Kerry in Iraq

Kerry's visit to Iraq this past week is a story that shouldn't go permanenetly down the memory hole.

Kerry cheered in Baghdad, decries Bush team's 'blunders' by Borzou Daragahi San Francisco Chronicle 01/06/05.

Kerry, who repeatedly charged during the presidential campaign that President Bush had botched the war effort, was greeted warmly by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad. ...

U.S. soldiers approached Kerry inside the restaurant of the Rashid Hotel, asking him to pose for photographs and sign T-shirts. The star-struck restaurant manager insisted on serving Kerry the restaurant's specialty, a plate of grilled chicken and lamb.

And I take the following as a sign that Kerry may have seen the virtues of risking controversy when its something important:

[I]n several instances, Kerry attacked what he called the "horrendous judgments" and "unbelievable blunders" of the Bush administration. The mistakes, he said, included former U.S. occupation leader Paul Bremer's decisions to disband the Iraqi army and purge the government of former members of Hussein's Baath Party. Both moves are widely believed to have fueled the largely Sunni insurgency.

"What is sad about what's happening here now is that so much of it is a process of catching up from the enormous miscalculations and wrong judgments made in the beginning," he said. "And the job has been made enormously harder."

Now, you can imagine what the drooling-at-the-mouth crowd would say about that:  he's criticizing Bush the Magnificent on foreign soil and undermining the troops' morale and yadda, yadda, yadda.  But, hey, they said stuff like that about him all during the campaign and will keep on saying it, no matter how circumspect he is in his phrasing.  In this case, he's saying something that is clearly true.  I hope he keeps it up.

Also commenting on Kerry's Iraq visit:

Steve Soto: Kerry Visits Troops in Mosul 01/07/05

Steve Gilliard: Kerry goes to Iraq 01/07/05