politics

The Antiwar Candidate?

September 7, 2004

Covering a campaign speech by President Bush in Lee’s Summit, Mo. this morning, Agence France-Presse quoted President Bush verbatim: “When he got on the Democratic primary, he declared himself the anti-war candidate. More recently he switched again, saying he would have voted for the war, even knowing everything we know today,” Bush said.

As Campaign Desk has noted before, the hackneyed and discredited claim that Kerry ever declared himself “the antiwar candidate” is based on the following exchange between Kerry and Chris Matthews, that aired on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on January 6:

Matthews: Do you think you belong in that category of candidates who more or less are unhappy with this war? The way it’s been fought? Along with General Clark, along with Howard Dean, and not necessarily in companionship politically on the issue of the war with people like Lieberman, Edwards and Gephardt? Are you one of the anti-war candidates?

Kerry: I am, yes, in the sense that I don’t believe the president took to us war as he should have, yes. Absolutely. Do I think this president violated his promises to America? Yes, I do, Chris. Was there a way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable? You bet there was and we should have done it right.

The Bush campaign recently ran an anti-Kerry ad that edited the exchange to show Kerry answering Matthews by saying simply, “I am. Yes.” The ad so enraged Matthews that he asked Matthew Dowd of the Bush campaign, on-air, to ask the president to repudiate the charge: “Is the president going to keep saying that something that was said on this show wasn’t said?” Matthews asked. “Would you like to have your sentences cut down like to a third of their length and let people decide on the first three or four words what you meant by the 20 words?”

That didn’t stop the president from repeating it in his speech today, three weeks later. And it didn’t stop AFP from passing it right on, unchallenged, to its readers.

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–Zachary Roth

Zachary Roth is a contributing editor to The Washington Monthly. He also has written for The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, and Talking Points Memo, among other outlets.