Flip-Flop, Flip-Flop, Flip-Flop!

[Yonivore]

Nowhere Left to Flop (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27549-2004Sep16?language=printer)

Excerpt:

“If the election were held today, John Kerry would lose by between 88 and 120 electoral votes. The reason is simple: The central vulnerability of this president -- the central issue of this campaign -- is the Iraq war. And Kerry has nothing left to say.”

“Why? Because, until now, he has said everything conceivable regarding Iraq. Having taken every possible position on the war, there is nothing he can say now that is even remotely credible.”

“If he had simply admitted that he had made a mistake in supporting the war, he might have become an antiwar candidate. But having taken a dozen positions, he has nowhere to
Gee, that’s too bad.

Good catch:

“When Don Imus asked him this week, ‘Do you think there are any circumstances we should have gone to war in Iraq, any?’ Kerry responded: ‘Not under the current circumstances, no. There are none that I see. I voted based on weapons of mass destruction. The president distorted that.’ But just last month he said that even if he had known then what he knows now, he would have voted for the war reso
Well, which is it?

[LandSharkII]

http://home.alltel.net/petronski/kerrybunny.jpg

[Nbadan]

The * administration likes to keep playing up the flip-flop thing on Kerry cause it has no effective policy to deal with the situations in Iraq, Iran or North Korea. It was so evident yesterday when a reporter asked W about Kerry's concerns about the war and the only thing W could answer with was,"What's his stand today".

No Mr. President, the American people want you to quit playing political games with the war and explain to us what your plans are for regaining the momentum in the war on Iraq and the war on terrorism.

[Yonivore]

"...a reporter asked W about Kerry's concerns..."
I think the President's question, in response, was appropriate. How can you address a concern when it's substance isn't known?

"No Mr. President, the American people want you to quit playing political games with the war and explain to us what your plans are for regaining the momentum in the war on Iraq and the war on terrorism."
Here you go, have it! (http://www.georgewbush.com/Security/)

[Nbadan]

:rolleyes

More generalized rhetoric. Where are the real plans for the deteriorating situation in Iraq? What are his plans for dealing with North Korea possibly testing nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula? How does he plan to deal with Iran? Where is Osama?

[Joe Chalupa]

You'd think that Dubya has never flip-flopped on an issue during the past 4 years... :rolleyes

[Nbadan]

W has flip-flopped so many times on the reasoning for the Iraq war alone, I don't know why we are over there this week? Anyone? Is it still to foster democracy? Cause, it ain't working.

[bigzak25]

the plans for iraq have been said time and time again.....help the iraqi's establish their police for and train them and let them handle their own business, with the US playing a support only role.

iran and korea will be dealt with diplomatically, the same way iraq was....if/when that fails, that's a bridge to cross when we come to it.....

if you ask me, china will keep north korea in check, and iran will buckle under UN pressure....

and **** osama. i hope he is captured, or better yet, killed in the process, but he is just one man.

[Yonivore]

Flip-Flops are generally characterized by whether or not they are seen as pandering to a targeted crowd. And, on that, I say no...the President hasn't flip-flopped in the last 4 years.

Sure, he's changed his position on matters, but never to pander.

[Samurai Jane]

Isn't it possible to have more than one reason to be involved in a war situation?

Kerry has made flip flopping his legacy over the past 30+ years.. so much so that his reputation precedes him. Heck he even flip flopped over whether he should be proud of his medals or whether he should trash them... oh wait those were somebody else's medals or were they?? Oh no, I've gone cross eyed. :p

[Nbadan]

Oh, so we planned to let Sadr's militia drive us from Najif and let the rebels control Fallujah and other parts of Iraq?

[Nbadan]

Isn't it possible to have more than one reason to be involved in a war situation?

Not when your reasoning for going to war in the first place changes like the direction of the wind, and especially because your latest excuse for partaking in this fiasco is a clear failure.

[Yonivore]

"Oh, so we planned to let Sadr's militia drive us from Najif and let the rebels control Fallujah and other parts of Iraq?"
No plan survives contact with the enemy.

[DeSPURado]

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

What a load of rhetorical nonense. Only a carefully laid plan survives contact with the enemy. With out one you tend to end up dead.

[LandSharkII]

What a load of rhetorical nonense. Only a carefully laid plan survives contact with the enemy. With out one you tend to end up dead.
Those words you call nonsense come from one of the greatest military geniuses of all time, Carl von Clausewitz.

:shootme

[DeSPURado]

Yeah and Eusenhouwer sadu the following:

“A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility. I don’t believe there is such a thing, and frankly I wouldn’t even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing.”-- Press conference in 1954

[Yonivore]

Actually, I believe Napoleon was first to utter the phrase. But, it's funny you mention Eisenhower because, he was said to have used the quote as well.

No matter how you plan, 50% of the players are on the other side of the playing field.

