President George Bush announced a plan that would reduce troop levels in South Korea and John Kerry immediately attacks him for the decision. But what did Waffling John have to say before the President's announcement?
The Los Angeles Times noted the discrepancy between Kerry's rhetoric and previous statements, one as recent as August 1: "But Kerry's effort to present a clear policy difference with Bush was potentially undercut by previous comments - - some as recent as this month - - when he voiced support for shifting some American soldiers stationed in Europe and Asia."
In an Aug. 1 interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Kerry said he believed his brand of diplomacy would allow the United States to "significantly change the deployment of troops, not just [in Iraq] but elsewhere in the world. In the Korean peninsula perhaps, in Europe perhaps."
At an April 14 news conference in New York, he was more explicit. "The overall effort of a president right now ought to be really to try to find ways to reduce the overexposure, in a sense, of America's commitments," Kerry said then. "A proper approach to the Korean peninsula, for instance, should include the deployment of troops, the unresolved issues of the 1950s and ultimately, hopefully, could result in the reduction of American presence, ultimately."
When Kerry spoke to the veteran's organization President Bush had previously spoken to, the Boston Globe reported, "Kerry received a decidedly more mixed response than the warm embrace Bush enjoyed Monday." When Kerry talked of higher military spending, some yelled "Why didn't you support that?"
The bottom line: when Kerry supported slashing the defense budget by $50 billion, when he voted against $87 billion for our troops in combat and later said his vote was "complicated," when he called for a "more sensitive" war on terror, his credibility on national security went out the window.