The Strategy Beneath Flip-Flop Label- it works well with GOP biased media

[papau]

hackneyed/empty charges worked because US Media wants them to work - voters don't have a preexisting picture of the smeared candidate when they first hear the charges of inconstancy - so the media in effect sells the GOP image of Kerry via the undue coverage they've given to the rap.

Our not controlled by the right wing GOP media - they just act like they are. :-)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-greenberg30sep30.story
COMMENTARY
The Strategy Beneath the Flip-Flop Label
The tactic has stayed around because it works so well.
By David Greenberg
David Greenberg teaches at Rutgers University and is the author of "Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image," due out in paperback from W.W. Norton next month.

September 30, 2004

The White House has succeeded in supplying the news media with a frame for understanding the Kerry campaign: It claims the Democratic candidate is — to use the dreaded word — a flip-flopper. Now that the flip-flop notion has stuck, any new position Kerry rolls out, any claim he makes — even any rebuttal he offers to the smear — is viewed through this frame and subtly reinforces its legitimacy.

The truth is, however, that all politicians flip-flop. Kerry has changed his position on various issues in his career, but no more so than George W. Bush. Bush, after all, refused at first to create a Homeland Security Department or appoint a national intelligence director, but then did. Similarly, on nation-building and North Korea, on the acceptability of deficits and the urgency of capturing Osama bin Laden — even on whether we've found deadly weapons in Iraq — he has flipped, flopped or double-reversed.

This (partial) inventory isn't meant to suggest that Bush lacks principles — although it should make one reconsider the common gloss on him as a man of rock-ribbed convictions. The point is that politicians regularly revise their positions. They rethink an issue, or circumstances change, or (yes) they act expediently. At other times, a flip-flop is really just a qualified position, such as John Kerry's wanting to force Iraq's compliance with weapons inspections while decrying a hasty, unprovoked invasion. Simply put, flip-flopping — or straddling or waffling — is never a meaningful charge; it's only a strategic device, a comment about form, not substance.

The flip-flop line of attack has grown increasingly popular. As far back as the 1972 election, critics pinned the tag on Ed Muskie (on the Vietnam War), George McGovern (for his views on welfare) and Richard Nixon (for his statements about amnesty for draft resisters).

By the 1988 primaries, flip-flop charges had hit the big time. Michael Dukakis' ads depicted Dick Gephardt doing literal flip-flops (handsprings) on Reaganomics, the minimum wage and freezing Social Security benefits. George H.W. Bush, meanwhile, vilified Bob Dole as "Sen. Straddle" vacillating on taxes. In 1992, Bill Bradley, speaking on Bill Clinton's behalf, turned the tables, mocking the elder Bush — who had pledged no new taxes, then raised them and then apologized for it — for having "waffled, wiggled and wavered." The president, for his part, made "trust" his reelection theme, lambasting Clinton for shilly-shallying on offshore oil drilling, fuel efficiency standards and other issues. <snip>

[teryang]

1. hackneyed jingos from madison ave.

Rock ribbed conviction or monomaniac.

Christian, decisive, man of resolve, making the hard decisions. These are ring knocking terms for people in today's mass movement of obscurantist belief. Totalitarianism on the march.