And a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Kerry, James P. Rubin, said, "Why did President Bush flip-flop" on the national intelligence director's post, using a term the Bush-Cheney campaign has tried to affix to Mr. Kerry.
"First he was against it; now he's for it," Mr. Rubin said. "Does that sound familiar?"
I think the Kerry should push this theme as hard as he possibly can. It's like a brilliant judo move, drawing attention to Bush's literally years of gyrations on the 9/11 commission: he's for it and he's against it, he will testify and he won't testify, Condi will only testify privately and Condi will testify publicly after all, he needs time to think it over and he's got a counterproposal in 11 days, he's against a Director of Central Intelligence and he's for it.
And then there's greatest flip-flop of all....
Bush in the first 2000 debate: "The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders....I believe we're overextended in too many places....[I]f we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that.
Bush in the second 2000 debate: "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building....I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops."
On "flip-flopping" as in other matters, let he who is without sin....
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