Need help with a fence-sitter who believes the "flipflop" meme

[bunkerbuster1]

In a completely unrelated, non political forum, I've come across someone who's enamored with the "flip flop" zingers tossed by Bushies.

Specifically, he's cited

http://www.flipflopper.com/Flipflops.asp

and

http://www.georgewbush.com/Olympics/

Anyone else already deconstruct these particular sites? or have any especially good flipflop debunker ammo handy?

I know I can handle this on my own, but hey, why reinvent the wheel.

[slinkerwink]

1. try http://bushcampaignlies.blogspot.com

[moondust]

2. Lie #1: Kerry voted for the war.

He did not. Anybody who thinks the IWR was a declaration of war needs to learn how to read.

[roseBudd]

3. show your friend this

Go to http://somnamblst.tripod.com to download high resolution TIF or PDF file to print.

[JimHarper3]

4. I found this site today

from a message in one of the other forums... "Conceptual Guerilla's Strategy and Tactics" http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/ it's not addressed specifically to the flip-flop issue, but has a lot of good general strategies. I also really like the following, though I am sorry that I do not know the author or the source:

THOSE DAMN LIBERALS ----- A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his workday. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards.

Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It's noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

[HFishbine]

5. 30 Bush Flip Flops

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=118263

1. Social Security Surplus

BUSH PLEDGES NOT TO TOUCH SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS... "We're going to keep the promise of Social Security and keep the government from raiding the Social Security surplus."

...BUSH SPENDS SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS The New York Times reported that "the president's new budget uses Social Security surpluses to pay for other programs every year through 2013, ultimately diverting more than $1.4 trillion in Social Security funds to other purposes."

2. Patient's Right to Sue

GOVERNOR BUSH VETOES PATIENTS' RIGHT TO SUE... "Despite his campaign rhetoric in favor of a patients' bill of rights, Bush fought such a bill tooth and nail as Texas governor, vetoing a bill coauthored by Republican state Rep. John Smithee in 1995. He... constantly opposed a patient's right to sue an HMO over coverage denied that resulted in adverse health effects."

...CANDIDATE BUSH PRAISES TEXAS PATIENTS' RIGHT TO SUE... "We're one of the first states that said you can sue an HMO for denying you proper coverage... It's time for our nation to come together and do what's right for the people. And I think this is right for the people. You know, I support a national patients' bill of rights, Mr. Vice President. And I want all people covered. I don't want the law to supersede good law like we've got in Texas."

...PRESIDENT BUSH'S ADMINISTRATION ARGUES AGAINST RIGHT TO SUE "To let two Texas consumers, Juan Davila and Ruby R. Calad, sue their managed-care companies for wrongful denials of medical benefits ‘would be to completely undermine' federal law regulating employee benefits, Assistant Solicitor General James A. Feldman said at oral argument March 23. Moreover, the administration's brief attacked the policy rationale for Texas's law, which is similar to statutes on the books in nine other states."

3. Tobacco Buyout

More...

more: http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=118263

[faithnotgreed]

9. now - thats some truth right there. good find

[Moderator]

17. HFishbine

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.

DU Moderator

[blm]

6. Use their same standard. Bush was AGAINST the 87b before he was FOR it.

He said he's veto the bill Kerry voted for because it cancelled 87b in tax breaks to the wealthiest to pay for it.

Bush was AGAINST Homeland Security before he was FOR it.

Bush was AGAINST a 9-11 commission before he agreed to it.

[Kadie]

7. Here is a San Francisco Chronicle article that I haven't had a chance

to read yet, but maybe it will help you out some.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/23/MNGQK8TI8O1.DTL

[bunkerbuster1]

8. good article (and thanks for the other help) but

just asking--has anyone actually torn apart those sites I'd originally cited?

Otherwise, you've given me some good counter ammo.

[blm]

10. They took EVERY word out of context.

It refutes itself.

[yellowcanine]

11. This person is NOT a fence sitter. Only Bush partisans believe the flip

flop flam. Shoot them the facts, yes, but then let it go.

