The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

Turns out that JFK II is taking a vacation for most of the week, engaging in the sport of the common man -- windsurfing. But his Veep is now throwing out all kinds of ideas for review regarding the Kerry approach to Iran...

A John F. Kerry administration would propose to Iran that the Islamic state be allowed to keep its nuclear power plants in exchange for giving up the right to retain the nuclear fuel that could be used for bomb-making, Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards said in an interview yesterday.

Edwards said that if Iran failed to take what he called a "great bargain," it would essentially confirm that it is building nuclear weapons under the cover of a supposedly peaceful nuclear power initiative. He said that, if elected, Kerry would ensure that European allies were prepared to join the United States in levying heavy sanctions if Iran rejected the proposal. "If we are engaging with Iranians in an effort to reach this great bargain and if in fact this is a bluff that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons capability, then we know that our European friends will stand with us," Edwards said.

Edwards's notion of proposing such a bargain with Iran, combined with Kerry's statement in December that he was prepared to explore "areas of mutual interest" with Iran, suggests that Kerry would take a sharply different approach with Iran than has President Bush. The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since its 1979 revolution, and Iran was part of Bush's "axis of evil" that included North Korea and the former government of Iraq. Earlier this month, Bush declared that Iran "must abandon her nuclear ambitions."

Edwards will deliver a speech today in Wilmington, N.C., that aides said will seek to sharpen the differences with the Bush administration on a range of foreign policy issues. Seizing on Bush's statement last week that he miscalculated the postwar conditions in Iraq, Edwards will lay out a broad indictment of how he believes the administration has miscalculated on Iraq, overseas alliances, Afghanistan and other issues.

One, Edwards barely qualifies to give a speech on foreign policy. The next person who tells me the press isn't kissing his butt because he's smooth-talking Democrat needs to do research on the hatchet job the press did on Dan Quayle, who was (a) more experienced than Edwards when he became Veep, and (b) better versed in foreign policy matters.

Second, what idiot came up with this idea? Maybe it's Madeline Albright all over again. Remember the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea? That essentially provided a similar bribe to a madman only slightly less deranged than the mullahs of Iran. That worked out so well, didn't it?

Third, how exactly does this impact Iran? We'll negotiate with them, which means we lack the spirit to confront them, which means pro-democracy forces in Iran lose faith in our commitment to seeing the mullahs leave power. We also are willing to bribe them out of weakness, since our only other option will be sanctions... which would probably only take effect with U.N. approval. And we all know how the U.N. enforces sanctions against oil-producing states -- it runs a corrupt Oil-for-Food program.

I've blasted the Kerry campaign for failing to produce meaningful initiatives about what it would do in office. If this is an indication, they're better off keeping their mouth shut and having Kerry do that goofy salute.