What are you talking about? That statement does not damage Kerry's credibility. It is not an argument in favor of a preemptive strike on Iraq, it simply means that we reserve the right to do so when it's in our national interest. He said:

"We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest."

He did not say he was in favor of pre-emptive action, nor did he say that the benefits of pre-emptive action outweighed the costs to the national interest.

We do not invade every country that is a danger to the united states. This is clear. We always reserve the right to use our military in pre-emptive ways if it is in our national interest. This is clear.

What's the problem?

Dan Von Kohorn
dan.vonkohorn.com

Sure Dan, but it doesn't change the plain meaning of Kerry's words. I parse them as:

(a) Iraq is a clear and present danger to the US.

(b) We can't trust our European allies (let alone the the so-called family of nations) to handle it or share responsibility with us.

(c) America should act unilaterally against Iraq - regardless of what France or Russia thinks - if we need to.

Remember, Kerry has been castigating Bush for: (a) deceitfully and maliciously exagerating the threat to our nation; (b) acting unilaterally; (c) alienating old allies, and; (d) intervening militarily.

I'd call it a slam dunk. The guy's credibility is history. The fact that the legacy media havn't picked it up from the WaTimes speaks for itself.

What he said is perfectly true, and does not conflict with either reality or previous statements. Your interpretion reads more into his comments than what he actually said. If you want to claim that he's saying more that what he said in this quote then find HIM saying it.

Specifically, you are assuming that we need to attack every threat to the United States. If this were the case, then saying that Iraq is a threat would imply that we should attack them. However, this is clearly not US foreign policy. There are many nations capable of attacking the United States, and we do not attack them all.

And the fact that other news agencies are not picking up this story does not add ligitimacy to the story, just the opposite.

About the same (now apparently dubious) quote, Powerline wrote: "It would be possible, but not easy, to imagine a more damaging quote from Kerry's past." Tom Bevan reads it the same way. Did Powerline, DFME and RealClear Politics all misread the quote? As for press objectivity, check out John Leo's piece in US News.

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