Flaylo
Handsome Devil
Michael Sigman: Repubs and the Art of Flip-Flopping
You'd think that in an age where Google, Facebook and YouTube have come to serve as a Henner-like universal memory, politicians would have a harder time flip-flopping on key issues.
But the three so-called top-tier Republican presidential candidates -- Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann -- are, even as we speak, busy disavowing their inconvenient earlier statements by employing what an old boss of mine called the "Let's do a 180" strategy.
Of course, political flip-flopping -- as opposed to genuinely changing one's mind -- in presidential campaigns is hardly limited to Republicans. Al Gore was pro-life before he was pro-choice and for grain ethanol before he was against it. John Kerry changed his position on at least 10 issues. And Barack Obama has been driving progressives crazy for the past two and half years by compromising and caving on such issues as Afghanistan, taxing the rich and health care. (Some of these apparent contradictions might be characterized not as flip-flops but mere flops, i.e. failures, in the face of GOP intransigence, to achieve what he wanted to do.)
It's just that Romney and company toss off their "180's" with a brazenness that leaves garden-variety Democratic prevaricators in the dust.