BOSTON — When Sen. John Kerry was speaking to Jewish leaders a few days ago, he said Israel's construction of a barrier between it and Palestinian territories was a legitimate act of self-defense. But in October, he told an Arab-American group that it was "provocative and counterproductive" and a "barrier to peace."
On Feb. 5, Kerry reacted to the Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision legalizing same-sex marriages by saying, "I personally believe the court is dead wrong." But when asked on Feb. 24 why he believed the decision was not correct, he shot back, "I didn't say it wasn't."
Throughout his presidential campaign, Kerry has espoused both sides of an issue on a number of occasions. Earlier in the campaign, he struggled to square his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq with his loud criticism of the war and his eventual vote against $87 billion for military operations and reconstruction.
Now with the general election campaign underway, President Bush and Republicans are already attacking Kerry for precisely this trait. In California this week, the president said Kerry had "been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue." And the Republican National Committee followed up on Friday by e-mailing to reporters an Internet boxing game called "Kerry vs. Kerry" designed, the committee said, to highlight the senator's "multiple positions on multiple issues."
The e-mail message listed his stances on 30 issues, including many of the examples that were researched in preparation for this article.
In fact, this trait seems to have been ingrained in Kerry's personality as far back as when he volunteered for duty in Vietnam after expressing doubts about the war as a college student — and then returned home and helped lead the opposition to the war.
Some aides and close associates say Kerry's fluidity is the mark of an intellectual who grasps the subtleties of issues, inhabits their nuances and revels in the deliberative process. They call him a free-thinker who defies stereotypes. Others close to him say his often-public agonizing — over whether to opt out of the system of spending caps and matching funds in this campaign, or whether to run against Al Gore four years ago — can be exasperating.
And some Democratic strategists worry that Kerry is still an unfamiliar figure to many voters, and that these early attacks show just how vulnerable he is to being defined by the Republicans as indecisive or politically expedient.
"If Kerry fails to define himself as someone who's been consistent on values, on foreign policy, on domestic issues, then the Bush team will have succeeded in putting him in a corner," said Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's campaign in 2000. "They want to get to his integrity and his character, and they will use his voting record and previous statements to undermine that he can be trusted."