Crystal Clear Kerry on Iraq

John Kerry on NBC's Meet the Press

MR. RUSSERT:  Election day, Iraq.  Condoleezza Rice, the new secretary of State, has just told the United States and the world, "It has gone better than expected."  What is your sense?

SEN. KERRY:  I think it's gone as expected.  I think it was a good report by Brian.  I think it starkly lays out the challenges, Tim.  Let me begin, if I can, by saying first of all I was just there a few weeks ago.  I think our troops today deserve yet again a thanks and a word of praise from everybody. They are at extraordinary risk.  They're doing a remarkable job, and I want to give them that credit.

Secondly, it is significant that there is a vote in Iraq.  But no one in the United States or in the world-- and I'm confident of what the world response will be.  No one in the United States should try to overhype this election. This election is a sort of demarcation point, and what really counts now is the effort to have a legitimate political reconciliation, and it's going to take a massive diplomatic effort and a much more significant outreach to the international community than this administration has been willing to engage in.  Absent that, we will not be successful in Iraq.

Ok.  What exactly is he talking about.  "A legitimate political reconciliation," and a "massive diplomatic effort . . ".  Involving whom?  Is France still needed to supply something that the ladies with purple fingers can't?  Do they really need Jacque Chirac?  Or does he mean reconciliation with the insurgents.  Ok.  With whom do you negotiate?  Zarqawi?  Maybe bin Laddin? 

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you believe this election will be seen by the world community as legitimate?

SEN. KERRY:  A kind of legitimacy--I mean, it's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote.  I think this election was important.  I was for the election taking place.  You may recall that back in--well, there's no reason you would--but back in Fulton, Missouri, during the campaign, I laid out four steps, and I said at the time, "This may be the president's last chance to get it right."

So does Kerry think the Iraq election was legitimate?  All we know for sure is that he was in favor of it taking place. 

Is it really possible that we came within 17 electoral votes of putting this man in the White House?