A big deal has been made over the fact that Kerry voted to give Bush the authority to go to war against Iraq in 2002. People are saying that he is hypocritical in his criticism after the fact of the way Bush has handled the war. Over the weekend, I read Bush's speech of 10-7-2002 urging passage of the bill, and Kerry's speech of 10-9-2002 during the debate. The two speeches make very clear both Bush's distortion of the facts and outright lying and Kerry's reservations about the administration's actions and intentions as well as his conditions and expectations for supporting the bill. I feel much better about voting for Kerry after reading these two speeches. You can read the full texts here.
