Posted on 11/15/2007 11:38:10 AM PST by curiosity
The four leading Republican candidates for president have demonstrated that they have four distinct styles of flip-flopping.
Mitt Romney is the most notorious flip-flopper in the field, and his most notorious flip-flop concerned abortion. He claims that a conversation with scientists about human cloning made him see how abortion had devalued human life. Nobody can prove that Romney isn’t telling the truth, but nobody quites believe him, either. Romney has also changed positions on guns, immigration, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. But it is not the number of his flip-flops that has impressed people so much as how they have altered his political character. He was a moderate technocrat a few years ago, but has become a culture warrior.
Rudy Giuliani presents himself as a man who respects conservatives too much to pander to them. Social conservatives, he argues, should trust him more since he doesn’t alter his positions to suck up to them. But Giuliani has switched his positions on guns, partial-birth abortion, immigration, and civil unions, in each case moving rightward. He has been pretty consistent in his flip-flop methodology: He finds some detail that justifies the switch. The detail is usually bogus. He said, for example, he was able to support a ban on partial-birth abortion because it included a life-of-the-mother exception — but the one he had opposed had included that exception, too. He said that he would no longer support the lawsuit he initiated against gunmakers, primarily because the case had “taken several turns and several twists that I don’t agree with.” (He then qualified that with a “probably.”) But the principal turn is that the plaintiffs have scaled back their demands. He came out against “comprehensive” immigration reform not because it included amnesty, but because it didn’t create adequate databases.
When Al Gore flipped from pro-life to pro-choice during his first run for president, one of his aides told a reporter that his strategy for dealing with his past was to “deny, deny, deny.” Fred Thompson seems to have copied his abortion strategy from the man whose Senate seat he took. The difference is that it’s a pro-choice past that he denies having. He distinguishes himself from Romney on abortion by saying that he, Thompson, was with pro-lifers yesterday and will be with them tomorrow. What Thompson can’t admit is that he wasn’t with pro-lifers the day before yesterday.
John McCain’s main flip-flop has been on taxes. He voted against Bush’s tax cuts, but now he wants to keep them. He justifies the switch by saying that circumstances have changed. He hasn’t apologized for his earlier vote. But to allow the tax cuts to expire now would be to raise taxes. As David Brooks noted the other day, McCain is never terribly convincing when he does something he doesn’t believe in. Earlier this year he said that tax cuts always raise revenue. It’s a nonsensical claim, but it also makes his overall argument impossible to sustain. One of his principal objections to the Bush tax cuts was that they would increase the deficit. If he now thinks that tax cuts increase revenue, he was wrong and should say so.
If I had to judge the matter, I’d say that Thompson and Giuliani go about their flip-flopping with a bit more dishonesty than Romney and McCain. But if you want edification, look away from the whole field.
loser.
Doesn’t mean we have to swallow it or support them.
Duncan Hunter- A man of integrity.
Do the puppeteers want a man of integrity in the White House?
No.
Do we have to obey the puppeteers?
No.
www.gohunter08.com
The most wonderful thing about Flippers,
is Flippers are wonderful things.
Their tops are made out of rubber,
their bottoms are made out of springs.
They’re bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy,
Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!
But the most wonderful thing about Flippers is,
You’re not the only one.
Oh, You’re not the only one!
Bullsh*t. Look at his Senate voting record.
“
If I had to judge the matter, I’d say that Thompson and Giuliani go about their flip-flopping with a bit more dishonesty than Romney and McCain”
Crap.
The author is spinning. Thompson has a 100% pro-life record in the senate.
I think he's still smarting from getting smacked down by Fred and was looking for payback.
“Bullsh*t. Look at his Senate voting record.”
Ok. He voted against illegal immigration related enforcement bills (with his best buddy McCain), and he was key advocate in McCain-Feingold free speech restrictions. He did not introduce a single bill to enforce the immigration law while he was in senate. He had the opportunity.
Now, I have been told, he is strongly against illegal immigration, and in favor of free speech.
Why didn’t he do anything when he actually had a chance? He would be more credible now had he actually done something in senate.
You know, I've noticed for a while that Ramesh Ponnuru seems to have this irrational, childish hatred of FDT. What smack-down are you referring to?
Follow the link in #8. Ponnuru published an article criticizing Thompson’s position on tort reforms, and Thompson, in his inimitable way, delivered a smackdown that made Ramesh look like a little child.
Err... make that #9.
His Senate record on immigration rates about a “C+” with a tendency to favor LEGAL immigration while not favoring ILLEGAL.
Is his recent “conversion” to an immigration hardliner suspect? Perhaps slightly...and I say slightly because FWIW his Senate record on immigration was still better than McCain’s, Brownbacks, or Rudy, Romney’s, or Huckabee’s records in their most recent political offices.
I’m much more suspect of Romney’s recent conversion to pro-life.
No he didn't.
and he was key advocate in McCain-Feingold free speech restrictions.
Which he's already turned around and said was a bad idea, and that he doesn't support it anymore.
He did not introduce a single bill to enforce the immigration law while he was in senate. He had the opportunity.
II wasn't even on the political radar screen back when FDT was in the Senate. Might as well accuse him of doing nothing about internet gambling, while yer at it.
Oh, and btw, the context for RinR's comment was ABORTION.
Yeah, but remember, to the Duncanistas, there is no distinction between legal and illegal immigration. A dirty immergrunt is a dirty immergrunt, period.
Yes, he did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6h0GopWtkI
Fred Thompson Can't Remember His Bad Immigration Votes
Voted in 1996 to continue chain migration
Voted to strip legal reforms from 1996 bill
In 1996, removed higher fines for businesses which hire illegal aliens
Voted in favor of chain migration in 1996
Voted for a foreign worker bill with no anti-fraud measures in 2000.
Nearly doubled H-1B foreign high-tech workers in 1998
Voted to allow firms to lay off Americans to make room for foreign workers in 1998
Voted to grant amnesty to nearly one million illegal aliens from Nicaragua and Cuba in 1997
Tried to kill voluntary pilot programs for workplace verification in 1996 Sen. Thompson voted IN FAVOR of the Abraham Amendment to S.1664. He was part of a coalition of pro-business conservatives and liberal civil libertarians who tried to use the amendment to kill the establishment of voluntary pilot programs in high-immigration states.
http://profiles.numbersusa.com/improfile.php3?DistSend=TN&VIPID=743
Ouch! No wonder Ramesh is throwing a tantrum!
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