One of Ours

People rooting for John Kerry this November probably cringed a bit while watching "Meet the Press" yesterday, when Tim Russert reminded viewers of Kerry's 1971 pronouncement that American soldiers should be sent abroad "only at the directive of the United Nations," and of Kerry's accusations the same year that American leaders were "war criminals" for ordering troops to commit what were essentially atrocities in Vietnam. But Kerry's response was quite possibly the shrewdest exercise in political jujitsu I've seen in years.
Here's how Kerry explained his U.N. comment:

That's one of those stupid things that a 27-year-old kid says when you're fresh back from Vietnam and angry about it. I have never, ever, ever, in any vote, in any policy, in any speech, in any public statement advocated any such thing in all of the years I've been in elected office. In fact, I say the following and I say it very clearly, I will never cede the security of the United States to any institution and I will never cede our security to any other country. No country will have a veto over what we need to do to protect ourselves.

And here's how he explained the "war criminal" comment:

That's a big question for me. You know, I thought a lot, for a long time, about that period of time, the things we said, and I think the word is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word. I mean, if you wanted to ask me have you ever made mistakes in your life, sure. I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. It was honest, but it was in anger, it was a little bit excessive. ... It was, I think, a reflection of the kind of times we found ourselves in and I don't like it when I hear it today. I don't like it, but I want you to notice that at the end, I wasn't talking about the soldiers and the soldiers' blame, and my great regret is, I hope no soldier--I mean, I think some soldiers were angry at me for that, and I understand that and I regret that, because I love them. But the words were honest but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top. ...

In both cases, Kerry wisely concedes the mistake, then provides a little context, reminding people that these were the understandable reactions of a young man who nobly served his country in a hellish situation, despite serious reservations. In doing so, he not only highlights a major strength of his own; he implicitly highlights a huge weakness of his opponent--namely, that Bush weaseled his way out of serving in said hellish situation. Somehow I don't think we're going to be hearing a lot of criticism from the Bush campaign about Kerry's youthful indiscretions.