slate.msn.com/id/2096540
John Kerry's Waffles If you don't like the Democratic nominee's views, just wait a week. By Michael Grunwald Posted Wednesday, March 3, 2004, at 2:46 PM PT Head to head Head to head Last week, President Bush offered a wry critique of his Democratic challengers. They're for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. Kerry did vote for the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq, even though he constantly trashes the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq. He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited marriage to a man and a woman, but he now says marriage should be limited to a man and a woman. This list doesn't include quickly withdrawn gaffes, such as Kerry's recent suggestion (retracted after an uproar from Jewish groups) that he might make James Baker or Jimmy Carter his Middle East envoy. It doesn't include long-renounced youthful indiscretions, such as his proposal after returning from Vietnam to eliminate most of the CIA. It doesn't include less clear-cut sins of omission and opportunism, such as his stirring denunciations of companies caught in accounting frauds, even though he supported a 1995 law protecting those companies from liability. And it doesn't include the inevitable fund-raising hypocrisies that accompany all modern campaigns, such as his donations from some of the "Benedict Arnold" companies he routinely rips on the trail, or his bundling of contributions from special interests despite his high-minded rejection of PAC money. Kerry's supporters cite his reversals as evidence of the senator's capacity for nuance and complexity, growth and change. His critics say they represent a fundamental lack of principles. Either way, we'll be hearing a lot about them over the next eight months. Issue Kerry's Original Position Kerry's Revised Position Welfare Reform In 1988, Sen. William Weld, was calling him soft on welfare, Kerry voted for the much stricter welfare reform law that Clinton signed into law. Today, presidential candidate Kerry strongly supports mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, including the sale of drugs to minors. Death Penalty During one of his debates with Weld in 1996, Kerry ridiculed the idea of capital punishment for terrorists as a "terrorist protection policy," predicting that it would just discourage other nations from extraditing captured terrorists to the United States. Kerry still opposes capital punishment, but he now makes an exception for terrorists. Education Reform In a 1998 policy speech the Boston Globe described as "a dramatic break from Democratic dogma," Kerry challenged teachers unions by proposing to gut their tenure and seniority systems, giving principals far more power to hire and fire unqualified or unmotivated teachers. Today, Kerry once again espouses pure Democratic dogma on education. Double Taxation In December 2002, Kerry broke with Democratic dogma yet again in a Cleveland speech, calling for the abolition of the unfair "double taxation" of stock dividends in order to promote more investment and more accurate valuations of companies. Five weeks later, after President Bush proposed a second round of tax cuts that included an end to this double taxation, Kerry changed his tune. He voted against the dividend tax cuts that were ultimately enacted by Congress and now hopes to roll them back as president, along with Bush's other tax cuts for upper-income Americans. Gas Taxation In 1994, when the Concord Coalition gave Kerry a failing rating for his deficit reduction votes, he complained that he should have gotten credit for supporting a 50-cent increase in the gas tax. Today he no longer supports any increase in the gas tax. Social Security During the 1996 campaign, when I was a Globe reporter, Kerry told me the Social Security system should be overhauled. He said Congress should consider raising the retirement age and means-testing benefits and called it "wacky" that payroll taxes did not apply to income over $62,700. In recent weeks, when Kerry has talked trade, he has talked nothing but qualification, calling for "fair trade" rather than "free trade," claiming to agree completely with the protectionist Edwards on trade issues, and vowing to "put teeth" into environmental and labor restrictions in agreements like NAFTA. Michael Grunwald is writing a book about the Everglades. Grunwald must be talking about the speech that he imagined, rather than the one Kerry actually gave. John Kerry Yale University, 3/30/92 : "I support affirmative action. Affirmative action has opened doors for women, persons with disabilities and countless minorities. It has helped create a large and growing black middle class. It has helped minority businesses and opened up bastions of prejudice like the Alabama State Police, which had no black members at all in a state that is 30 percent black. It has caused employers to rethink the standards and tests they use to qualify people for employment. He said Congress should consider raising the retirement age and means-testing benefits and called it "wacky" that payroll taxes did not apply to income over $62,700. He spoke out previously in favor of ending the regressive cap on payroll taxes. This balances the budget on the backs of the *rich*--admittedly an unpopular idea, but not inconsistent with his current position. He advocated means-testing, which would cut benefits to wealthy seniors, the rationale being that Social Security is not an investment but rather a safety net designed to eliminate poverty among the elderly. Blatantly redistributive and of course unpopular--but still not inconsistent.
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