Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry bashed President Bush on Sunday night, during the Democratic candidates' debate, for not going through the United Nations on his way to war in Iraq. But four years ago, in a Senate hearing that questioned former U.N. inspections chief Richard Butler, Kerry indicated he was fed up with the U.N. over Iraq, calling the international group "paper tigers."

Kerry, Sunday night:

This president has done it wrong every step of the way. He promised that he would have a real coalition. He has a fraudulent coalition. He promised he would go through the United Nations and honor the inspections process. He did not. He promised he would go to war as a last resort, words that mean something to me as a veteran. He did not.

He broke every promise. He's done it wrong.

And he's even doing this wrong, because what he ought to be doing is internationalizing this effort -- going to the United Nations, asking the United Nations to take part in a larger way, which they would be willing to do if he was prepared to shift real authority to them.

Kerry on Sept. 28, 1999:

Senator Kerry. So in fact the threat that was sufficient to summon all of this international outrage and the very precise and clear goals, as clear as any goals I have ever seen the U.N. state, that threat is in fact greater today than it was then, is it not?

Mr. Butler. It is undiminished and possibly greater because
of the absence of monitoring.

Mr. Kerry. So what has happened? Have we been bamboozled?
Is our policy simply a failure? Are we frightened? Is there
something that has changed in the nature of this threat?
Because I really do not understand it.
And it seems to me that for the cause of nonproliferation,
whether it is with respect to Iraq or any other number of
countries about which we have enormous concerns, the message
that comes out of this is that maybe the forces aligned to try
to hold people accountable are in fact paper tigers, and not
serious about it.

Andrew Sullivan takes a closer look at both Kerry's remarks and remarks by retired Gen. Wesley Clark during the debate, and finds significant flaws in the reasoning of both men.