Kerry’s Stand on Going to War Needs Explaining

Re “Kerry Made a Bush League Error on Iraq,” Commentary, Aug. 17: It is amazing that an experienced and educated writer can be so blatantly biased and nonsensical as Robert Scheer. Scheer finds it necessary to blame President Bush for Sen. John Kerry’s ignorance and inabilities, even throwing in a gratuitous claim that Bush’s challenge to Kerry was his “latest cheap gambit.”

The president asked a perfectly intelligent question about Kerry’s vote in 2002. If Scheer has a problem with Kerry’s response, then he needs to examine whether he will continue to support such a waffler.

Scheer is apparently despondent because Kerry did not denounce Bush for deceiving the nation into a war. Scheer clings to the mantra that Bush lied to get us into war. The stuffing has been knocked out of that one. The real liars have proved to be Richard Clarke, Michael Moore and Joseph C. Wilson IV.

I wonder why Scheer is shocked that Kerry answered yes to the question about whether the war was justified. All you have to know is that the primaries are over, and Kerry has been nominated. Now, without the town crier from Vermont thorning his side, Kerry can return once again to his post-vote, prewar support for the war against Saddam Hussein.

Robert W. Ball

San Bernardino

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I agree with Scheer that Kerry blundered when he said he still would have given Bush the authority to invade Iraq knowing now that Iraq had no WMD. To win the election, Kerry has to hit Bush again and again that the president lied to the American people, that he plunged us into this war and that the blood of over 900 Americans is on his hands.

People don’t understand nuance; they understand directness and simplicity. The Bolsheviks swept Russia with the slogan “Peace, land, bread.” Kerry will win America if he says, “Bush lied us into war; Kerry will get us out of Iraq.”

Howard Mann

Los Angeles

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I wish I could be sure that Kerry reads Scheer’s column. We must have a change of leadership, and I certainly hope and believe that Kerry will improve the state of our nation. But I am not at all happy about Kerry’s inability to explain his actions nearly as well as Scheer explains them. Kerry must learn to think fast and speak in a straightforward manner.

Louise Glynn Barr

San Pedro