John Kerry

I hadn't seen it, but he is correct. I also suspect that he is not 100% fair even then - as if I remember right he was an adviser - possibly someone pushing Kerry to vote yes.

In 2004, in the debates, Bush used even Kerry's reluctance on the war to argue in the first debate he could not lead the effort to fight it as CIC. The sad thing is that the vote was a cynical means to force Democrats to vote yes as it WAS held up as what Bush needed to get invasive inspections. Also, given that Kerry had forcefully argued for Bush to go to the Congress and the UN and to use diplomacy first AND Bush was agreeing to do all of these things rather than start a war immediately, it could have been spun as not giving him the backing to do that.

The biggest problem is that the media - while absolving themselves - have conflated the vote in October 2002 with the March 2003 decision to go to war. The problem with the resolution was it prematurely gave authorization --- that many (certainly Kerry) would have withheld had it been voted on in March 2003 after the inspectors found nothing.

As Marshall points out, Netanyahu was an advocate of the war -- Kerry never was.