Kerry's Image Problem

Ugh, you hate to wake up and see stuff like this:

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said on Monday he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found.

Taking up a challenge from President Bush, whom he will face in the Nov. 2 election, the Massachusetts senator said: "I'll answer it directly. Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have but I would have used that authority effectively."

That constitutes the first two paragraphs of this article, which is all a lot of people need to read to get the gist of an article.

Admittedly at the very end of his quote on the last line, he qualifies his remarks - "but I would have used that authority effectively" - and I know this means he would have handled Iraq more delicately - but this is splitting hairs and, in my mind, not drawing a strong enough distinction between himself and President Bush.

I know a key meme of the Kerry campaign has been to overturn the trad Democratic tactic of abandoning national security issues to the Republicans, and that there has been a concerted effort to take Bush on on what was once considered his own holy ground - the War on Terror. But it seems lately that Kerry's people have been so eager to play on Bush's turf and court his voters that they are losing the ability to effectively distinguish themselves from Bush, at least on a policy basis.

Maybe I'm overreacting - this campaign, after all, is not being waged for my vote (obviously) - it's for Joe Undecided. But doesn't Joe Undecided need two alternatives to pick between?

Just as an afterthought, I wonder how Dean and Kucinich feel about walking in lockstep with Kerry when he says stuff like this?

Update

Then again, I'm sure Kerry would have said this a little more clearly.

Update 2

Predictably, Bush seized on the opportunity to call Kerry out on his admission:

"After months of questioning my motives and even my credibility, Senator Kerry now agrees with me that even though we have not found the stockpile of weapons we all believe were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power," Mr. Bush told a cheering crowd in Pensacola as he began a five-day cross-country campaign swing. "I want to thank Senator Kerry for clearing that up."

Ugh.

Comments

[Luke]

Once again, the Onion has lent its considerable analytical power to this debate:
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4032