Bullypulpit said:
...Could it have been a <b>Flip-Flop</b>?
Just heard on the BBC world service, Donald Rumsfeld, today, stated that he had seen no strong evidence linking Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
<blockquote> "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two,"</blockquote> - Donald Rumsfeld
Source: <a href=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3715396.stm>BBC World Service</a>
This in stark contrast to his, and the Administration's, previous statements to the contrary.
Another of the Bush administration's rationales for war with Iraq bites the dust.
You're really getting pretty tedious. Apparently you seem to think that our short term memory is shot and that you can simply recycle your same tired old bullshit. You trot out your shopworn arguments, dress them up with a few sarcastic little whines and present them as new. Well it won't work. The fact that few people respond to this post is not proof that your garbage is correct, it is simply indicative that you are becoming tiresome.
Since you're apparently so fond of the sound of flip-flops, try wading through these:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/29/politics/main646435.shtml
If I Knew Then What I Know Now
We should not have gone to war knowing the information that we know today," Kerry said Wednesday on ABCs Good Morning America. "Knowing there was no imminent threat to America, knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction, knowing there was no connection of Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda, I would not have gone to war. That's plain and simple."
But on Aug. 9, 2004, when asked if he would still have gone to war knowing Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, Kerry said: Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have. Speaking to reporters at the edge of the Grand Canyon, he added: [Although] I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has."
The Kerry campaign says voting to authorize the war in Iraq is different from deciding diplomacy has failed and waging war. But Kerrys nuanced position has contradicted itself on whether it was right or wrong to wage the war.
In May 2003, at the first Democratic primary debate, John Kerry said his vote authorizing the president to use force was the right decision though he would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity.
But then in January 2004, Kerry began to run as anti-war candidate, saying, "I don't believe the president took us to war as he should have."
The $87 Billion Vote
In September 2003, Kerry implied that voting against wartime funding bills was equivalent to abandoning the troops.
"I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running, he said.
Then, in October 2003, a year after voting to support the use of force in Iraq, Kerry voted against an $87 billion supplemental funding bill for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He did support an alternative bill that funded the $87 billion by cutting some of President Bushs tax cuts.
But when it was apparent the alternative bill would not pass, he decided to go on record as not supporting the legislation to fund soldiers.
Kerry complicated matters with his now infamous words, I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
On Wednesday, he acknowledged that his explanation of his Iraq war votes was "one of those inarticulate moments."
The Israeli Security Fence
In October 2003, Kerry said Israels unilateral construction of a security fence was a barrier to peace.
I know how disheartened Palestinians are by the decision to build the barrier off the Green Line," he told the Arab American Institute National Leadership Conference. We don't need another barrier to peace. Provocative and counterproductive measures only harm Israelis.
But less than a year later, in February 2004, he reversed himself, calling the fence "a legitimate act of self-defense," and saying "President Bush is rightly discussing with Israel the exact route of the fence to minimize the hardship it causes innocent Palestinians.
Patriot Act
Kerry joined with 97 other senators and voted for the Patriot Act in October 2001. Campaigning in New Hampshire in June 2003, he defended his vote, saying, it has to do with things that really were quite necessary in the wake of what happened on Sept. 11.
But last December in Iowa, Kerry advocated replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time.
Death Penalty for Terrorists
In 1996, then- Massachusetts Gov. William Weld asked Kerry, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, whether the death penalty should be applied to terrorists. Kerry replied that the idea amounted to a terrorist protection policy.
He said then that such a policy would discourage other nations from extraditing suspects because many U.S. allies preclude extradition to countries that impose the death penalty.
Kerry now favors the death penalty for terrorists, though extradition remains a problem.
Kerry still opposes the death penalty in general, but says if elected he would not interfere with state executions.
Releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserves
In 2000, Kerry called the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve not relevant to solving the problem with high fuel prices.
