WASHINGTON -While working relentlessly to portray Democratic Sen. John Kerry as a flip-flopper
President Bush has his own history of changing his position, from reversals on steel tariffs and nation-building to reasons for invading Iraq.
Most recently, Bush did an about-face on whether the proposed new director of national intelligence should have full budget-making powers as the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission recommended. Bush at first indicated no, then last week said yes.
Just as GOP efforts to question Kerry's military record in Vietnam helped revive nagging questions about Bush's service in the Air National Guard, the flip-flop attacks on Kerry could boomerang against an incumbent running on his record and reputation as a straight talker.
The guy who is the ultimate flip and flop is this sitting president said Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware.
Yet so far Democratic efforts to paint Bush as Flip-Flopper-in-Chief as one Democratic news release put it, have not seemed to have had much impact on the race.
Republicans have been driving home their depiction of Kerry as a flip-flopper for months, in campaign ads, speeches and interviews. And polls suggest this line of attack is working.
Far more voters give Bush high marks for being decisive than they do Kerry. Three-fourths, 75 percent, in the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll said the president is decisive, up 7 percentage points from August, while 37 percent said Kerry is decisive, down 7 percentage points from a month ago.
Republican audiences chant flip-flopper when Kerry is mentioned. Some political novelty stores are carrying flip-flop sandals bearing Kerry's picture, and the theme is reinforced by late-night comedians.
Gee
I wonder if Bush will say the 'F' in John F. Kerry stands for flip-flop
said NBC's Jay Leno after Kerry last week suggested the W in George W. Bush stood for wrong.
If he is a flip-flopper, Kerry has company.
In 2000, Bush argued against new military entanglements and nation building. He has done both in Iraq.
He opposed a Homeland Security Department, then embraced it.
He opposed creation of an independent Sept. 11 commission, then supported it. He first refused to speak to its members, then agreed only if Vice President Dick Cheney came with him.
Bush argued for free trade, then imposed three-year tariffs on steel imports in 2002, only to withdraw them after 21 months.
Last month, he said he doubted the war on terror could be won, then reversed himself to say it could and would.
A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden dead or alive. But he told reporters six months later, I truly am not that concerned about him. He did not mention bin Laden in his hour-long convention acceptance speech.
I'm a war president
Bush told NBC's Meet the Press on Feb. 8. But in a July 20 speech in Iowa, he said: Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president.
Bush keeps revising his Iraq war rationale: The need to seize Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction until none were found; liberating the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator; fighting terrorists in Iraq, not at home; spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. Now it is a safer America and a safer world.
No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops
we were right to make America safer by removing Saddam Hussein from power
he said last week in Missouri.
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