A responsible Republican.

The media have done a terrible job of explaining Kerry's vote on the $87 billion appropriation to fund the war on Iraq, which has now become accepted as the prime example of Kerry's flip-flopping. Any fair-minded person who looks at the record will see that Kerry supported the appropriation if sufficient tax revenue was provided so that the war's cost would not add to the national debt. In 1944, this was the exact stand that Wendell Willkie, who had been the Republican presidential nominee in the previous election, took when he advocated even higher taxes than those proposed by President Roosevelt. And Roosevelt's proposals were not modest, providing for the highest level of taxes in American history. FDR even suggested limiting net income to $25,000 per year until the war ended. If a similar proposal had been on the table in 2003, does anyone think Bush and his buddies would have actually gotten us into a war that they would have had to pay for? And whatever happened to responsible Republicans like Wendell Willkie?