Mark Steyn on the many nuances of John Kerry.

If you’ve gone over to the forces of nuance, Kerry’s your guy - or your nuancy boy. He’s got nuances coming out of his nuances. As the New York Times put it in its endorsement of the Senator: “What his critics see as an inability to take strong, clear positions seems to us to reflect his appreciation that life is not simple. He understands the nuances.”

That may be the most lethal endorsement since Al Gore leapt on the Howard Dean bandwagon and sent it careering into the ravine. Just for the record, Kerry can take strong, clear positions. It’s just that he tends to take both of them. For example. On January 22, 1991, he wrote to Wallace Carter of Newton Centre, Massachusetts:

“Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On January 11, I voted in favour of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to war.”

Nine days later, he wrote to the same Mr Carter in Newton Centre:

“Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush’s response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf.”

It is in trying to reconcile both of his strong, clear positions that Senator Kerry winds up tying himself up in nuances.