Unintelligent Vote

John Kerry, who has asked if President Bush read the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) before deciding to take America to war in Iraq, did not read the 90 page document before voting to give the President authority to wage war.

"Along with other senators, he was briefed on the contents of the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) by (then-CIA (news - web sites) Director) George Tenet and other administration intelligence officials," said Kerry spokesman Phil Singer.

So, John Kerry listened to George Tenet's Dog-and-Pony show and decided we needed to remove Saddam from power. I don't have a problem with that, but why give the President grief for something Kerry would have done, had he been in the President's shoes? Oh yeah - Kerry wants to be President.

Singer said the issue was not whether Kerry read the intelligence assessment himself, but why the White House had refused to release the one-page presidential summary.

"The bigger question is why ... the president -- the commander-in-chief, who decided when and how to take us to war -- won't share this document with the Congress."

So the question isn't whether John Kerry understands the intelligence being used to take us to war. What is more important is that the Senators get the Reader's Digest version that the President gets. Probably because that will contain a lot more information than the 90-page version.

I'll tell you why the White House refused to release the one-page document, because the President didn't want to see the Presidential Summary in the New York Times the next day.

God Bless America.