How Kerry turned into a pumpkin

After the Thursday night debate, which I thought Kerry won qua debate, I wrote: “Usually, candidates tend to reveal their true colors towards the end of a long debate. Tonight, Kerry did so. . .when he argued that we were sending ‘mixed messages’ by developing new nuclear weapons of our own, while talking about how to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. This was leftist ‘moral equivalence’ at its worse, but again the president didn’t call him on it.”
Fortunately, others are not willing to let Kerry off the hook. For example, Bill Hobbs shows just how important the weapon at issue, the nuclear bunker-buster bomb, is if we are to be able preemptively to destroy an enemy’s nuclear weapons or other WMD or WMD production facilities stored below ground in hardened bunkers. Kerry stated that he favors preemptive attacks when necessary to protect our security. He also stated that the biggest problem our country faces is the threat that terrorists will obtain nuclear weapons. And he blamed President Bush for standing by while North Korea developed such weapons.
Why, then, does Kerry oppose developing a weapon that represents our best hope of taking out enemy WMD? Two answers suggest themselves — habit and instinct. Kerry habitually opposes new weapon systems. He habitually worries more about whether, under a “global test,” we will be considered hypocrites because we don’t wan’t bad guys to have nukes, than about our ability to protect ourselves. And this habit stems from an instinct — the instinct that U.S. power is a dangerous thing unless curbed by global testers.
No wonder Kerry could talk a good national security game for only an hour.

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