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

[Nbadan]

No plan may always survive contact with the enemy, but when your team is The 1972 Miami Dolphins and your playing the Memorial minute-men I don't think it to much to expect that your team win each and every battle clear and convincingly. Something we failed to do both in Najif and Fallujah. By doing so, we have emboldened our enemies. The administration has effectively politicized the battles and the entire war till after the November elections.

[scott]

And, on that, I say no...the President hasn't flip-flopped in the last 4 years.

*cough*steel tariffs*cough*

[Yonivore]

"*cough*steel tariffs*cough*"
If he'd gone on telling selected audiences that he favored steel tariff's while repealing them, that'd be a flip flop. He made a change in position, corrected and error, whatever you want to call it.

You'd be more correct, and maybe rightly so, in saying the President has made some wrong policy decisions and has had to change them than to say he flip-flopped.

Ask Kerry about abortion before a Planned Parenthood crowd and then in front of a Catholic group. You'll get flip-flopping.

Ask Bush about abortion in front of Planned Parenthood or the Catholics and you get the same answer.

That's the difference. I also believe flip-flopping is a manifestation of being unable or unwilling to right a wrong policy decision leaving you bound to defend an unpopular policy while trying to get elected.

I don't believe George W. Bush flip-flops...he's maintaining his position on his most unpopular position, the war in Iraq...Kerry can't seem to decide what he'd do there.

[Yonivore]

"No plan may always survive contact with the enemy, but when your team is The 1972 Miami Dolphins and your playing the Memorial minute-men I don't think it to much to expect that your team win each and every battle clear and convincingly. Something we failed to do both in Najif and Fallujah. By doing so, we have emboldened our enemies. The administration has effectively politicized the battles and the entire war till after the November elections."
And you've hit on the problem.

No one, even the all-knowing pundits, expected Iraq to fall in 21 days or for a third of the army to run and hide to fight later with insurgents (which brings up the whole collusion with al Qaeda thing again). Remember the predictions of 10,000 body bags in the first month? I guess not.

The Iraqi regime was way over-estimated. I have my theories on that and they begin with Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, Gerhard Schroeder, and Kofi Annan assuring Saddam Hussein that they'd pull his bacon out of the fire so they could continue their cheesy littel arrangement in the oil-for-food scandal.

No one expected the U.S. to tell the U.N. to go **** themselves. In a way, I think that's fortunate as well, because I believe if Saddam Hussein has been MORE PREPARED, he'd of used whatever WMD's he could muster and we'd of seen thousands of American body bags coming home. The sad flip-side to that coin is we'd of probably won the war in 40 days instead of 21 and we'd not be fighting these bastards today.

And, as for Fallujah and Najaf and Sadr City, those areas should have been leveled ... but, international opinion and U.S. whiney babies have brought sufficient pressure to bear as to cause a more politically-correct approach.

I still maintain we should give people 7 days to seek refuge and then level the place.

[Nbadan]

If he'd gone on telling selected audiences that he favored steel tariff's while repealing them, that'd be a flip flop. He made a change in position, corrected and error, whatever you want to call it.

:lol

I call it a flip-flop.

[Nbadan]

Ask Bush about abortion in front of Planned Parenthood or the Catholics and you get the same answer.

Having conviction is a good thing. Being egg-headed and stubborn isn't. Besides, most people are pro-choice so if W. wants to argue about his pro-life beliefs by all means bring it on!

[Nbadan]

I don't believe George W. Bush flip-flops...he's maintaining his position on his most unpopular position, the war in Iraq...Kerry can't seem to decide what he'd do there.

This reminds me of when W. went to the U.N. looking for them to solve this Iraq fiasco for him and the U.N. told him to **** off. Now the administration says that Kerry has no plan for Iraq, but they have never clearly stated how much longer we are going to have to be in Iraq, whether the administration plans to mobilize thousands of more forces to try and pacify the Iraq insurgents, and how much more this fiasco is going to cost the American people after the election.

This is not Kerry's problem to solve, it is George Bush's problem to solve.

[Nbadan]

The Iraqi regime was way over-estimated. I have my theories on that and they begin with Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, Gerhard Schroeder, and Kofi Annan assuring Saddam Hussein that they'd pull his bacon out of the fire so they could continue their cheesy littel arrangement in the oil-for-food scandal.

:lol

Yeah, I don't know what we are going to do with all those French, German, Russian and U.N. weapons that the U.S. has confiscated from captured Iraqis in recent months. Never mind that W let the Syrians hide a Iraqi pipeline from the U.N. as part of a bribe to gain Syria's help in the war on terrorism. It's all the euros fault. Hell, it's in the bible.

[scott]

Okay Yoni, you win... Kerry is a flip-flopper while Bush is just a "change-his-mind-er." No matter what you want to call it, the indecisivness doesn't do much to help W's record as one of the worst president's in history.

[Yonivore]

I believe history will be much kinder than you. And, policies will sometimes change according to evolving circumstances. Find me an example of where President Bush has said one thing to one crowd and another thing, on the same topic to another crowd -- contemporaneously to one another.

Kerry does it all the freakin' time...sometimes in the same sentence as has been posted in here.