Who's The Flip-Flopper?
Too busy swallowing Republican spin to think for yourself? Perhaps you haven't noticed how busy Bush has been...flip-flopping. Tom Raum writes, for the Associated Press that, if Kerry is a flip-flopper, he has company...with the initials GWB:
-In 2000, Bush argued against new military entanglements and nation building. He's done both in Iraq.-He opposed a Homeland Security Department, then embraced it.
-He opposed creation of an independent Sept. 11 commission, then supported it. He first refused to speak to its members, then agreed only if Vice President Dick Cheney came with him.
-Bush argued for free trade, then imposed three-year tariffs on steel imports in 2002, only to withdraw them after 21 months.
-Last month, he said he doubted the war on terror could be won, then reversed himself to say it could and would.
-A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive.'' But he told reporters six months later, "I truly am not that concerned about him.'' He did not mention bin Laden in his hour-long convention acceptance speech.
"I'm a war president,'' Bush told NBC's "Meet the Press'' on Feb. 8. But in a July 20 speech in Iowa, he said: "Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president.''
Bush keeps revising his Iraq war rationale: The need to seize Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction until none were found; liberating the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator; fighting terrorists in Iraq not at home; spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. Now it's a safer America and a safer world.
"No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, we were right to make America safer by removing Saddam Hussein from power,'' he said last week in Missouri.
Bush has changed his positions on new Clean Air Act restrictions, protecting the Social Security surplus, tobacco subsidies, the level of assistance to help combat AIDs in Africa, campaign finance overhaul and whether to negotiate with North Korean officials.
But while Bush's policy shifts have been numerous and notable, Democrats haven't succeeded yet in tarring him as a flip flopper, said American University political scientist James Thurber.
"Kerry has made some statements about it, but he doesn't have a clear strategy for hammering back at the flip flops of the president,'' Thurber said.