But in recent months, Kerry has pressured President Bush to start pumping oil into the government's emergency reserves. Kerry has called for the release of some of the reserves, as well.
In a switch from his earlier position, Kerry now argues that a sizable release would lessen U.S. demand and thereby fuel lower prices.
Affirmative Action
Though he has long supported affirmative action, in a speech at Yale University in 1992, Kerry called the program "inherently limited and divisive," and said it had "kept America thinking in racial terms." He added that it was failing those most in need of assistance: African-Americans.
At the height of the Democratic primary race in January, Kerry reiterated his support for affirmative action. Kerrys critics question how he can support a program that he once called divisive. Kerry says he was speaking about racial quotas, which he opposes.
Trade
Kerry backed trade pacts with Chile, Singapore and Africa. In 2000, he voted to grant China most-favored-nation trading status.
Having supported the major trade deals of the last decade including the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Kerry was heavily critical of U.S. trade policy during the Democratic primaries.
As the primary race heated up against now vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, who criticized Kerry for supporting NAFTA, Kerry received the prized endorsement of the AFL-CIO by insisting he will insure workers rights in trade agreements. Kerry also blamed trade for creating "a race to the bottom" among poverty-stricken nations.
No Child Left Behind
Kerry voted for President Bush's "No Child Left Behind Act but now campaigns against it. He says Mr. Bush failed to adequately fund the legislation by not linking student-testing requirements with school funding.
Though the legislation requires rigorous testing in the states, Kerry said in August 2004 that the new federal testing mandates were punitive.
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Then there's the time-honored tactic that if you can't flip-flop your way out of an issue, just don't talk about it at all.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-07-29-hot-buttons_x.htm
Democrats sideline hot-button issues
BOSTON (AP) Wearing a stovepipe hat with a gay-pride rainbow, graphic artist Gregg Gallo peers up from his seat in the Washington delegation as speaker after speaker calls John Kerry a terrorism-fighting, medal-winning patriot. Nobody, it seems, is talking about gay rights and other hot-button issues.
"Issues are fine. Winning is great," said Gallo of Shorline, Wash., a gay delegate expressing the view shared by convention planners, party activists and even powerful Democratic special interest groups.
Abortion rights, gay rights, affirmative action, gun control these and more traditional liberal convention themes were shoved to the margins as the Kerry team relentlessly focused its convention on the candidates' Vietnam War record.
"The special interests that favor Democrats understand that they will be vastly better off under a Kerry administration than they have been under Bush," said Matt Bennett, spokesman for Americans for Gun Safety, which supports gun control.
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Finally, if you can't flip-flop out of it or ignore it, then simply lie about it:
http://www.aiada.org/article.asp?id=3077&cat=Politics
In the stump speech he delivers virtually every day, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) stirs the Democratic faithful by railing against current trade practices and slamming President Bushs policies on education, civil liberties and Iraq, reports the Washington Post. But the Democratic front-runner does not mention how he, as senator, supported the president on all four issues, helping cement in law what he often describes as flawed government policies. Kerrys past support for policies he now condemns is complicating his run for the White House, strategists from both parties say, and could prove problematic in a general election showdown with Bush.
Strategists suggest that as a born-again protectionist, Kerry will face charges of being wishy-washy. Last week, speaking to the AFL-CIO, Kerry blasted the administrations support of free trade agreements. Yet in the Senate, Kerry voted for a Bush trade agreement with Chile and Singapore that some Democrats complained did not mandate tough enough labor and environment standards, reports the Post.
Kerry also voted twice to provide Bush greater authority to negotiate trade agreements by granting "fast track" power, which requires a straight up-or-down vote from Congress and precludes the House and Senate from amending the trade pacts
He has also been critical of the trade imbalance with China, the largest exporter to the United States, though he voted to expand the countrys trading rights in 2000
Kerry must clearly explain his positions before the public perceives him as a flip-flopper, says Al Gores 2000 Chairman, Tony Coelho. Otherwise, Bush will tag him.