Please accept my apology for my part in derailing your thread. I shouldn’t have gotten caught up in that sort of nonsense. I do believe that you raised an interesting topic, and as I and others have said, it really is a matter of context. What the Republicans have done with Kerry is select a term that is usually considered to be pejorative but has some element of truth. It’s a style of dirty politics that goes way back.
Dragging things back to the original question: the term “flip-flop” implies a change of position for the purpose of currying favor or following public opinion (as opposed to a change of position resulting from new information or further thought).
I agree with this comment. I just wanted to add that the money still is an influence here on both sides. But I think the will of the people is still paramount for politicians. If 95% of the country all of a sudden decided that the color yellow was evil and should be banned, all of the politicans would be against yellow no matter how much money was thrown at them. These are the easy issues. Where we need a leader is in issues that are evenly divided in the country.
I don’t mean to keep the argument going, but Desmostylus, you clearly misunderstood Liberal if you thought his post was defending the Iraq war. (I assume that’s what you thought, sense you’re asking him to explain it to the dead Iraqis and so forth.) He was just saying that AmericanMaid (clearly not a Bush supporter) should feel lucky there were no WMDs, because if their had been any, it would have been a major political victory for Bush.
Getting back to the original topic, in my view “flip-flopping” is just an ugly sounding word for “changing your mind”, something I would hope (in vain) that all our leaders would be capable of doing. Not having an opinion is something completely different. I don’t think anyone can reasonably say that Kerry doesn’t have strong opinions.
It makes me sad to think that elections are often decided less on the basis of which candidate’s opinions the general public agrees with, and more on the basis of whether they can choose the right set of words to make their opponent sound bad. But that’s politics, I guess.
Don’t remember where… but someone joked that changing your mind and “flip flopping” would be a trait of an intelectual considering the many sides of an issue… and americans wouldn’t want an intelectual in the White House… 
I don’t like FoxNews and Bush beating the same “flip-flop” label… but Kerry did have a wierd tendency to change sides on certain senate votes. Without considering the reasons and the votes in depth I also had the impression that Kerry would change positions for very little reason or with a little pressure. American voters feel that a president should “stay the course” ? A bit… and Bush is “stay the course” no matter what disaster we are heading to…
Naturally I’d rather have someone capable of reflection and change. Bush is quite stubborn.
FWIW, I don’t think it is accurate to portray Kerry as a flip-flopper.
He has a very consistent voting-record:
Has voted for cuts in military spending and intelligence dept. spending
Has supported abortion and pro-life in his voting record consistently
Voted for the war in Iraq
etc…etc…etc…
I think the reason he finds himself with the label of flip-flopper is that although he has a very liberal voting record, he portrays himself as a moderate, reasonable almost (shudder) conservative with a measured approach to governing. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Bush is correct to take this campaign approach. It seems like a good way to paint his opponent.
Flip-flopping, I believe, is a sudden and off the cuff change in thinking and policy.
It could also mean being too pithy as to why your changed your mind. For example:
“I was for the war, before I was against it.”
Kerry should have never said the above sentance. This is a case where being as thoughtful and lengthy as Henry Clay works.
To be fair, Kerry was never against the war. What he said was, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
And what he did to justify the quote was (a) voted in favor of the $87 billion when it appeared it would be funded by a hike on the most wealthy, and (b) voted against the $87 billion when the Republicans nixed that plan and went for a variation that floated the cost on regular taxpayers instead.
Doesn’t make for a nifty sound bite, but details never do.
This comes directly from Republican talking-points which have been shown to be mega-deceptive. For example, some of the votes came at a time when none-other than Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was pushing for even bigger cuts.
I assume you meant “pro-choice”?
Actually, what he voted for was a resolution to give the President a free-hand in dealing with Hussein. This was a power that the President pretended he was going to use responsibly when in fact it seems his plan from the very beginning was to invade Iraq no matter what happened. (“Hans Blix is telling us privately that our intelligence on WMDs doesn’t seem to be panning out? Invade anyway!”)
I think this vote was an unwise one given that it already should have been abundantly clear that Bush was a compulsive liar…But, I am willing to forgive a person a certain amount of naivety.
Exactly. Imagine him explaining that as the military was engaged in an endeavor he had voted for, that he apparently believed in, that was supposed to make us all safer, he was going to vote for funding only if the few taxpayers of his choosing were going to pay for it.
He wouldn’t have to because that is such a completely bogus way of putting it. And it conveniently hides the fact that the Misleader in Chief had purposefully withheld the funding request for Iraq or even the fact that such a request would be needed…at least of that magnitude…until after he had conveniently passed his further tax relief for the wealthy. So, his vote was partly a protest against the constant barrage of lies, misinformation, and withholding of information that had marked this viciously anti-democratic (with a small “d”) administration.
Kerry was also standing up for the principle that we must responsibly pay for things rather than just putting them on our national charge card. And, he may have also been objecting to the fact that the funding request was rammed through Congress with little thought to the details, and it now turns out that there are significant issues regarding how some of the money has been spent. See here or here.
Actually, Bush seems to have funded this 87 billion by increasing the Birth Tax (the tax burden that all Americans are born with.) And had this bill funding the $87 billion with deficit spending failed, do you really think that the whole issue would have been dropped and no new money allocated? Of course not. A new bill would have been proposed. Voting against the bill was not a vote to deprive the troops of anything.
