"So John Kerry now is the first self-confessed war criminal in U.S. history to be nominated for president. Normally this would be considered an electoral plus only in the more cynical banana republics. But the Democrats seemed to think they could run an antiwar anti-hero as a war hero and nobody would mind." -Mark Steyn

"Here's a question with an obvious answer. How come the media types who spent months demanding the release of every last one of President Bush's military records aren't demanding that John Kerry release his? The answer, of course, is that they are fearful of what's in those records. Imagine that. A news media afraid of stumbling on to news." -Mark Belling

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9,2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real" -Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members.. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." -Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

In response to Bush's plan to bring troops home from various countries around the world, Kerry asked: "Why are we unilaterally withdrawing 12,000 troops from the Korean Peninsula at the very time we are negotiating with North Korea -- a country that really has nuclear weapons?" (Speaking to the VFW on Aug. 18.) However, earlier this month, Kerry said he would do the same thing if he were elected president: "I think we can significantly change the deployment of troops; in the Korean peninsula perhaps, in Europe perhaps." (On ABC's "This Week" on Aug. 1.)

The John F. Kerry Flip-Flop of the Week:
Flip: "We should increase funding [for the war in Iraq] by whatever number of billions of dollars it takes to win." -- John F. Kerry, 31 August 2003
Flop: "$200 billion [for Iraq] that we're not investing in education and health care, and job creation here at home. ... That's the wrong choice." -- John Kerry, 8 September 2004

"Clothing is wonderful, but let them go naked for a while, at least the kids. Water is necessary, and then generators, and then food, and then clothes." -Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira Heinz Kerry, ever helpful and equally modest, on how best to re-supply hurricane victims in the Caribbean

"You know why John Kerry isn't doing well in the polls? He looks like he is a victim of a really bad botox accident" -Unknown

Kerry Has a Cow - "Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry told voters in America's Dairyland on Monday that President Bush had a secret plan that would hurt milk producers after the election," our pal Nedra Pickler reports from Spring Green, Wis.:

Kerry tried to convince voters in this rural community, where he is practicing for Thursday's debate, that he would look out for dairy farms here even though he hadn't always in the past.

Two questions: If the plan is secret, how does Kerry know about it? Is Daniel Ellsberg leaking milk? And what's Kerry doing looking out for dairy farms? Didn't he say he was going to make Osama bin Laden the priority?

On CNN's Crossfire in 1997, Mr. King says the U.N. Security Council had just adopted a resolution against Iraq that was watered down at the behest of the French and the Russians. Yet the candidate who now criticizes President Bush for ignoring French and Russian objections to the Iraq war blasted the two countries, claiming that they were compromised by their business dealings with Baghdad:

"We know we can't count on the French. We know we can't count on the Russians," said Mr. Kerry. "We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest." John F. Kerry, CNN's Crossfire, 1997.