Email to Helen Thomas on Kerry's Position on Iraq

I generally love the work of Helen Thomas, but unfortunately she has been taken in by the right wing talking points on John Kerry. I just emailed her in response to comments in her column today characterizing Kerry as a supporter of the war:

While I generally agree with the opinions expressed in your column, I feel you are misrepresenting John Kerry in your criticism of him and your characterization of Kerry as supporting the war. Correcting this misconception is particularly important now that the Bush Administration is using claims of Democratic support of the war to justify their actions.

While Kerry did vote for the IWR, he made it clear in his Senate floor statement that he voted yes only to give Bush the leverage to get the inspectors back in and pursue a diplomatic solution (as Bush claimed he would do) and that he would oppose Bush if he misused this authority to go to war unnecessarily. Kerry is on record multiple times advising Bush not to go to war, including in his Georgetown speech on January 23 prior to the war. Kerry ultimately called for regime change in the United States in protest when Bush did go to war.

Kerry has stated that Bush misused his authority and regrets his vote giving Bush this authority. While perhaps Kerry might be faulted for taking Bush at his word at the time of the IWR vote that he would seek a diplomatic solution first, it is erroneous to claim that John Kerry supported this war.

If you are interested I’d be happy to supply you with specific quotations and links (several of which have been noted in recent blog entries at The Democratic Daily).