PLAYING POLITICS.

It used to puzzle me why politicians will do this...because it makes no sense. But then I realized that it makes no sense only to those informed enough to know that they've just flipped flopped on an issue for political expedience.

And that's when it really began to bother me...as it sinks in that they must be counting on enough uninformed voters to elect them.

Now that is scary.

Soldiers from the 1st Armored Division captured piles of top secret Iraqi intelligence documents, some of which refer to a nuclear program, in a raid on a community center in Baghdad last Saturday.

Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, probably wishes he had been able to a peek at the documents before he accused President Bush of intentionally misleading Americans about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee dismissed Mr. Kerry's charge as political, and refused to join in it.

Mr. Kerry had to hope his listeners have short memories: "[Saddam Hussein] cannot be permitted to go unobserved and unimpeded toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Kerry said in a speech on the Senate floor in 1997.

In that speech — exhumed by Wesley Pruden, editor in chief of The Washington Times — Mr. Kerry said the U.N. should authorize a military strike on Iraq that would "materially damage ... as much as possible of the suspected infrastructure for developing and manufacturing weapons of mass destruction." And if the U.N. wouldn't go along, the U.S. should go it alone:

"While we should always seek to take significant international actions on a multilateral rather than a unilateral basis ... we must have the courage to do what we believe is right and wise," Mr. Kerry said.

Similar statements — essentially indistinguishable from what President Bush has said — were made by Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle and former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. So if Americans were "intentionally misled" about WMD in Iraq, Democrats originated the plot.

Harping on this issue is strange politics, because polls indicate about two-thirds of Americans think war with Iraq was justified even if weapons of mass destruction are not found. And if they are found, Democrats have walked out on a limb that will be sawed off behind them.

Read it all here.