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Politics : Hanoi john Should Be Court Martialed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (160)	3/6/2004 6:44:30 AM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 681

I know how much you love the NY Times, but they are asking the question if Kerry flip flops..duh huh, ya! Kerry's Shifts: Nuanced Ideas or Flip-Flops? By DAVID M. HALBFINGER Published: March 6, 2004 BOSTON, March 5 — When Senator John Kerry was speaking to Jewish leaders a few days ago, he said Israel's construction of a barrier between it and Palestinian territories was a legitimate act of self-defense. But in October, he told an Arab-American group that it was "provocative and counterproductive" and a "barrier to peace." On Feb. 5, Mr. Kerry reacted to Massachusetts' highest court's decision legalizing same-sex marriages by saying, "I personally believe the court is dead wrong." But when asked on Feb. 24 why he believed the decision was not correct, he shot back, "I didn't say it wasn't." Throughout his campaign, Mr. Kerry has shown a knack for espousing both sides of divisive issues. Earlier in the race he struggled to square his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq with his loud criticism of the war and his eventual vote against $87 billion for military operations and reconstruction. Now with the general-election campaign under way, President Bush and Republicans are already attacking Mr. Kerry for precisely this characteristic. In California this week, the president said Mr. Kerry had "been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue." And on Friday the Republican National Committee e-mailed to reporters an Internet boxing game called "Kerry vs. Kerry" designed, the committee said, to highlight the senator's "multiple positions on multiple issues." The e-mail included a list of Mr. Kerry's stances on 30 issues, including many of the examples that were researched in preparation for this article. In fact, this trait, perhaps a natural one for a diplomat's son, seems to have been ingrained in Mr. Kerry's personality as far back as when he volunteered for duty in Vietnam after expressing doubts about the war as a college student — and then returned home and helped lead the opposition to the war. Some aides and close associates say Mr. Kerry's fluidity is the mark of an intellectual who grasps the subtleties of issues, inhabits their nuances and revels in the deliberative process. They call him a free-thinker who defies stereotypes. Others close to him say his often-public agonizing — over whether to opt out of the system of spending caps and matching money in this campaign, or whether to run against Al Gore in 2000 — can be exasperating. And some Democratic strategists worry that Mr. Kerry is still an unfamiliar figure to many voters, and that these early attacks show just how vulnerable he is to being defined by the Republicans as indecisive or politically expedient. "If Kerry fails to define himself as someone who's been consistent on values, on foreign policy, on domestic issues, then the Bush team will have succeeded in putting him in a corner," said Donna Brazile, who ran Mr. Gore's campaign in 2000. "They want to get to his integrity and his character, and they will use his voting record and previous statements to undermine that he can be trusted." Other Democrats suggest that the areas in which Mr. Kerry has showed indecisiveness or tried to split the difference are the same ones in which most Americans are conflicted. "Clearly he is trying to walk a very fine line on extremely divisive social issues like gay marriage and the Patriot Act," said Ron Klain, another Gore adviser in 2000. "These are issues where the political terrain is changing very rapidly, and he is trying to stay in the middle. And I think he's walking the tightrope on those issues, and doing a pretty good job of navigating it so far." Sometimes, Mr. Kerry's stances seem to be well-thought political strategy. At no time was this more evident than the day when he spoke against opponents of gun control in an Iowa barn, then strode out to his car, unwrapped an old shotgun, and went off to shoot pheasant. The message was that hunters could be for gun control. Other times he may tailor his stands to an audience or even run away from past positions. When Gen. Wesley K. Clark pointed to a 1992 remark by Mr. Kerry calling affirmative action "an inherently limited and divisive program," the senator denied he had ever said that. Sometimes Mr. Kerry seems to embody contradictions. When he lost for Congress in 1972, went to law school and became a prosecutor, he stunned some of his colleagues in the antiwar movement who thought he shared their anti-authority sentiment, sharpened by Vietnam and Watergate. nytimes.com