NYT Dowd Makes Dig at Flip-Flop Charge. Can We Demolish GOP Smear??

[WiseMen]

It is very dangerous to allow the "flip-floper" charge to stand.
It is contrary to the core of who John Kerry is and is a big part of the
Bush goal of defining Kerry in the media before Kerry can define himself.

In my view, it is so dangerous an insult that in time gone by it would merit
a challenge to a duel for honor. It is critical that Dems destroy this
Repub attack.

Maureen Down in NYT today did a beautiful job slamming the charge by commenting that Republicans would call Kerry’s eclectic tastes in movies “film flip-flopping.”
. . in culture, as in policy, the senator and the president proved very different creatures — the complicated versus the concrete, the "insatiable," as Teresa Heinz Kerry calls her husband's interests, versus the incurious.

Question: Can we compile here a list of ways to hammer the “Flip-Flop” charge. Can be too hard since some here could claim co-authorship of the charge.



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/opinion/07DOWD.html


J.F.K., Marilyn, 'Camelot'
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: March 7, 2004

Excerpt

. . . . . .
When I gave George W. Bush a culture quiz in 2000, he gamely struggled to come up with one answer in each category, calling baseball his favorite "cultural experience."

Mr. Kerry, on the other hand, struggled to stop coming up with a cascade of things in each category, rarely settling on a definite favorite.

In what may be an interesting harbinger for their debates, W. raced through his whole interview in the same time Mr. Kerry took to answer the first question about his favorite movie. After he had roamed through 37 movies, ranging from his "Fellini stage" to his Adam Sandler period, from "National Velvet" to "The Deer Hunter" to "Men in Black," Mr. Kerry's aides began to hover.

The Republicans would denounce it as film flip-flopping, no doubt. But in culture, as in policy, the senator and the president proved very different creatures — the complicated versus the concrete, the "insatiable," as Teresa Heinz Kerry calls her husband's interests, versus the incurious.

Mr. Kerry is not a simple brush-clearing, ESPN-watching fellow. Just as he has an almost comically vast palette of aggressive masculine sports and hobbies, with costumes and gear, he has a vast palette of cultural preferences.

He not only reads poetry — "I love Keats, Yeats, Shelley and Kipling" — he writes it. "I remember flying once; I was looking out at the desert and I wrote a poem about the barren desolation of the desert," he said. "I wrote a poem once about a great encounter I had with a deer early in the morning that was very moving." (Sometimes he shoots deer, sometimes he elegizes them.)

[nannygoat]

1. Daily Kos has started a list and asked people to add to it

Bush's flip flops
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/3/7/213753/1954

[Brotherjohn]

6. That list should be made into a commercial!

This attempt at labelling and defining "who Kerry is" by the Right HAS to be challenged and countered, and NOW.

If we don't watch it, well end up with a replay of 2000: The perhaps "not-too-bright, but straight-talking" Bush against the "flip-flopper you can't trust" Kerry. (in 2000, it was the "liar" you can't trust... Gore)

[redqueen]

20. self-deleted

[sandnsea]

2. Judicious, like Solomon

Sees all sides of an issue, then comes to a fair decision.

Has an insatiable quest for knowledge.

But is intoleratant of backpedaling on programs that have been agreed to. George Whiplash Bush, backpedaler extraordinaire.

[WiseMen]

10. I like the word Judicious. It harkens to Kerrys DA Career.

[mikehiggins]

17. Judicious is the perfect word

Open to information but steadfast for the right.

A just man.

[WiseMen]

22. But usual Kerry problem: Ave Joe doesn't know meaning of judicious. Sad.

[goclark]

3. Bush Is A Flop

Kerry has an intellectual ability to allow him to flip on important issues. Bush is no John Kerry,the intellect is not there!

For example: Kerry Voted To Support The War

After seeing what a mess Bushco made with Shock and Awe,no world support etc.lies,lies more Lies, Kerry's keen intellect allowed him to understand that he needed to change his course. I see that as a good thing.

Bush will go down a road like a 8 year old and never know how to change course. He, and all of his so called ad visors are lost in the 20th Century and are using old tactics and ideas.



Kerry should answer with: "If I'm a FLIP,George Bush is a FLOP - on the WMD,Social Security,the Economy, Affirmative Action,World Wide Lack of Support,Homeland Security of his FLOPPY ideas." "Bring It On Mr. President.Bring It On!"

:bounce: :bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:

[sandnsea]

5. He's just a flop

Yep,I think that'll do it. Because every time they used the word "flip flop" everybody would automatically add "Bush is just a flop" and that would at least neutralize it, if not stop it altogether.

Yep, Bring It On!!!

