Flip-flop - is this kindergarten?
One of the most amazing things about this campaign is the way Bush has made - or tried to make - the big lie about "flip-flopping" stick. This is not an error in judgment on the part of the president - it is a lie and he knows it. What's more, the evidence clearly shows he is the flip-flopper in chief.
And when you start pointing out that last, the campaign sounds like a couple of kindergarteners arguing at recess. "You"re a flip-flopper. No, you're a flip-flopper." Now Bush is trying to use it in regards to Iraq. Rather than face the issues he claims Kerry has taken so many positions on Iraq he doesn't know what they are.
Anyone who has watched five minutes of news laterly could help him out, but as this columnist says:
"Yet taken as a whole, Kerry has offered the same message ever since talk of attacking Iraq became a national conversation more than two years ago. "
That position is simple:
1. He voted to give the president the authority to go to war. That, in effect, gave Bush a big bargaining chip to use to constrain Hussein. It is NOT, as the president in his kindergarten reasoning tries to point out, a vote to go to war.
2. The authority thus given was conditional - war should be a last resort AND it should be done having built an international coalition.
It was obvious Bush considered war a first resort. There is plenty of evidence this was his intention from day one. And when he could not get the world to go along with thim, he went it alone. The only significant nation to join and stay with him was England. And they are the only country that has born a significant - though very minor - part of the cost in lives and dollars.
As Kerry points out, this is in stark contrast to the first Gulf War where Bush senior built a major coalition of major countries including all the major Arab countries. The dollar cost of that first war was born almost entirely by others, although it was again mostly our troops. But the dollar cost isn't important. Think of how different things would be if we had most of the Arab countries with us on this one - not to mention the rest of the world. Instead we are viewed as the "bullies," the bad guys, or worse, the murderers. This does nothing but strengthen the hand of fanatics like bin Laden.
Finally, Kerry's vote was based on intelligence involving weapons of mass destruction and links to bin Laden that have since proven false. Bush, with his childish inability to admit an error, says today that he would have gone to war anyways. Kerry says if he knew then, what he knows today, he would not have voted for the war.
Kerry's pposition his been consistent. He has changed emphasis. he has shouted louder. But the basic position hasn't changed.
The only thing more puzzling than applying the flip-flop label to this is the extent to which the press lets Bush get away with this - over and over again. The big lie does work.
And the press rarely, if ever, confronts Bush with all his flip flops, both past and present. A few glaring examples:
1. When he campaigned for president Bush declared he was "not into nation building." He was highly critical of Clinton's successful efforts in the Bulkans in this respect. Now he has become the largest - and most disastrous - nation builder imaginable.Nationa-building is his only reason left for staying in Iraq (where it is a miserable failure) and in Afghanistan, where it is failing as well.
2. He was against creating a department of Homeland Security, then he was for it.
3. He was against the 9/11 commission and stymied all their early efforts, then he was for it.
4. He reveled in the macho "dead or alive" emphasis he put on the capture of Osama bin Laden back in 2001 and 2002, now - since he totally blew the effort to capture him - he has declared that this is not important. (BTW - Kerry pointed out this disaster back when it happened, which wa sin the long-forgotten Afghanistan debacle.)
5. During the 2000 debates he declared gay marriage a state issue, then this year tried to make political hay out of turning it into a feederal issue instead.
So why can't the Democrats make the charge "flip-flopper in chief" stick? Maybe because they think a presidential campaign should be about the real issues facing the nation now. They are not good at running around the country treating the voters and the issues like this was all a kindergarten recess. Bush excels at this because in the final anaylsis he has no respect for the American voter. He thinks every issue has to be dummed down. Some would say that this is because he is dummed down. I don't think so. I think he's smart. I just think he lacks any significant sense of integrity.
All his life the only thing he has been good at is getting a job with the help of powerful family friends. That's how he got every job he ever held and that's how he became president. Once he's in the job, he inevitably fails. He is the ultimate spoiled brat - and now he is in a job where Americans and many others pay with their lives due to his failures.
