What Does John Kerry Believe?

What Does John Kerry Believe?

John Kerry might not be the best person to ask. Jeff Jacoby and David Limbaugh compare John Kerry's words with John Kerry's words and he seems to have at some point, advocated everything and stood for and against everything.

From Jeff Jacoby: "Here's how it works: Say you're in favor of capital punishment for terrorists. Well, so is Kerry. "I am for the death penalty for terrorists because terrorists have declared war on your country," he said in December 2002. "I support killing people who declare war on our country."

But if you're opposed to capital punishment even for terrorists, that's OK -- Kerry is too! Between 1989 and 1993, he voted at least three times to exempt terrorists from the death penalty. In a debate with former Governor William Weld, his opponent in the 1996 Senate race, Kerry scorned the idea of executing terrorists. Anti-death penalty nations would refuse to extradite them to the United States, he said. "Your policy," he told Weld, "would amount to a terrorist protection policy. Mine would put them in jail."

"Take the Patriot Act. Kerry condemns it fiercely as the stuff of a "knock-in-the-night" police state. He vows "to end the era of John Ashcroft" by "replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time."

So does that mean he voted against it in 2001? Au contraire! Kerry voted for the law -- parts of which he originally wrote. On the Senate floor before the vote, he singled out its money-laundering and financial-transfer sections for particular praise, but declared that he was "pleased at the compromise we have reached on the anti-terrorism legislation as a whole."

Bottom line, then: Is Kerry for or against the Patriot Act? Absolutely."

From David Limbaugh: "It is true that Senator Kerry voted to authorize a military attack on Iraq and then later tried to squirm out of his vote. Senator Kerry decried Republicans for criticizing candidate Clinton for avoiding the draft but is now exploiting questions about President Bush's Air National Guard service. Kerry has conveniently retreated from his position against capital punishment for terrorists. He shamelessly attacks the Patriot Act, though he voted for it a few short years ago. And he's all over the board on the gay marriage debate."