Salon.com News | "The truth has a force of its own":

Salon:Would there have been a war in Iraq if you had been president?

John Kerry:I can't tell you that. If Saddam Hussein hadn't disarmed and all the world had decided that he was not living up to the standards, who knows? You can't answer that hypothetical. But I can tell you this. I would never have rushed the process in a way that undoes the meaning of going to war 'as a last resort.'

Salon:And that's what you thought you were authorizing -- war as a last resort?

John Kerry:Absolutely. You know, we got a set of promises: We're going to build an international coalition, we're going to exhaust the remedies of the U.N., respect that process and go to war as a last resort. Well, we didn't.

And not only [did we] not go to war as a last resort, they didn't even make the plans for winning the peace. They disregarded them. They disregarded [U.S. Army General Eric] Shinseki's advice, disregarded Colin Powell's advice, disregarded the State Department's plan. The arrogance of this administration has cost Americans billions of dollars and too many lives."

This is an interesting interview, because it shows Kerry as a thoughtful and measured person. The media, despite all we have heard about the liberal bias, has essentially decided that Kerry is a waffler and Bush is a truth-teller. It is so interesting to see the outlets and mouthlets demean Gore in the same manner they did Howard Dean, while Bush continues to say weird and irresponsible things. The GOP accuses Democrats of being unpatriotic, suggests that voting for Kerry is a vote for Al Qaeda, and the media does nothing.

Wrong or right, I will support John Kerry because he is the kind of president I can live with. He is thoughtful and measured. Give me intelligent and thoughtful anyday.