans), and they sure seem honest.

My theory is simply this: a not-insignificant number of the swift boat smear group's members are unhappy with Kerry because he exposed their misbehavior in Vietnam to the country. For example, a co-founder of the group, Admiral Roy F. Hoffman, evidently pushed his subordinates to commit war atrocities, according to eyewitnesses.

As for the others, I believe a combination of peer pressure, misplaced nationalistic belief that one should never criticize a war or a president in time of war, jealousy, personal dislike or simple partisanship explains it. John O'Neill (another group co-founder), for example, has been gunning for John Kerry since Nixon hand-picked O'Neill to discredit Kerry in the early 1970's. O'Neill is a hard-line Republican who has clearly never forgiven Kerry for opposing Nixon, despite the serious character flaws that president is known to have possessed.

The bottom line is this: out of 3600 men who served on swift boats in Vietnam, fewer than 250 have chosen to attack John Kerry's record (indeed, as noted above, many group members weren't swift boat veterans). Out of 12 crew members who actually served on Kerry's boat and were thus best suited to judge his actions and character, 10 back him unequivocally and say they'd "follow him to hell and back", one is deceased, and one, who John Kerry threatened to court-marshall for misbehavior, now criticizes him.

None of the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" members have told the truth about John Kerry. They just don't like him. This isn't a matter of exposing what actually happened in Vietnam; it's a matter of irrational hatreds that competent psychologists should have been given the chance to address long ago.

I'll take a commander-in-chief who is loved by more than 90% of the people he's led into life-and-death situations any day.

You've gotta see this:

Outlier of the Year
by Chris Bowers

Thu Sep 16th, 2004 at 19:42:39 EST

The Gallup poll people have been talking about will be released tomorrow and will show Bush up 14 in a three-way matchup among LV's, 54-40-3 (link). Let's see if they release internals Party ID internals (doubtful, they hardly ever do), and what the two-way RV's are. Considering the five most recent polls, the Economist (Bush by one), Harris (Kerry by one), IBD / CSM (Kerry by two), Pew (tied), Rasmussen (Bush by 4.6, maybe more tomorrow), this is going to win the award for outlier of the year. At least it is in line with their crappy state polls.

The sad decline of a once great polling firm seems complete. From pushing the press to publish their likely voter models instead of registered voter models, even though they know damn well doing so until the final week of the campaign violates the entire purpose of likely voter models, to continuing to poll with Nader beyond all comprehension, and now engaging in shitty party ID weighting, Gallup has consistently been Bush's best polling firm this entire season. Even worse, this obviously crappy poll will get all the weekend press to itself. For shame.

Let's be very clear. Kerry and Bush are running neck-and-neck. What's more, Kerry is ahead in the electoral map, and coming on strong. This Gallup poll (like those before it) is completely off.

Something has gone very wrong at both Gallup and CNN, the media outfit that commissions their polls. Both have displayed increasingly blatant pro-RNC bias.

Gallup's recent work, in particular, is taken to task by statisticians who point out that the Likely Voter model Gallup is pushing (no one SHOULD be pushing likely voter models this far out) is deeply flawed. Furthermore, their party weighting appears to be flawed, too.

The bottom line, folks, is that this poll is worthless. Gallup is having very serious problems, and should be ignored for the time being...

I want to voice my support for Josh Marshall, as he's apparently come under siege from Democratic faithful who feel we can't afford such niceties as intellectual honesty at this point.

The CBS memos were represented as originals, and several include Lt Col Jerry Killian's supposed signature. If they are not originals, then they are forgeries. I don't think that's the biggest story in all of this, but such is life.

However, I think a logical next step in this story, and one that might still pique the interest of a scandal-happy press, is this: what happened to the original memos? If, as Killian's secretary has said, the memos that CBS has put forth are accurate representations of ones that originally existed, this is a fair question. The question becomes all the more germane given the recurring stories of document destruction and coverup as pertains to Mr. Bush's National Guard follies (Bill Burkett, in particular, has alleged this). Are the CBS memos recreations of shredded or otherwise destroyed documents? If so, who destroyed them, when, and why? Were laws broken, and was Mr. Bush aware of the destruction?

As one of the "fretting Democrats" who were worried about John Kerry in August, let me take a moment to say I am much, much happier with how things have gone since the beginning of this month.

During August, John Kerry had to hold his fire, and Bush was much more free to frame the national debate. He managed to turn the attention of the country from his own failures to John Kerry, and that distraction helped Bush to rebound to a degree.

But since the end of Kerry's self-imposed moratorium on spending (necessitated by Kerry being limited to spending $75 million after the Dem convention), he's been kicking ass and taking names. He's been going after Bush, and frankly, Bush has been knocked back on his heels. And I and many other Democrats are saying, "it's about time".

Yeah, no one can worry like a Democrat. But Kerry has redeemed himself nicely. I'm seeing a coherent campaign with a focused message and a determination to take the fight to Bush (as he so richly deserves).

The truth is, despite all the public worrying by Democrats, Kerry was never actually doing badly. And the latest polls have Kerry drawing equal once again with Bush in the national horserace, and maintaining his lead in the electoral college.

Count me as a happy camper.

Folks, it's official. Iraq is a failure. In no sense, no optimistic vision, no fantasy world could Iraq be called a success in any way, shape or form. Iraq has become a new 1980's-style Lebanon, and al Qaeda's new recruiting poster.

It didn't have to be this way. After selling the country on the notion that we needed to invade Iraq to stop Saddam from giving WMDs to al Qaeda terrorists, the administration didn't even bother to listen to those who warned our post-war plans were completely inadequate. Then, Bush refused to change course when any reasonable person could see that we should do so. Make no mistake: at every stage, where we are now was preventable, and Bush failed to do what should have been done--what any good Commander-in-Chief should have done.

Every excuse for why we invaded Iraq has turned into a farce. WMD? None. Collaboration with al Qaeda? None. Sowing democracy? Not going to happen. We have to stay or it will be even worse? Too late -- we made things worse by staying.

Some have questioned whether John Kerry, a man with actual experience leading men in life-or-death combat situations, a man with 20 years experience in foreign relations, a man who has been taking a stand for doing what's right all his life would do better. Where's his plan? Why should we switch Presidents when Kerry doesn't have a detailed roadmap for getting us out of Iraq?

The answer to this comes in two parts. Number one: there are no good options in Iraq, but some options are still better than others. Number two: Bush's history of incompetence on this matter (he got us into Iraq in the worst way possible, remember, and has refused all good advice, instead making disastrous mistake after disastrous mistake) leaves little doubt that whatever screw-ups remain to be made in Iraq, Bush will make them.

We've faced difficult times and poor choices in the past. But the key to dealing with such situations isn't to throw our hands up and say it doesn't matter what we do. Rather, we put our most competent people to work devising the best way out. And folks, that's something Bush just isn't up to doing. John Kerry, by contrast, is a competent, thoughtful man with a history of making the best decisions in situations with difficult choices. He is currently looking to the best of the best for foreign policy advice, and that's something I think we can expect to continue.

The bottom line is this: there is no magic bullet to get us out of the mess Bush's incompetence and arrogance got us into. But we can, at least, avoid shooting ourselves in the foot, and elect someone who can make the best of a bad situation.