Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label

[RedEarth]

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 (news - web sites). 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 needed.


Democrats 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 (news - web sites) -- 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.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=1802&e=2&u=/washpost/20040923/ts_washpost/a43093_2004sep22

[daydreamer]

1. Flip-Flop

That's because Kerry did not hit back and did not point out Bush's flip-flops. A lie unanswered is a lie spread.

[sniffa]

2. the message board is hopping as usuaL

i gave it a 5, and then dropped some bLows on juveniLe bush supporters.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Aren't you really tired of this? They have so little of substance to bring

to a legitimate conversation about ANYTHING. They did this to Al Gore, too, of course.

You recall their entire campaign in 2000 was petty, silly, childish mocking of the other candidate. That was after we learned, by seeing what they did to John McCain, they "even" eviscerate "their own people!"

They run nasty, stupid campaigns, escalate what should be a civilized debate to all out war on the Democrat. They have NO intention of doing things ethically. That leaves too much to chance, and too much is entrusted to the voters. Heaven forbid the election should be fair.

They are the ultimate heathens. Uncivilized at all levels.

[CBHagman]

4. Then Harris turns around and uses GOP spin.

First he mentions the charge of the media's complicity in promoting Republican spin:

"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."

Then Harris demonstrates how true this is by depicting Kerry thusly:


"Iraq, however, has been the source of the most damaging charges of
equivocation and wind-shifting against Kerry. The Massachusetts senator voted for the Iraq war in October 2002, but a year later voted against Bush's request for $87 billion for military and reconstruction spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latter vote came when former Vermont governor Howard Dean's antiwar candidacy was ascendant. The vote may have been wise politics at the time, but came with a high price -- lending an aura of plausibility to the subsequent charges by Bush that Kerry is motivated by opportunism."

The Kerry-did-it-for-Dean spin is a new one, but note how Harris makes no effort to clarify what Kerry did and did not vote for, explained in the Globe article below:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/03/17/kerry_blasts_bush_on_protecting_troops/

Folks, the press is doing the same business they did in 2000 -- repeating whatever the GOP says as gospel truth, and putting a negative spin on any Democratic advantages whatever. We've got to call them on this again and again and again.

[Rose Siding]

5. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=858085

[Romulus]

6. WTF is BushCo's "image"?!?

"Mission Accomplished"?!?

What a cufking joke . . .

[trueblew]

7. President Spin is a Flop n/t

[Moderator]

8. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=858085