Randy Scheunemann, McCain adviser and neocon, describing Obama as stubborn as George W. Bush on Iraq. Looks like the McCain campaign has flip-flopped on it’s attack strategy. Last week they were saying Obama was a flip-flopper on Iraq.
(via election08)
This blog post completely misses the point. Flip-flopping is not the same as changing one’s mind. Inflexibility is not the same as taking a principled stand.
When someone accuses BO of flip-flopping (or of inflexibility), they are impugning, not the fact of his altering (or not altering) his public position, but his motives for doing so.
When BO changes his public position on the surge, then makes false statements about his past position in an effort to disguise his change, it is clear that he is trying to reap the benefits of a more viable position while avoiding the consequences of his past poor judgement. What do we call a change of position accompanied by selfish motivations? Flip-flopping.
When BO proposes the same plan of action in Iraq even though conditions there are radically different, and the reasons he gave in support of his plan then are different from the reasons he gives now, it is clear that his supporting reasons are subservient to his favored outcomes. When the reasons change, but the outcome remains the same, we call that … inflexibility!
Since BO is flip-flopping on his opinion of the viability of the Surge while simultaneously refusing to let changing conditions in Iraq inform his withdrawal schemes, it is probably most accurate to say that he is flip-flopping on the Surge to try to preserve his credibility on Withdrawal. In other words, BO is triangulating, and he is doing his damndest to fool us into thinking he isn’t.
- Hale
