Does Kerry have some sort of strange, selective amnesia?

As my two or three regular readers probably know by now, the Bush administration is planning on asking for $70 billion more to fund the war in Iraq and activities in Afganistan next year. Kerry, predictably, had some choice words to say in response:

"We have learned that the president wants an additional 70 billion dollars of your money by early next year for Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total cost to 225 billion dollars.

"Mr. President, what else are you being silent about? What else are you keeping from the American people? How much more will the American people have to pay?" Kerry said.

I went ahead and linked to the article at Al Jazeera since I wasn't able to find the entire quote on Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC. Hat tip to Misha for the link.

The subject of this post refers to this conversation Kerry had with NBC's Tim Russert:

TIM RUSSERT: "Do you believe that we should reduce funding that we are now providing for the operation in Iraq?"
SEN. JOHN KERRY: "No. I think we should increase it."
RUSSERT: "Increase funding?"
KERRY: "Yes."
RUSSERT: "By how much?"
KERRY: "By whatever number of billions of dollars it takes to win. It is critical that the United States of America be successful in Iraq, Tim."
-- NBC's "Meet The Press," 8/31/03

Oh, that's right. I forgot how it works. Spending money on a war is only good if a Democrat is President. Nevermind that funding a war is one of the few legitimate government expenses, unlike most of what the federal government is currently spending vast sums on.

And note how, in the first excerpt, Kerry refers to it as "your money." To Democrats, the money belongs to you and me only when they disagree with what it's being spent on. Otherwise it's the government's money. For example, Democrats often say that tax cuts "cost" the government. The unspoken implication is that the government is paying you as a result of the tax cut instead of simply not confiscating as much as before. In business, a reduction in revenue is not a cost. So it is with the government. Even though he's not trying to rein in spending like a true conservative would, Bush at least understands that it's your money to begin with and that tax cuts allow you to keep more of it, as opposed to forcing the government to give up some of it's money.