Opinion

Kerry is flip-flopping

Looking for support

By Brynn Lary

Posted on April 10, 2003, at 12:00 a.m.

Sen. John Kerry must have a death wish when it comes to becoming President. According to Fox News, Kerry made a speech last week to New Hampshire Democrats saying, “What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.”

According to the Boston Globe, his comments get even worse as he said that President George W. Bush had made a ”breach of trust”’ with the United Nations, which can’t be resolved until someone, like himself, enters office as president.

The GOP has accused Kerry of breaking an earlier promise he made of backing off campaign criticism of Bush. Kerry now accuses Republican congressmen of being “phony,” while Senate majority leader Bill Frist is commenting on Kerry’s “petty partisan insults launched solely for personal political gain.”

Bill Frist is exactly correct in his description of Kerry’s comments. Kerry doesn’t truly feel this way and if he does, then it only makes him look like a liar. Last year, Fox News reported that Kerry voted for the bill that said Bush could attack Saddam if necessary. The everyday voter must wonder where Kerry really stands on the issue. One day he says he supports it and the next day he’s accusing Bush of a “breach of trust.”

As Congressman Tom Delay mentioned, Kerry is looking “desperate.” Kerry is clearly searching for a way to attack Bush any way he can. It’s too bad for him that an ABC and Washington Post poll reports today that 77 percent of Americans support the war with Iraq. When that poll is broken down, about two in three Democrats support the war. If this is the case, and I believe it, why in the world is Kerry going around touting how bad this war is and what a poor job Bush is doing? Does he not want to be president?

According to a CNN, USA Today and a Gallup poll that was done April 3, Americans support George Bush with a 71 percent job approval. That’s going to be difficult to beat. Although Kerry may be doing what he thinks is right, his efforts clearly aren’t going to help him win.

One has to feel sorry for the Democrats in this coming election. They firmly believed that the “poor” economy would help them. Then Democrats thought they could take advantage of the fact that Americans seemed divided about the war with Iraq. Neither of these seems to be an advantage for them.

The problem with the Democrats is that they don’t counter the plans Republicans have come up with. They didn’t have a feasible plan when it came to the economy, all they said was their same, tired line: “Republicans favor the rich.”

Then they sobbed about how Saddam had to go, but that war wasn’t the answer. Their only weak alternative to the war with Iraq was wait and continue inspections, but Americans are not stupid. They know this isn’t the answer and this is why they overwhelmingly support the war on Iraq.

If Kerry was smart, he would shut his mouth. He should wake up and realize that the American people want Saddam to be taken out of power. Unfortunately for Kerry, the 30 percent of voters who do not agree with the job Bush is doing are not enough to get him elected.

Brynn Lary is a senior English major.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2003, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.