Another blatant flip-flop from John Kerry

Clayton Cramer relays another astonishing flip flop from John Kerry. On August 9th:

Responding to President Bush's challenge to clarify his position, Sen. John F. Kerry said Monday that he still would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq even if he had known then that U.S. and allied forces would not find weapons of mass destruction.

Less than a month later:

The "only legitimate reason" for invading Iraq was the threat of weapons of mass destruction, Sen. John Kerry said yesterday, less than a month after he said he would have voted to authorize war even if he knew such weapons would not be found.

I read the full rendition of Kerry's quote down in the Washington Times article and I'm even more confused.

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19:33 (utc-4)

 

Kerry on Iraq in 1997

The Washington Times:

During a 1997 debate on CNN's "Crossfire," Sen. John Kerry, now the Democratic presidential nominee, made the case for launching a pre-emptive attack against Iraq.

So reveals Rep. Peter King, New York Republican, who appeared with Mr. Kerry on the program.

Mr. King says the U.N. Security Council had just adopted a resolution against Iraq that was watered down at the behest of the French and the Russians. Yet the candidate who now criticizes President Bush for ignoring French and Russian objections to the Iraq war blasted the two countries, claiming that they were compromised by their business dealings with Baghdad.

"We know we can't count on the French. We know we can't count on the Russians," said Mr. Kerry. "We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest."

While no "Crossfire" transcripts from 1997 are available, Mr. King in recent days produced a tape of the show, sharing it with New York radio host Monica Crowley for broadcast, and this Inside the Beltway column for publication. Stay tuned.

I want to see that tape.

Update: More on this at JustOneMinute and PowerLine, via IP. The Washington Times quotes are probably not accurate. But if they're not it was very stupid of them to quote directly without direct knowledge of the tapes. Did they just trust King's recollection of the quotes? The media sucks.

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17:19 (utc-4)
edited: 2004-09-25 10:01 (utc-4)