On the first - do you know how to interpret an if clause? Not to mention what was said in the .... matters. Kerry is NOT saying that SH had weapons of destruction - but that there is a problem if he did. Read the IWR speeches - most people who voted against it made similar comments that those weapons in SH's hand were a problem. This is dated a week after Kerry's Georgetown speech that ends with the words "don't rush to war". Look at the title of the article.
On the second: By December 2003, we needed to stabalize Iraq and then get out - as Kerry also said millions of times - Al Queda was not in Iraq before the war - the problem by December 2003 was that it was important to the war on terror not to leave a failed state. I think the Dean quote was a case where Dean was asked about the situation in December 2003 and he answered it about whether we should have gone to war - which he often did. To make sense of this, you need the question that Dean was asked and his answer and the same for Kerry. Do you think that resolving Iraq in December 2003 would have impact on the war on terror going forward? From Kerry's answer that was likely the question - and they likely included a Dean quote for him to respond to.
On the third - as I said - there is NEVER a quote of the actual question and there is no video - we in the JK group have looked and there aren't any. Also - it doesn't give Kerry's full answer. Bush had thrown out the question as how would Kerry vote knowing what he knew now - but it is not clear that Kerry had even heard Bush's question as he was campaigning 16 hours a day. The response as I said matched the answer Kerry always gave on the IWR - where he specifically said in his IWR speech and in the Georgetown speech before the war and in many other comments in 2004 - that he voted for the inspectors and diplomacy. Kerry then moved towards more aggressively saying he would not have gone to war - 2 of the most prominent times were his NYU speech where he said:
" Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and from our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.
Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight. "
he also said:
" A month before the war, President Bush told the nation, If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is possible. We will plan carefully. We will act with the full power of the United States military. We will act with allies at our side and we will prevail.
Instead, the president rushed to war, without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work. He went purposefully, by choice, without a broad and deep coalition of allies. He acted by choice, without making sure that our troops even had enough body armor. And he plunged ahead by choice, without understanding or preparing for the consequences of postwar. None of which I would have done.
Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again the same way.
How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying to America that if we know there was no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaida, the United States should have invaded Iraq?
My answer: resoundingly, no, because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe. "
here is a link - you can read the whole thing - I am not Cherry picking. Kerry since then has conceded that giving teh authority was right - but this defines the context and it was the context that he put it in in 2002 when he voted, in 2003 when he spoke against going to war, and in 2004 constantly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35515-2004Sep20?language=printerHere is a write up of the Letterman appearance the same day -
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/09/20/letterman/----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think Kerry was wrong to vote as he did - but the fact is he NEVER said he was for invading Iraq or that it was a good idea - and even your cherry picked quotes don't show that. I also think that Obama - who I support - was wrong not to vote for Kerry/Feingold. (In fact both took in the 2 different critical votes the one considered safer and both were wrong. Obama would have an easier time with Clinton lying about his Iraq bill had he voted for K/F.)