Posted on 03/29/2004 2:01:08 AM PST by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
One accusation that ought not to stick
THE Bush campaign has begun a 90-day media blitz to define John Kerry as a serial waffler, bet-hedger and panderer. They are having a whale of a time. On the Republican National Committee's website, you can play an interactive boxing match: Kerry v Kerry. Click a glove. Pow! He's for gay marriage (the site gives details of his position). Click again. Zap! He's against gay marriage (contradictory details). And so on for 30 rounds, each an example of Mr Kerry supposedly on both sides of every issue.
The assault is having an effect, or was before Richard Clarke's book embarrassed the president. Mr Kerry has lost both his poll lead and the aura of triumph from his party's primaries. In that sense, the campaign against him is already working. But is it true? Is Mr Kerry really incoherent and expedient? And if he is, what does that tell you about the sort of president he might be?
Start by conceding that a certain amount of flip-flopping is inevitable in “the art of the possible”. For example, what would you call someone who opposed setting up a Department of Homeland Security one minute and espoused the idea the next? Or who claimed to be a staunch free trader—right up to the moment he imposed illegal tariffs on imported steel? You'd call him George Bush.
Sometimes, flip-flopping is even desirable. Mr Bush was transformed by the attacks of September 11th 2001 from a cold war great-power nationalist to the democratiser of the Arab world (though with little to show for it so far). Some of America's most successful presidents—Franklin Roosevelt and Eisenhower, for instance—were accused of having no fixed moorings and of endless tactical flexibility.
So the proper question is not, has Mr Kerry changed his mind? It is, has he done it so often that he is just a weather-vane? And the answer must be no. True, there is a long list of issues on which he has changed his tune. But many of these fall into one of two categories where changes of mind ought to be regarded as commendable or at least understandable.
The first category embraces issues on which he changed for the better. In 1988, Mr Kerry voted against a proposal requiring welfare recipients to work a few hours a week. In 1996, he voted in favour of a welfare reform imposing far stricter work requirements. This was inconsistent. It was also justified. The 1996 welfare reform was one of the great successes of the Clinton presidency. Similarly, Mr Kerry used to oppose the idea of expensing stock options, arguing that to do so would hurt high-tech start-ups. But after the stockmarket bust, and as evidence grew that unexpensed options caused market distortions, he altered his line. As John Maynard Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
The second and larger category consists of Senate votes that look contradictory taken out of context, but make sense once the context is added. Many Senate bills exist in similar drafts, and the final version frequently includes obnoxious provisions that have nothing to do with the substance of the bill itself. Senators then face an unenviable choice. Do they back the bill, with the extra provision they would otherwise have opposed? Or do they vote against a bill they support? No wonder no sitting senator has won the presidency since Kennedy. With 19 years of such nuanced votes to account for, Mr Kerry is especially vulnerable.
His idiotic statement about the $87 billion Iraqi reconstruction package—that he voted for it before he voted against it—reflects such problems: it accurately describes how he voted on different versions of the bill. He also endorsed ending the double taxation of dividends as part of a wider tax reform, but voted against it as part of a tax cut. Inconsistent, but understandable.
Such problems are awkward for all senators. In Mr Kerry's case, they are compounded by a tension between the needs of representing liberal Massachusetts and his own, sometimes more hawkish, views on matters such as national security and welfare reform.
Resolve v realism Of course, not all his flip-flops can be explained away. To different audiences, he has supported and criticised Israel's security fence. He voted for the Iraq war resolution, criticised the manner in which Mr Bush went to war, and refused to say whether he thinks the action was, on balance, justified. He has abandoned some brave stances against Democratic dogma—such as supporting Social Security reform or earlier challenges to restrictive practices by teachers' unions.
So his record contains inconsistencies. But these are individual failures. They do not add up to any fundamental incoherence of political philosophy. In that sense, the main charge against Mr Kerry is false.
