McCain is the Flip Flopper This Time Around

Senator John Kerry, a great American war hero who was not given any respect by the Republican lie machine in 2004, knows what swift boating type untruths can do to you. He was beaten by a web of lies and attack ads, and perhaps some voting machine deceit in Ohio. But Senator John Kerry and his fellow Democrats have given respect to McCain in 2008 for his time as a prisoner of war after being shot down over North Viet Nam. Still, Kerry does not respect the flip-flops of McCain, the half-truths and outright lies that the Republican ads tell, and the dishonorable nature of Republican campaigning, which McCain has embraced.

Kerry told the Associated Press in July that the McCain of 2008 isn't the same McCain he once talked to about a national unity ticket in 2004. "John McCain has changed in profound and fundamental ways that I find personally really surprising, and frankly upsetting. It is not the John McCain as the senator who defined himself, quote, as a maverick, though questionable," Kerry said. "This is want-to-be president John McCain. The result is that John McCain has flip-flopped on more issues than I was even ever accused possibly of thinking about."

The flip-flopping of McCain was at center front in the Republican convention, as the man who until recently opposed off shore drilling as an issue of conscience, presided over a convention where the watchwords were "Drill, baby, drill." He even flipped on his Vice-Presidential pick -- it is widely reported that he wanted Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge and then settled on Sarah Barracuda after party bosses turned thumbs down to his choices of the heart. So who do you think will be calling the shots -- the erstwile supposed "maverick", or the same party bosses and political operatives who have controlled Bush?

One of his current flip flops is the non-embrace of his own party's sitting president at the Republican National Convention, exiling the man the party has backed and helped for eight years to an a 8 minute appearance on television. Yet, when he was running for the nomination of his party, McCain, the supposed "Mr. Integrity" who is really Mr. "I will say whatever it takes to gt elected', was trumpeting his agreement with George W. Bush (and his voting record proved it was true). During his appearance on the June 19, 2005 edition of "Meet the Press", McCain responded to Tim Russert's claim, "The fact is you are different than George Bush.": "No. No. I--the fact is that I'm different but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush."

Kerry questions McCain's judgment. Kerry accused McCain of poor decision-making on everything from backing tax cuts for the wealthy to making support for continuing the U.S. military presence in Iraq, which is a centerpiece of McCain's presidential campaign.

"John McCain ... has proven that he has been wrong about every judgment he's made about the war." Kerry said. "Wrong about the Iraqis paying for the reconstruction, wrong about whether or not the oil would pay for it, wrong about Sunni and Shia violence through the years, wrong about the willingness of the Iraqis to stand up for themselves."

Kerry also questions McCain's plans for the economy. "If you like the Bush tax cut and what it's done to our economy, making wealthier people wealthier and the average middle class struggle harder, then John McCain is going to give you a third term of George Bush and Karl Rove," the Massachusetts senator proclaimed. These are words working Americans need to take to heart, and not be tricked again into voting on trumped up values and purposely distractful wedge issues.

Wedge issues are those incendiary topics pushed by the Republicans as important, but which are usually really not issues that affect people's everyday lives. For example, this time we have offshore oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, which flip-flopper McCain opposed until jsut a few months back, and which, if done, will not change the price at the pump for years -- and is not the real answer to our energy crisis.

Last time around it was gay marriage. Whatever will keep people from voting on real issues, where the Democrats actually have policies that will try to help real working people, that is what the Republican propaganda machine will focus on. The Rovian idea is simple -- say it enough times with conviction, and even if it is not true, it will get Republicans elected.