Regarding the question on every talking heads lips these days: "given what you know today, would you still have invaded Iraq?" this Boston Globe article is unusually candid in reporting that Dubya has basically publically declared the truth that the administration doesn't want you to hear:

It's hard to believe that any rational president would have done that. Indeed, earlier this year, Secretary of State Colin Powell came close to conceding the truth -- that the "absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus; it changes the answer you get" -- before he scrambled back into compliance with the White House line.

Certainly if one is to take Bush at his word, he has essentially answered guilty to the accusation that after Sept. 11, he was determined to oust Saddam and simply looking for an excuse to do so.

Strong words for the traditional press which seems so reluctant to say it like it is these days.

The article ends with this

Make no mistake: This is an issue where Bush, not Kerry, should be on the defensive. And yet, ultimately Kerry may have to take a clearer stand to put him there.

And there-in lies the rub. Jon Stewart also made this point on last nights show... suggesting that Kerry was trying to lose the election... that his answer should have been a straight-forward "no".

The problem with Kerry is that he *is* intellegent as opposed to Dubya who is an illiterate moron. He answered the question: "given what you know today, would you still have voted to give the president the authorization to go to war." Of course, he means just that in his response, that he would have given him the authority as a stick to press Iraq into cooperating with the UN inspectors on the WMD inspections.

Of course, the way that the administration appologists spin it, they intimate that Kerry would have gone to war which is an entirely different question.

I agree with the analysis that Kerry should be more straightforward in his responses... He should indeed have answered a simple, straight-forward "no" and followed up with a strong statement that hindsight is 20/20 and we can't change the past. We are there and we must be focused on bringing stability to Iraq and continue to support our troops... and that means that we need to admit that we have made mistakes... BIG ones... that we need the help of the international community to bring that stability about.

He should then point out the specific failings of the Bush administration, at every step of the way in not having a plan to win the peace, in not supporting the troops with the armaments they so desperately need, with under-estimating the troop strengths required and then failing to listen to the commanders on the ground when they pleaded for more but couldn't get the neo-cons in the Pentagon to listen, with ignoring the advice of his own State Department's experts on Iraq and the middle-east, in pandering to the greed of contractors such as Halliburton instead of using the reconstruction $$$ that congress approved to employ Iraqi men and women to help rebuild their country so that instead of being unemployed and angry they would have jobs and hope and a real stake in the success in rebuilding their country, etc.

Note to Kerry: Keep it simple stupid!