Flip-flopping

"Flip-flopping" seems to be the big word this campaign season. George Bush keeps saying that John Kerry keeps flip-flopping on the issues, meaning that Kerry can't make up his mind. This is the same tactic Bush's daddy - King George I - used back in the '92 campaign against Bill Clinton. Bush Senior didn't call it flip-flopping though; he preferred the term "waffling." According to Bush Sr.., Clinton was a waffler cause he apparently could make up his mind either. To be honest, though, I never have figured out just what waffles - with their nifty, little, golden-brown pockets for catching and holding onto yummy butter and syrup - had to do with being indecisive; but, then, I don't make up the lingo - I just write about it. Anyhow, King George II is using the same tactic - he's just calling it something else.

But is Kerry really a flip-flopper? Bush does a good job of painting him that way. Specifically, Bush points to Kerry's vote on the war in Iraq. According to Bush, Kerry - having "looked at the same intelligence that [Bush] did" - voted for the war, then changed his mind and said he was against it. Then, having said he had changed his mind, he said he still would have voted for the war even if he knew then what he knows now, mainly that the infamous weapons of mass destruction never existed except in the imagination of the president. Bush reiterates these points again and again to drive home the point that he thinks Kerry is a flip-flopper. But did Kerry really say these things?

Well, yes and no, depending on how you want to twist Kerry's words around. Yes, Kerry originally voted in favor of the war, based on the information that was presented to the Senate at the time, information that was later seen to be severely flawed. When the weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize, and when the intelligence used to promote the war turned out to be false, Kerry changed his mind about the war. Kerry - like many in the Senate, the Congress, and all across America - saw a problem with invading another nation based on inaccurate intelligence. But Kerry did not say that he would vote for invading Iraq again even knowing then what he knows now; he said he would vote to give the president the authority to invade Iraq if it were necessary to do so. Giving some one the right to do something is far different than telling them to go do it, but Bush misses that distinction.

The real issue here is not that Kerry is a flip-flopper, but that he is a very intelligent person who understands that the world we live in today is a complicated place. He knows that the world isn't black and white but a myriad shades of gray. And he understands that complicated political situations must be handled with finesse, diplomacy, maybe even manipulation and coercion, but not necessarily war. Bush, on the other hand, does see the world as black and white. To Bush - as to many conservatives - there is good and evil, right and wrong, black and white, and no shades of gray. Lacking Kerry's depth of understanding and vision, Bush reduces all situations to dichotomies, neatly eliminating all of those pesky shades of gray that just muddy up the picture.

Looking at George Bush's approach to international politics puts me in mind of the old quote, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, all of your problems begin to look like nails." Unfortunately, George Bush has a limited set of tools to work with; therefore, all of the world's - and the country's - problems appear as either/or crises to him. Either you do what America says, or we will send in the troops! And, no, we don't need the help or the permission of the United Nations in order to act. We're America! The world's policeman. The lone wolf. Presented with an opponent with real intelligence, understanding and vision, an opponent who sees all the shades of gray in the world of geopolitics, it's little wonder that Bush labels him a flip-flopper. It fits Bush's pattern. Either you make a decision and stick by it no matter what, or you're a flip-flopper who can't make up his mind.