One of the worst things Kerry's ever said

In an interview broadcast Wednesday morning, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry defended terrorist Shiite imam Moqtada al-Sadr as a "legitimate voice" in Iraq, despite that fact that he's led an uprising that has killed nearly 20 American GIs in the last two days.

Speaking of al-Sadr's newspaper, which was shut down by coalition forces last week after it urged violence against U.S. troops, Kerry complained to National Public Radio, "They shut [down] a newspaper that belongs to a legitimate voice in Iraq."

In the next breath, however, the White House hopeful caught himself and quickly changed direction, adding, "Well, let me ... change the term 'legitimate.' It belongs to a voice -- because he has clearly taken on a far more radical tone in recent days and aligned himself with both Hamas and Hezbollah, which is a sort of terrorist alignment."

I'm at a loss for what to say about this. I'll just repeat Charles' comments:

"Sort of?" Hamas and Hizballah are "sort of" terrorists? God save us if this man is elected president.

Hmm... one more thing. Sadr's newspaper doesn't belong to a "legitimate voice"... just a "voice". And people think Bush is stupid (scroll to the end).

Update: Publius at Wunderkinder has more:

Never mind the "sort of." It's still revealing that Kerry's first impulse was to condemn the administration rather than Sadr. It's still revealing that his first concern was for Sadr's right to free speech rather than for the lives of American soldiers threatened by the violence Sadr has inspired. It's still a big, big gaffe.

I have to say I'm not very concerned with the political implications of this. It doesn't look like he'll get much flack for this (media bias, yadda yadda). When I said "worst", I didn't mean most flip-floppy (though, come to think of it, he flip-flopped within the space of one sentence), but most despicable, partly because of precisely what publius said which I quoted above, partly because he clearly doesn't seriously consider Hamas and Hizballah terrorist organizations, and largely because he referred to the man who incited violence that has led to the death of our soldiers as being a "legitimate voice in Iraq".

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15:01 (utc-4)
edited: 23:53 (utc-4)