As to the OP, if you accuse someone of being something in a mean authoritative tone, then whatever you are accusing them of takes the feeling of being “bad”. And it is easier to accuse of Kerry being a (cue eery music) "flip flopper in 30 sec than it is to explain perfectly reasonable good government votes. So flip flop is bad, just like eww liberal. Liberal? Yuck he must care about people less fortunate than himself or something. The TV has led me to believe that is bad. For some reason.
As to why the Dems do not hit on Bush’s flip flopping, I have no idea. Would seem a logical attack ad.
By the way, here is a web blog that has quotes from Kerry on why he voted against the funding. With the help of thermalribbon and other Bush partisans, I think I am beginning to understand why the Republicans have chosen this “flip-flopping” issue. Basically, I think it may be an attempt to keep things very black-and-white and simple. Because, Rove most know in his heart that if the American people start thinking more deeply about these issues, Bush is screwed. The best bet is to continue to hope that enough of the public doesn’t like to deal in a world of subtlety that requires some higher brain functions and whatever they can do to keep things away from this, the better.
They’re avoiding attack ads altogether at the moment, and are avoiding more strident attacks on the Bush administration at the convention. It’s all part of a strategy to appear more positive and more in-control.
In Kerry’s own words from that web blog:
So, admittedly we see a bit of naivety in believing that (or at least hoping that) Bush would use force only as a last resort just because he said say. I suppose we could get on Kerry’s case for believing a compulsive liar when he should have known better but, then again, since the other alternative is having that compulsive liar run our country for another 4 years…
Look, the federal government hasn’t spent money responsibly in a long friggin’ time. Kerry isn’t some saint when it comes to spending money - he would spend us into oblivion if the interests that support him rec’d the money. That is opinion, but I doubt many reasonable person would disagree. The same can be said of the GOP. But this is about Kerry’s flip-flop label.
However, my original point about flip-flopping was to suggest that Kerry is a liberal senator. That point - I don’t think - can seriously be argued against. His approach to the American People in general during his presidential campaign (post-Primary Season) has been to play down his history and appear to be something he isn’t. A moderate. A conservative-liberal. Hence, the flip-flop label.
As for his rejection of the $87 billion on grounds that it should be coupled with some repeal of the Bush tax plan (or a portion thereof), that to me is bunk, because it singled out a group of taxpayers who had their taxes cut and attempted to charge them with the bill. I mean, Kerry voted for the war. He did. Then for him to to say that unless the top 5% of income-earners get their tax cuts repealed, he won’t support the funding is lousy. The war is making us all safer (supposedly) and all payers of income tax rec’d tax cuts under the Bush plan. Because some millionaire’s cut amounts to more than mine doesn’t mean that in times of war, his taxes should go up and mine shouldn’t. But asking ALL American tax payers to pay more taxes isn’t good election year politics, so… just play a little class warfare and demand that The Rich pay for it. I just don’t agree with that type of politcal approach.
In other words, it is typical Washington politics. It is typical Democratic politics. Also, perhaps a better explanation is that it is very Senatorial, the type of thing that gets done all the time. But don’t make excuses for it. He f’ed up. He flip-flopped because he was planning his run at the presidency. He withheld a vote on some bogus pretense that can only be explained by people looking to excuse a bad vote. But what would have happened had he voted for the $87 billion? Can you say Bush v. Dean?
But the choice was not “everyone pay equally” or “rich folk pay”. The choice presented was “Rich folk pay” or “no-one pay.” Bush wanted the politically easy but very non-conservative “no-one pay” approach. That just pisses me off. If this war is important enough to do, it should be important enough to pay for ourselves. And the reason the bill may go to the rich folk? Well, just like why Dilinger robbed banks. That’s where the money is. You can’t fund a $200 billion war by taxing people making $15k a year.
(1) No. Kerry voted to give Bush the power to force Iraq to allow the U.N. inspectors in, etc. with the threat of force as a motivating factor in that.
(2) Bush passed the second part of his tax cuts by withholding from Congress the fact that the post-war efforts would cost significantly more than was being planned for. And, as Kerry points out, the costs only got this high because of a variety of decisions that Bush made along the way including deciding to cut short the inspections process in the first place because it wasn’t producing the desired result (turning up WMDs in Iraq)…And, of course we now know that the reason it wasn’t producing that result is that they likely didn’t exist at all—and certainly in nothing near the amounts that Bush officials claimed—and that this possibility was becoming increasingly evident to Hans Blix as he found that U.S. intelligence telling him where to look (since, as Cheney so directly stated, they knew where they were) seemed to be off the mark.
(3) He’s not “singling out” a group of taxpayers. He is just acknowledging the facts on the ground which, as Boring Dad puts it so succiently, that’s where the money is. And, in fact, that is where the money is increasingly concentrated since the top 1% saw their after-tax incomes increase by over 200% in real terms in the 21 years (1979-2000) leading up to the Bush years while the middle quintile only saw its average after-tax income rise by 15%. (See here for source and more details.) Of course, these taxpayers weren’t being asked to give up any of these huge gains, but rather to just give up a bit of the additional bonanza that G.W. had dropped in their lap with his tax cuts post-2000.
Oh yeah…And, it is worth pointing out that the lower classes are already paying mightily for this war since, as Fahrenheit 9/11 points outs, they are in the largest proportion the ones whose sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers are dying in the war.