http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh081204.shtml Why has Kerry’s statement produced a flap, since he has said the same thing many times in the past?
In large part, it’s because of the way this statement has been framed in the press. In particular, the flap seems to turn, not on what Kerry said, but on what question he was answering. And depending on what news org you read, you seem to get a wide array of explanations of that.
To what question was Kerry responding when he made this familiar statement? Amazingly, no—we can’t find a transcript of the question Kerry was asked. And you know what happens in situations like that—inventive journalists start embellishing! What was Kerry asked that day?
Every news org seems to spell it out differently. Here’s what Candy Crowley said in real time on CNN:
CROWLEY (4/9/04): Welcome back to Inside Politics. As we reported earlier, John Kerry, traversing the countryside, is in the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He was stopped by reporters and talked a bit. He was asked the question that George Bush put out there, which is, If you knew then what you now know, would you still have voted for the war on Iraq resolution?
Was Crowley quoting the actual question? There’s no way to tell from this report. But according to Crowley, Kerry said he still would have favored the resolution if he knew then what he knows now. But in the next day’s Washington Post, Jim VandeHei improved on that framing:
VANDEHEI (8/10/04): Responding to President Bush's challenge to clarify his position, Sen. John F. Kerry said Monday that he still would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq even if he had known then that U.S. and allied forces would not find weapons of mass destruction.
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