It's Bush who's the flip-flopper

It's Bush who's the flip-flopper

John Kerry finds himself accused of aggravated flip-flopping in the first degree. The charge comes from various Republican Party front groups and the President himself. President Bush has had great fun mocking Kerry for, among other things, his vote for the war and a subsequent vote not to fund it.
Not mentioned is that in between the two votes came ample evidence of incompetence on the part of Bush. And so Kerry, as behooves a thinking man, chose to voice a protest. The vote did not lend itself to sound-bite analysis, but it made a certain amount of sense: The war in Iraq was a mess; Bush had not earned a blank check.

In supposed contrast to Kerry, Bush presents himself as the immutable politician, a man of firm beliefs who sticks to them not because they are popular, but because they are right - despite all evidence or reason. This is certainly the case when it comes to his core beliefs. His devotion to minimal taxes on the rich, for instance, is touching, but it has put the government in such debt that it will take our children's children to pay it off.

But on other matters, Bush has flipped and flopped with the best of them. As a presidential candidate, he declared himself implacably opposed to nation-building. Now we are engaged in building nations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, the cost has not only been a ton of money, as it was in Haiti and other places Bush said he wouldn't go, but nearly 1,000 American lives lost and countless more ruined.

Mind you, with WMD all but declared a mirage in the desert, the new - and sole - justification for the war is not anything approaching self-defense, but getting rid of Saddam Hussein and his regime. This is nation-replacement and nation-building, a total rehab project.

Bush also declared himself a determined unilateralist, kissing off treaties and understandings and even spurning NATO help in Afghanistan. Now, though, the unilateralist of old is sending Secretary of State Powell around the world, seeking alms and arms for Iraq. Flip-flop.

Bush said he would not negotiate with North Korea. He did. Flip-flop. He told the UN to butt out of Iraq. Now he wants it in. Flip-flop.

Bush opposed creating the Homeland Security Department. Soon after, he flip-flopped his way to an embrace. He later opposed the creation of the 9/11 commission, but now he cannot thank it enough.

He did not want his chief aides, Condoleezza Rice, for instance, to testify publicly before it, but relented in the face of popular opposition. Flip-flop.

He himself would not testify because of all sorts of hallowed constitutional reasons and then, of course, did. Flip-flop.

Finally, we get Bush's recent call for the creation of the post of national intelligence director, a position he once opposed.

The truth is that Bush flip-flops all the time. If he had been in public life as long as Kerry has, his flip-flops would be as legion as the fish in the sea.

Flip-flopping, like beauty, is in the mind of the beholder. It can be an indicator of an alert mind, one that adjusts to new realities, or it can be evidence of ambition decoupled from principle.

With Kerry, it's a mix of both. With Bush, who changes his positions but never his mind, it is always the latter.