“What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he’s engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism,”
–Barack Obama June 18th, 2008
If he was captured alive, then we would make a decision to bring the full weight of not only US justice but world justice down on him. And, uh, I think that I’ve said this before, that I am not a cheerleader for the death penalty … I think it has to be reserved for only the most heinous crimes, but I certainly think that plotting and engineering the death of 3,000 Americans justifies such an approach.
–Barack Obama July 11th, 2008
Video of the latest flip-flop:
There is no way, no how, that Osama bin Laden would NOT be a martyr if we executed him. Most Americans would be ok with that. But when Obama says one week he doesn’t want to make him a martyr and then three weeks later says he is ok with killing the guy, thats a flip-flop. He is trying to play both sides of the fence on every topic to move to the center and in so doing is only proving the guy has no problem changing what he believes to get elected.
Paul Mirengoff at Powerline comments on Ramesh Ponnuru assertion that Obama’s flip-flops is his attempt to distance himself from the leftist charge and that McCain’s own flip-flops will provide cover for Obama:
First, abandoning leftist positions is no guarantee that Obama will escape the perception of being left-wing. Voters may well conclude that Obama is both a leftist and a phony. Indeed, I think that’s the best reading of the current evidence.
Second, Ponnuru may be too quick to conclude that McCain’s own shifts will provide cover for Obama. For one thing, broad portions of the public already believe they know John McCain to be someone who, at least as politicians go, calls them as he sees them, sometimes at the risk of harm to his political fortunes. Obama, who is still introducing himself to the public, has no pre-existing reputation for political courage or integrity. Moreover, he came to prominence claiming to be a new kind of politician. Early evidence that he is anything but could be quite damaging.
To be sure, McCain’s reputation is subject to being tarnished and perhaps already has been to a slight degree. But other things being equal, McCain’s reputation gives him an advantage over the tabula rasa that is Obama. As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
Moreover, other things are not equal when it comes to the flip-flops of McCain and Obama. As to McCain, Ponnuru points, as his primary examples, to McCain’s views on the Bush tax cuts and offshore drilling. In one case, McCain does not want to eliminate tax cuts he opposed years ago. In the other case, McCain favors increased drilling in response to the doubling of oil prices, while still opposing drilling in the area of greatest controversy — ANWR. I doubt that this level of inconsistency will undo McCain’s reputation as, relatively speaking, a straight-shooter — a reputation which has been dramatically reinforced by his steadfastness on Iraq.
The left is doing their best to put the flip-flop label on McCain but its a losing proposition for them. Obama has proved himself to be a worthy adversary in the flip-flop battle with one John Kerry.
UPDATE
You know when a biased poll (35% Dem to 25% Repub) shows a dead heat between Obama and McCain that Obama has been screwing the pooch quite a bit lately:
A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama’s glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month’s NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.
Ouch!
See author page
Barack Obama
Taking every position on every issue so that he can honestly say that every voter agrees with him.
He’s a Zelig, people who are impressed by him are impressed more with themselves – it’s their self-fulfilling sense of political vanity that absorbs them.
Take away the fat, and the steak doesn’t sizzle as much
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/07/11/newsweek-poll-obama-drops-like-a-rock/
Could be because there’s no meat.
Hey look, I’ll give the guy this…he can swoon the media, and lead (mislead) tens of millions of Americans very well. Those are qualities we need in a President, and he’s got em in spades. What the guy does NOT have is a position on an issue. I didn’t think it was possible to dance and waffle more than Bill Clinton or John Kerry, but every 4yrs the DNC impresses us with sizzle, and by election day we’ve realized…it’s just sizzle/no steak. At this point, I think most Democrats are on their way with Harold and Kumar to White Castle-desperate for an iota of burned bovine.
I still think there is an outside possibility that Hillary! might sneak through the back door of some smoke-filled room. This guy is doing his best to get the hook.
Hillary accepting the nomination at Mile High Stadium is something I would watch. With lots of popcorn.