[WiseMen]

7. This is Great!

[SW FL Dem]

23. Love it!

Hope someone at the Kerry camp is listening.

[Raya]

4. Spotlight Kerry's long stint INVESTIGATING Gov. Corruption and Covert Ops

Image of Kerry as the avenging procecutor going after Iran/Contra
and BCCI criminality could help dispel Flip-Flop B.S. and suggest
that Bush charges are smoke-screen.

[Brotherjohn]

8. Adding to Daily Kos' list of Bush flip-flops...

Before:
We need to go to war with Iraq because their WMDs pose a direct threat to the United States.

After:
We needed to go to war with Iraq to free the Iraqi people.

[gottaB]

9. I think you have to be logical

let's see. The idjits will call everything a flipflop, perhaps because of a limited vocabulary, because they intend to decieve by classing different kinds of contrary statements under one rubric, and they intend to economize on smears--actually, their cheapness may be their undoing, but we'll see.

A. Flipflops that aren't flipflops because things change. For instance, if I said the sky is blue, and later I said the sky is full of stars, that isn't really a flipflop, although the statements are contrary. Budget battles can be that way. Saying you support a dividend tax cat when you have record revenues and a budget surplus is not the same as supporting a dividend tax cut in the face of record deficits, irresponsible expenditures, and record taxcode largess for the wealthy. So even though "I support a dividend tax cut" is contrary to "I don't support a dividend tax cut" the positions may not be a flipflop--at least not on the part of the person saying these things. An honest person with clear vision will be able to say that the sky is blue during the day and the sky is inky dark during the night. If we accuse them of flipflopping, rather than acknowledging that the ground they stand upon has rotated, the term would lose all meaning, and we would be the dishonest abusers of language willing to say anything to denigrate our opponents--reason and reality be damned.

B. Some things are composite in nature. You know the allegory of the three blind men and the elephant. You could probably get a wise person to agree that this part is *like* a snake, and that part is *like* a rope, but that the whole thing *is* an elephant. Well you could slap the flipflopper label on your sage's forehead, but that wouldn't say much for your ability to see the truth.

C. Sequences. Do you agree that in the series 1, 4, 9 that the next number is 16? Okay, let's agree on a process, 1, 4, 9, 16, and further let's agree that getting to 16 is a desirable goal, Now, if we agree on that, and you go off like 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, have complaints to lodge. 1, okay. 3, 5, and 7 do not belong. You missed 4. 9 belongs, but you got it out of sequence. 11, 13, 15, 17--hey, we never agreed on that, and you missed the target completely.

So what, you're going to come back at me like I'm a flipflopper because we both fully agreed upon 1, and we both thought 9 was a good idea, and the rest is just quibbling?

That's not flipflopping. That's like two sequences have similar starting points, and sharing one or two points along the way, but otherwise not being alike and not leading to the same results. If you started at 1, yeah, they're the same I guess--you can't know until the other pieces fall into place. If you start off saying 1, 4, 9, 16, and say, that's a sequence, then the fact that some of those numbers appear in other sequences does not mean that all sequences are the same, and you would be wrong to say that 1, 4, 9, 16 and 1, 3, 5, 7.... were equivalent, politically or otherwise.

***

I'll pick this up later. It's a good topic.

[WiseMen]

12. Let me try to summarize main:

1. Change recommendations because facts of the case in 1984 is different than 2004

2. Composite problems could result in varied statements about vaious parts to the problem.

3. Agreement on starting point in a long process does not agreement with the steps of the process or the result of the process.

Please correct me.

[BootinUp]

11. Ok (rewrite)

She wrote a positive article. But still I do not like her whole idea of how to cover politics. And the fact is a lot of Americans like the fact Bush is an average unsophisticated kinda dude. So there is a positive and a negative to this piece.

[Sensitivity]

15. What about Maureen you don't like? I think it is nicely different.

[BootinUp]

18. Well, I could be off track

I seem to recall she wrote some snippy things about ny General. And I am awful touchy bout that. I need to get more familiar with her work to tell you the truth. Thanks for asking :)

[redqueen]

21. Check Daily Howler

She may have done a passable job on this one, but do a search for her name on Bob's site - her past political work leaves a lot to be desired.

[Beetwasher]

13. Well, I Hope We Can Count on Ms. Dowd To Keep It Up

I'm sure she knows what's at stake, and every word of it is true anyway...

[Sensitivity]

14. Hope to see similar tacts from other pundits. The flip-flop BS is obvious

[Sensitivity]

16. Idea. Get All Sharpton to take more questions of whether Bush is a LIAR

[WiseMen]

19. Agree. Hope first anti-Bush ads focus on "Lies and Lying Liars"