With all the attention that has been garnered by the Swift Boat Veterans’ book Unfit for Command, it is easy to overlook another book that has just been written about Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry.  David N. Bossie’s The Many Faces of John Kerry: Why This Massachusetts Liberal is Wrong for America takes a detailed look at Kerry’s numerous and ever changing public policy positions.  Bossie, the former Chief Investigator for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, describes Kerry’s positions to be “malleable as Silly Putty.”  Unlike the book put together by John O’Neill, Bossie focuses on Kerry’s post-Vietnam record, primarily his twenty years in the United States Senate.

For his part, Bossie does not question Kerry’s service in Vietnam.   He does, however, touch on Kerry’s anti-war activism upon his return to the United States.  In particular, Bossie cites the Winter Soldier Investigation that formed part of the foundation of  Kerry’s April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  More than 150 Vietnam veterans confessed to being involved in war crimes and that these crimes were done with the knowledge of officers at the highest level of command.  As it turns out, the investigation was funded by actress Jane Fonda and many of those who “testified” to war crimes did not even serve in Vietnam.  Of course, Fonda is infamous for posing with a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, earning her the nickname “Hanoi Jane.”  Kerry himself would later claim to not have witnessed the atrocities to which he testified.  Nonetheless, a political career would soon be launched.  First as an Assistant DA, then Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (under Michael Dukakis) and then the U.S. Senate.

Bossie claims that Kerry has flip-flopped no fewer than sixty times during his political career.  Amongst other things, Kerry has flip-flopped on the Gulf War, the War in Iraq, the Patriot Act, the death penalty for terrorists, welfare reform, NAFTA, environmental issues, the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, the marriage penalty tax, faith based initiatives and gun ownership (did anyone see Kerry handle that rifle on Labor Day in West Virginia?).  Kerry plays more positions than a utility infielder, and none of them well.

In January 1991, Kerry voted against authorizing the first President Bush the authority to remove Iraqi troops from Kuwait.  In a letter to a constituent, Kerry noted that he voted against authorizing President Bush to go to war and to allow more time for sanctions to work.   A week later, in a letter to the same constituent, Kerry said that he “strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush’s response to the crisis.”    When confronted with the inconsistency, Kerry blamed it on a “computer error.”

Many Americans know Kerry best as the man who said, “I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”  As former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani remarked at the Republican National Convention, “He even, at one point, declared himself an anti-war candidate.  Now, he says he’s pro-war.  At this rate, with 64 days left, he still has time to change his position at least three or four more times.”

Giuliani may be too kind.

When Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces in December 2003, Kerry called it “a great moment but it’s a moment.”  He went on to state that Iraq is “not the central part of the war on terror.  We need a president that understands that the real war on terror is not Iraq.”  But Bossie points out that the following day when Democratic rival Howard Dean downplayed Saddam’s capture Kerry offered, “Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror.”  Not to be outdone, in a debate in Des Moines the following month, Kerry again dismissed Iraq as a part of the war on terror.  Kerry opined that all the Bush Administration had done was “supplant Iraq for the real war on terror.”

With regard to the Patriot Act, Kerry voted in favor of it in October 2001.  He defended his vote as recently as August 2003.   At a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire Kerry argued that the Patriot Act had “to do with improving the transfer of information between the CIA and FBI, and it has to do with things that were really quite necessary in the wake of what happened on September 11.”  But when Kerry spoke at Iowa State University in December 2003 he derided the Patriot Act.  “We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night.  So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft.  That starts with replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time.”

Kerry’s flip-flopping is not confined to matters of war and national security.  Kerry has now flip flopped on NAFTA.  In 1993, Kerry voted in favor of NAFTA.  He has also long supported GATT.  But now that Kerry is seeking to curry favor with labor unions he is advocating the inclusion of labor and environmental standards.    Kerry has also long favored most favored nation trading status for China but now he wants to get “tough” with China -- although Bossie points out that Kerry actually wants the World Trade Organization to get tough with China.  Beijing must be shaking in its boots.

Kerry prides himself as one who does not accept money from Political Action Committees (PACs).  What Kerry does not mention, however, is that over the past fifteen years he has accepted more contributions (nearly $640,000) from paid lobbyists than any other member of the Senate.  This does not include the soft monies Kerry raised through fund raising schemes such as the Citizens Soldier Fund.  In 2002, Kerry raised nearly half a million dollars in this manner before the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill became law.  Maverick Georgia Senator Zell Miller quipped that Kerry is “the Olympic gold medalist, when it comes to special interest money.”

To be fair, Kerry has not flip-flopped on every issue.  After all, National Journal currently ranks Kerry as having the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate.  Bossie argues that Kerry’s positions on defense, abortion, tort reform, affirmative action and gay rights are well to the left of the American mainstream and thus woefully out of touch with a majority of the electorate.  To some degree, this detracts from Bossie’s argument.  Kerry, on one hand, is a serial flip-flopper.  On the other. he is a “Massachusetts liberal.”   If Bossie argues the latter one can make the case that if Kerry is a “Massachusetts liberal” he then has a clear set of positions.  Even if ones disagree with those positions one can argue at least from an ideological position that Kerry has a decidedly liberal platform in contrast to that of President Bush.

However, if one is examining the Presidential race from the standpoint of consistency there is an even more marked divergence between President Bush and Senator Kerry.  As President Bush acknowledged in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, “Even when we don’t agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand.”    

So what does Kerry believe?   Bossie sums up Kerry’s contributions to American political life in this way:

For those voters who may not be comfortable with questioning Kerry’s military service, Bossie’s book offers a broad critique of John Kerry’s public life up to the present.  Undecided voters can better decide whether they want a Commander in Chief that is rock steady or one that is malleable as Silly Putty.   

Aaron Goldstein, a former member of the socialist New Democratic Party, writes poetry and has a chapbook titled Oysters and the Newborn Child: Melancholy and Dead Musicians. His poetry can be viewed on www.poetsforthewar.org.