In his zeal to keep pace with Shannon's leftward drift on disarmament, Kerry supported cancellation of a host of weapons systems that have become the basis of US military might -- the high-tech munitions and delivery systems on display to the world as they leveled the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in a matter of weeks.
These weapons became conversation topics at American dinner tables during the Iraq war, but candidate Kerry in 1984 said he would have voted to cancel many of them -- the B-1 bomber, B-2 stealth bomber, AH-64 Apache helicopter, Patriot missile, the F-15, F-14A and F-14D jets, the AV-8B Harrier jet, the Aegis air-defense cruiser, and the Trident missile system.
He also advocated reductions in many other systems, such as the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Tomahawk cruise missile, and the F-16 jet.
In retrospect, Kerry said some of his positions in those days were "ill-advised, and I think some of them are stupid in the context of the world we find ourselves in right now and the things that I've learned since then."
But he defended his opposition at the time to the MX missile, the "Star Wars" strategic defense initiative, and some other programs.
"Some of this stuff was ahead of its time. Some was not as well thought out as it might be," Kerry said of his campaign posture then. "I'm not ashamed of that. I was [40] years old, running for the United States Senate for the first time . . . and I'm sure that some of it was driven at the time by the nature of the beast I was fighting politically.
Politicians do sometimes need to change their mind on issues. But Kerry was 40 years old when he took these positions, not a kid, and he also had the benefit of all the same military experience he touts as an asset today. It's also troubling, to say the least, that he would adopt such a marked anti-defense posture based on political considerations in Massachusetts.