They both have been ‘flipping’ a lot. Obama tended to get the really big headlines for dropping public funds and voting for the FISA bill. During that time McCain was out of sight in South America and talking at town hall meetings. It appears the public has caught more of a sense of Obama’s move to the center of political gravity than anything else McCain has said. Now several polls find Obama only 3 points above McCain. It does appear that the race is tightening more now.
I think Mirengoff is right here:
But Mirengoff is on thin ice here:
This whole paragraph is subject to serious doubt. To begin with, McCain’s reputation as a “straight talker” will be put under tremendous strain in comparison to his flipping once the MSM starts their media cycle on both candidates flip-flops. Here are some recent ones in the past two weeks or so the Carpetbagger passes on about McCain:
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15924.html
McCain’s reputation subject to being “tarnished”– that’s putting it quite mildly. The truth is he is very vulnerable in light of his “straight talker” reputation, and may end up being the brunt of jokes, and even “subject” to hypocrisy if things in the MSM get inspected with vigor. …And that’s is why things are not “equal” when one compares the McCain rep. with Obama’s ‘tabula rasa’.
Certainly, as we’ve come to know, this election is a election about ‘change’ and here Obama has the advantage, if he can keep it. One could argue his tablet is not clean, but has ‘change’ written all over it. This is still a good stigma Obama has in the public mind.
Finally, the comment,
–Complete Hogwash!
Tell that to the ‘come back kid’. It may be a truism in job interviews, and while national public impressions can harden quickly, Obama won’t be easily classifiable to many Americans. He’s not typical and doesn’t fit conventional, political templates–and is actually atypical.
But much of this is talk is still pre-convention campfire babble to most Americans. Next week we’ll check polls again, wondering how Gramm’s remarks, Jackson’s remarks and all the other elements in this yap-fest get distilled into numbers.
Popcorn is a good idea.
Forty-eight flip flops in that Carpetbagger Report article Doug linked to. FORTY -EIGHT. It’s not even complete. It’s from mid-June, so it doesn’t have things like the Packers-Steelers flop either.
“They both have been ‘flipping’ a lot.”
You keep trotting that one out Doug and it’s still as unconvincing as the first time.
The fact is that McCain has a RECORD to run on. It may not be perfectly consistent but it IS A RECORD.
Your guy on the other hand does not. Oh, he has his experience as a community organizer and some flashy speeches to dazzle us with, but that’s it.
Great job Doug! You earn two Pinochios:
P.S. And I love how you folks have had to eat the crow of Obama’s tightening poll numbers. So much for the “bounce” he expected after finally removing Hillary from the race! You notice that the “O” has been targeting the women’s vote lately? I wonder why?
Don’t be so hard on Doug… he just hasn’t seen the Obama Comic Book yet.
For someone who prides himself in his ability to be in command of the facts, I cannot believe that Doug would just buy what the Carpetbagger people are selling and then copy/paste it here without challenge or question.
Doug, someone else posted the same list here once before and I did some digging into it.
If my memory serves me the first 8 or 10 items on the list were complete falsehoods and I didn’t go much further.
Later on today I will dig out my research and post it.
Aye Chihuahua,
I’d be interested in what you found. I’ve concluded steve benen is usually pretty accurate. For there to be that may ‘complete falsehoods’ –I’m very interested.
How is this poll biased?
It has 315 Republicans and 324 Democrats out of 1037 respondents.
That’s not a 10% bias. That’s not even 1%.
Now the poll is weighted, of course, but Newsweek doesn’t say how it was weighted, so how can we now that it was 35/25 in favor of Dems?
Another point to consider is that self-identified Dems outnumber Repubs right now by at least 10%(closer to 15%), so even if it was weighted 35/25 it would probably be an accurate adjustment.
My two cents.
Gallup has Democrats 34% while Republicans 30%, so where in the world your getting 10-15% is beyond me.
Aye Chihuahua,
Are you still planning on doing a post disputing The 48 Flip Flops of John McCain?