To Win, Kerry Will Have to Distance Himself From Himself

To Win, Kerry Will Have to Distance Himself From Himself

Howard Dean is criticizing John Kerry for being too liberal. He is also an obvious political opporunist, seizing upon issues when they are popular, then washing his hands of them when they no longer work to his advantange.

"For example, at the end of the cold war, Mr. Kerry advocated scaling back the Central Intelligence Agency, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he complained about a lack of intelligence capability. In the 1980's, he opposed the death penalty for terrorists who killed Americans abroad, but he now supports the death penalty for terrorist acts. In the 1990's, he joined with Republican colleagues to sponsor proposals to end tenure for public school teachers and allow direct grants to religion-based charities, measures that many Democratic groups opposed. In 1997, he voted to require elderly people with higher incomes to pay a larger share of Medicare premiums."