Flip-flop ads are dead in the water

Balta says it best.

In 2002, John Kerry said that his vote was doing exactly what George W. Bush said it was doing; telling the world America speaks with one voice, but that war was not inevitable. John Kerry said that he believed Mr. Bush when Mr. Bush said that the war vote was to authorize the President a strong hand to force Saddam to accept inspections, and we reserved the right to act unilaterally if a clear threat did emerge. Hence, even in 2002, he was fully agreeing with the statement from 1997.

John Kerry also said he would be among the first to speak out if George W. Bush did not work to convince our allies to support us or fully exhaust all of the options. His whole speech was basically saying he was going to trust the President because the President promised to do the right thing, but he did throw that caveat in there, saying that if the President proved to be untrustworthy, he would speak out.

and furthermore...

The real question, however is this one: which would you rather have in the White House...the person who deceived the Congress into thinking they weren't voting for a certain war, or the man who was naive in believing that the President of the United States was a trustworthy man.

Given that about 80% of the nation before the war believed the latter part, I find it impossible to say that the man naive enough to trust the President would be a worse leader than the actual untrustworthy President himself.

You know what John Kerry represents? He represents the huge chunk of America that was not skeptical enough of this President in 2002. He represents the people who believed that the President was an honorable man and deserved our trust. He represents the people who said that the President wouldn't possibly lie about something as important as war, and that if he said it was necessary he must be right. That is John Kerry's Iraq record, and if you wish to condemn John Kerry's Iraq war vote, you must first condemn the man who John Kerry trusted to be honest.