Kerry's Top Ten Flip-Flops

I cannot see any flip flops
McGentrix, I know the accusations against Kerry that he flip flops. And I read a lot of them and I must conclude: KERRY DID NOT FLIP FLIP.

Not a single example you cite from CBS is a flip flop. But I understand that the typical oversimplifications of black-white Bush make it look like flip-flops...

Take for example the first accusation: Voting for the war

This is a good decision. The war (as the Gulf war) was based on lies.


This is also a good decision. But it is about another question: About giving the president the AUTHORITY to go to war if the president sees danger.


This is also true. As John Edwards said: The president was authorized to go to war but not to do the mess he did.

The flip flop accusation is totally fabricated. The other examples also show more lack of understanding of complicated issues than they show that Kerry flip flopped.

Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label
By John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 23, 2004; Page A01


One of this year's candidates for president, to hear his opposition tell it, has a long history of policy reversals and rhetorical about-faces -- a zigzag trail that proves his willingness to massage positions and even switch sides when politically convenient.


The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush. Over the past four years, he abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president yielded to pressure in supporting an independent commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about whether he would allow his national security adviser to testify, or whether he would answer commissioners' questions for only an hour, or for as long they neededDemocrats working for John F. Kerry cite these twists and turns with glee -- but even more frustration. Polls have shown overwhelmingly that Kerry -- with his long trail of confusing and sometimes contradictory statements, especially on Iraq -- is this year's flip-flopper in the public mind, a criticism that continued to echo across the campaign trail yesterday.


Once such a popular perception becomes fixed, public opinion experts and strategists say, virtually every episode in the campaign is viewed through that prism, while facts that do not fit with existing assumptions -- such as Bush's history of policy shifts -- do not have much impact in the political debate.


Why these impressions became so firmly fixed in the first place is a source of debate. Bush strategists say the popular perception is true. The president's principles on such issues as low taxes and confronting overseas threats are not in doubt, no matter some occasional tactical shifts, they say, while Kerry's maneuvering on Iraq and other issues raises questions about whether he can stand steady for core beliefs.
Kerry defenders say the flip-flop charge has resonated through purposeful repetition by the Bush campaign, which began striking the theme in ads in the spring and has never let go. In the latest Bush campaign spot, released yesterday, Kerry is shown windsurfing as the ad, scored with Johann Strauss Jr.'s "Blue Danube" waltz, says the Democrat shifts positions on Iraq, health care and education "whichever way the wind blows."


As Democrats see it, the flip-flopper allegation is this year's equivalent of how the GOP four years ago portrayed Al Gore as a chronic truth-stretcher, and now, as then, blame the news media for accepting and promoting a caricature.


For a while this summer, Kerry's team tried to answer Bush's charge that Kerry is equivocating and inconstant by alleging that Bush is just as much or more so. But lately the campaign has laid off this line of argument after concluding it was ineffective against an opponent who surveys show is seen by a majority of voters as decisive, even to the point of stubbornness.


"When it comes to shifting positions, he can shift with the best," Kerry spokesman Joe Lockhart said of Bush. "We are prosecuting a different case. We are not arguing that he's a flip-flopper -- he is -- but that the policy choices he has taken have failed miserably."


Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, said voters' perceptions are too settled at this point to allow easily for alternate arguments. Once the public concludes that a politician is strong in general, he or she has more freedom to be flexible on certain delicate particulars, Kohut said, adding that in the case of this year's nominees, "Bush can get away with a little more, and Kerry can get away with a little less."


Stuart Stevens, one of Bush's media advisers, argued that the public's judgments are fair. Voters do not believe that Bush has never changed his mind, or penalize Kerry for every change of position, he said, but over time have reached conclusions about both men's priorities and leadership styles.


"I think all these issues resonate with any candidate if they strike people as part of a pattern and reasonable and true," Stevens said. "The president is someone who has a core set of beliefs and values that are guiding him as he tries to make decisions.


"I don't think he hesitates to change an approach if he feels it's not working, but I don't think people sense remotely that he's doing it [based on] a political compass," he added.


The record, however, suggests a fair degree of political calculation has gone into some of Bush's about-faces. During his first term, the paramount goals -- such as cutting taxes or pursuing a confrontation with Saddam Hussein -- have been fixed. But this has allowed room for tactical maneuvering on other questions.

Thanx, Frank.

Perhaps THIS should be McGentrix's avatar:

http://www.scaryjohnkerry.com/flipflop.htm

I believe KnnKnn is already using your year-book picture Dookie.

I just posted this somewhere else (and it's my new tagline), but it's priceless

"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not the person you want as the commander in chief" reuters link

Clearly that's a dig at Kerry's "rush to war" comments. Yet here is Kerry rushing to judgment on the culpability of the US in securing these explosives before all the facts have been brought to the table.

McGentrix:

Lame

http://filmstripinternational.com/

http://www.mandrillstudios.com/news.html

http://www.ultimatetaxi.com/board/messages/11280.html

That's a bunch of crap Dookie. I feel sorry for you.

That's exactly what I am talking about. There is not a single flip-flop there. Although it's funny I must agree.

And let me also add 1 more thing: Bush lied US into war. To accuse whomever "You were for and now against it" is just dirty. The whole anti-Iraq hypnosis was based on Bush deception.

Actually I think Kerry DOES make a mistake. He should have always answered: "Yep, I voted for it, Bush DECEIVED us all". That would make his statement much clearer.

All the flip-flopping labels and Vietnam fake medals hurled at Kerry have resulted in a dead heat with less than a week to go until the election.

Way to go, Republican idiots.

That basically shows the incompetence of the voters.

I would demand IQ tests for voters

Better yet, let's have one for those who run for President.

That would't be fair, the demoncrats would never hold an office again.

Neither would the Repugnicans.

Oooh, these juvenile games are fun, ain't they cannistershot?

If anyone hurled Vietnam medals at Kerry, he'd throw them right back. (or was that ribbons?)

Why yes the juvenile games are fun dookie

The juvenile games are a lot of fun.

In fact you must really love the juvenile games?