AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - Changing One's Political Mind (was: Some OT but really

ospam (WillStG) wrote:

Luke Kaven
It might be more accurate to say that he has a reckless disregard for
the truth, rather than to call him a liar. He isn't open and
forthcoming with pertinent facts when he knows them, and the
information has very low fidelity

Given that Candidate Kerry who has been hurling such barbs at the
President made the same exact same claims as the President, and took the same
positions as President Bush once upon a time - and given Kerry has also taken
the exact opposite positions as well the next day, to kiss up to those who so
hate the President that they don't mind being lied to - what is your euphemism
for "hypocrite" and "political opportunist"?

Your claim that Kerry made the exact same claims as the President and
took the same positions is false.

Kerry voted to place the *authority* to commit to war with Bush
because he believed that such authority was properly the President's.
It was not a claim about whether the President ought to use that
authority, and it was not in any way an endorsement of the President's
position. To the extent that he was inclined in any way towards war,
it was because he, like most Americans, was taken in by the false
intelligence purveyed as gospel by the President, Vice-President, and
Secty. of Defense, and backed feverishly by Powell, who even the left
was inclined to trust until that. If Kerry is guilty of anything it
is underestimating Bush's disregard for truth, or the standards of
evidence.

Kerry has not been inconsistent over the years in my view. Like all
politicians, and like Bush, he is somewhat opportunistic. But he
usually stands on principle, whether one likes his principle or not.
Blowing the whistle on the Vietnam War was a service to mankind in my
view.

Bush is consistent in some respects. He still believes the naive
things that he is reported to have said at Harvard, namely that poor
people are just lazy and that the civil rights movement was a bad
idea. Of course he also believed that the Vietnam War was a good
thing to fight, so long as he didn't have to fight it. But when it
suits him, he will flip--or he will flip your brain if he can. He has
to. After all, what's he going to say after screaming Mission
Accomplished in five-hundred point type? That's a big belief bubble.

Luke