Clarifying Kerry.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Politics: As the body language fades from memory, the words remain. And the words of the first debate define a sharp contrast -- between a president who embraces American power and a challenger who distrusts it.

So who won? We have our opinion just like everyone else. To us, it seems fair to say that Sen. John Kerry achieved what he surely had set out to do: Make his case to the voters. As a man who likes to talk and is good at it, he was in his element. Bush acted like a man who wanted to be somewhere else.

We'll also say this for the senator: He's starting to reveal a consistent worldview beneath his flip-flops. Trouble is, it doesn't inspire confidence. The more he explains it, the worse it looks.

At one point, getting to the heart of the controversy about Iraq, he used a phrase that may well come back to haunt him. In answer to a question from Jim Lehrer about pre-emptive war, he said:

"No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

Shortly after that, Bush shot back:

"I'm not exactly sure what you mean, "passes the global test.' You take pre-emptive action if you pass a global test. My attitude is you take pre-emptive action in order to protect the American people, that you act in order to make this country secure."