Will the real John Kerry please stand up

The Washington Post’s editorial page remains, ironically, the newspaper’s bastion of editorial balance. Here, the Post’s editors accuse John Kerry of “troubling and mistaken” shifting of his position with respect to what our goals should be in Iraq. In December, shortly after the capture of Saddam Hussein, Kerry said (correctly in the Post’s view) that our goals should be “completing the tasks of security and democracy in the country — not cutting and running in order to claim a false success.” Last week, however, Kerry told reporters, “with respect to getting our troops out, the measure is the stability of Iraq. [Democracy] shouldn’t be the measure of when you leave.” The Post suggests that Kerry’s first position was an attempt to discredit Howard Dean and the second is a misguided attempt to take political advantage of possible public disenchantment following a few bad weeks in Iraq. Where Kerry really stands is unclear, but my money is on “cutting and running.”