To the Bush team, that is irrelevant. They are not concerned about the substance of Mr Kerry's views. Indeed, when they do turn to substance later this year, they will almost certainly criticise him not for inconsistency, but for the opposite: for being consistently liberal. The attack on “flip-flopping” is really about image: a vacillating Mr Kerry highlights the president's image as a man of immovable resolve at a time of national danger.
Yet, almost inadvertently, this debate over image and inconsistency tells you something profound about the candidates. When Mr Bush reverses himself (in abandoning his promise to run a “humble” foreign policy, for instance) he does so boldly, almost spectacularly. There is no attempt to explain the shift. One set of principles succeeds another, as if the earlier views never existed. Mr Kerry's reversals, on the other hand, are products of subtly shifting nuance as he tries, and fails, to strike a balance between competing views. The one approach shows resolution, and a tendency to exaggeration; the other, a tendency to waffle, but also a grasp of how complicated political realities can be.
Just about anything put out by the Cato Institute. Although I dissagree with their isolationist foreign policy I find their views are strictly rational rather than apparently rational.
I was not aware that Lexington was an opinion column and therefore excluded from a charge of bias.
Would you view the Chalemagne column with equanimity if it constantly tilted to the views of the Christian Democrats? Most of the writers for the Economist are the products of Oxbridge and like the BBC commentators have a gift for the prosaic stilleto between the ribs. In some respects they are like the french elite, distainful of the lumpen proletariat.
In the 1980's they were fierce opponents of the socialist sclerosis which had handicapped the UK since WW II, during both socialist and nominally conservative governments. They have lost that edge in recent years under different editors.
For what it's worth I don't agree with a great deal of what is writtern on this site - believing in a Jefforsonian republic ( That government governs best ...) - but FR does not portray itself as balanced, which the Economist does. Having said that, it's standards are still way above just about anything currently published in the USA with the possible exception of highly specialised journals such as Foreign Affairs or Foreign Policy
The proposed constitution assumes that in future politicians will be honest, diligent and put the public interest first - all the evidence of the last two thousand years notwithstanding. They also appear content to leave the final interpretation up to the European Court a mistake our founding fathers made with the Supreme Court ( See my tag line below)
FLIP-FLOP MAN ("Nowhere Man")
=============================
He's a real flip-flop man
Living in his flip-flop land
Doesn't have a single plan
For nobody
Always has a point of view
Frequently he'll have two
Doesn't he sound just like you'd
Want him to be?
Flip-flop man (la la la), John Kerry
Take a stand (la la la), why should he?
Flip-flop man, thinks that we should be
At the UN's command.
He's a fake as he can be
Shows you want you want to see
Always hides from you and me
What he really is.
Always has a point of view
Frequently he'll have two
Doesn't he sound just like you'd
Want him to be?
Flip-flp man (la la la), don't you fret
Just keep sayin' (la la la) "Vietnam vet"
Flip-flip man, the media will let
You slide on it.
He's a real flip-flop man
Living in his flip-flop land
Doesn't have a single plan
For nobody
YESTERDAY
=========
Yesterday
I told you what I had to say
To convice you that I'd vote that way
That was my stance
Yesterday
Suddenly
The realization came to me
On the other side I had to be
And that is now the truth
To me
So... how will I vote?
I don't know, I just won't say
If it all goes wrong
I'll flip-flop back
To yesterday
Yesterday
It's such an easy game to play
Watch me change my tune again today
Oh don't believe
A word I say
Don't believe
A word I say
What you talking about? Bush is running ads every 30 minutes in WA state pounding Kerry !
Jay leno just said that he likes to hear both sides of every issue - that's why he listens to John Kerry !
Kerry is getting beat down pebble by pebble.
The Sh!t hasn't hit the fan yet against Kerry but it will in May and June !
Although you may be correct, unfortunately, I do not think it fair to compare the publications of a foundation to that of a weekly. The Economist has to earn a profit through advertising. So possibly I should rephrase my question to ask if you can name a more objective advertisement supported publication?
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