[LittleClarkie]

12. My three favorite sites for myth busting

www.kerryoniraqwar.com
www.snopes.com (click on Politics, then on John Kerry)
www.factcheck.org

All three have good information for busting the flip-flop myths.

[calimary]

13. There's a recent Washington Post story about it...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43093-2004Sep22?language=printer

It's annoying, but it does cite NUMEROUS examples of bush's flip-flops, some of them REALLY glaring - like MANY aspects of his pig-headedness against the 9/11 Commission.

And as far as THAT subject goes...

"President Bush thwarted our attempts at every turn"
The widows known as the "Jersey Girls" changed history by demanding an independent 9/11 investigation. Now they want to change who's president -- though some voted for Bush four years ago.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mary Jacoby
Sept. 15, 2004 | WASHINGTON -- Over the last three years, the group of 9/11 widows turned activists dubbed the "Jersey Girls" have become a fixture on the Washington political scene. Some of them are Republicans, others Democrats or independents. But they are all determined to hold official Washington accountable for the attacks that killed their husbands and nearly 3,000 others. They have held news conferences, lobbied members of Congress, pored over documents, and forced the White House to accept an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Along the way, the women have learned about coverups, obfuscation, political cowardice, deceptions and the dangers of eschewing international alliances for a go-it-alone foreign policy.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/15/widows/print.html

[nyhuskyfan]

14. Something else to consider...

This is going to be long-winded...

Politics is very, very rarely about black-and-white, cut-and-dry issues. There's compromise, every bill has ad-ons and amendments or changing parameters. The Patriot Act was 1,200 pages long, for example.

So a vote for something, followed by a vote against something, is hardly an example of a flip-flop. A bill may be turned down 80-20, some factors are changed, then it gets turned down 60-40, then more compromises are made and it passes. You should expect politicians to be able to weigh the pros and cons of a bill and change their vote accordingly.

In addition, outside circumstances change. A vote for counter-terrorism funding now is treated differently than one in 1998, because it has rapidly climbed up the list of issues that the American people care about. Likewise, a vote on massive quantities of tanks was different in 1985, when the threat was a widescale war with the Soviets, than it should be now, when we only invade countries with bands of guerillas.

Finally, when you pass a bill, a lot of times you are voting on a theory -- of what you think will happen. Scientific method tells you that you start with a theory, then you test it, then you evaluate your results. A bill that you may have supported in theory (oh, say, the Iraqi War Resolution or the Patriot Act or No Child Left Behind or tax cuts) may turn into a total disaster in practice. A good leader will evaluate the new data, and change course accordingly. Any CEO will try to adapt to changing information (sales, market share, etc.), and if a past policy has proven to be ineffective, they'll get rid of it and come up with a new idea -- or at least alter it significantly to become profitable. If not, he (or she) will be an ex-CEO.

Bush's oil businesses all went bankrupt, largely because he kept digging dry holes instead of changing direction and looking somewhere else. He's gone from digging literal holes, to metaphorical ones. He's dug the deficit into a huge hole, because he insists on tax cut after tax cut for the wealthy. He's gotten us into a quagmire because he wanted to invade Iraq, and then just looked for whatever reasons he could find, instead of looking at changing evidence. If he started his presidency insisting that Iraq was a major threat and wanting to invade, and then looked at all the intelligence, listened to people who weren't yes-men, and decided that Iraq wasn't a threat after all, and put the war plan back in the file cabinet, would that have been bad leadership? On the contrary, it would have exactly what I would hope for in a president. Clinton, by contrast, admitted his mistake in ignoring Rwanda, implemented programs to help train African armies on how to step in to prevent genocides, and Bush then gutted the funding, so now we've been ignoring the Sudan.

So the roundabout point is that simply pointing and saying "flip flop" "flip flop" at candidates is reducing politics to intellectually minimal levels. Sometimes being steadfast and unwavering is a good thing, but many times its a recipe for disaster.

[bookman]

15. Suggest this site..

http://www.kerryoniraqwar.com/

[ClassWarrior]

16. www.flipfloppingbush.com

Remember, The Excuse pResident made up 23 different excuses for invading Iraq.

23.