Reply #78: I wonder if you understand what "flip flop" means in a political context? [View All]

[Tom Rinaldo]

Please stop acting so condescending. That would be a good starting point.

In politics it means to give the appearance of changing ones position on an important matter. The use of the term "flip flop" is almost always initiated by a political adversary, though on some occasions it is then picked up by the media, but I for one do not hold to the naive fantasy that the media can be counted on to be objective. Even in some instances when at least some attempt is made to be "objective", laziness or poor reporting or inaccurate or biased sources or the drive for higher ratings or for eye catching ear grabbing copy or simply to sound "current" can cause the media to use that god awful term in a sloppy manner. Flip flop is an accusation, and usually it is an incredibly simplistic avoidance of a real discussion to throw that phrase out as an accusation.

"Flip flop" in fact is completely a political term substituted for a more neutral phrase such as "changed position". The latter carries the implied possibility that, assuming it is being accurately applied, good reasons may explain a possible shift. The former is a character indictment. "Flip flop" can deal with appearances as much as if not more than with substance. Like most of everything that passes for political discourse nowadays, currently the charge of "flip flop" more often deals with appearances. Hence Kerry is called a "flip flopper" because he said "Actually I voted for the amendment before I voted against it." In reality Kerry meant to say that he voted for a different version of an amendment (funding our troops in Iraq) before he voted against the final version that made it to the Senate floor. But Kerry's literal words, taken out of context, implied an about face of important substance, hence the accusation that Kerry "flip flopped".

You make out "the truth" behind "flip flopping" to be simple black and white reality which is laughable, because at its core it almost always relates to appearances, and often involves instances where a person fails to use clear enough wording, or on occasion chooses poor or sometimes even wrong wording. In the blood sport called politics adversaries look for words that can be lifted from context and used against their foe. They don't care about the truth. They care about the appearance.

Typical of the political art of "flip flop" accusations, you seize on a few words or sentences as truth and discard the life of the person who said them as irrelevant. That is how you reach such a truly mind boggling conclusion as to dismiss General Wesley Clark as unfit for a Presidential run because he believes in playing political games with National Security. (Think about that one for a while readers. Think about General Clark's whole life stacked up against the conclusion drummo has drawn here based on his read of this instance). That is also how you end up in the amazing convoluted intellectual position of saying, as you did above, that matters of war are too important to cut a potential Presidential candidate any slack around. Matters of war. Are you giving General Clark a morality lesson on the significance of War, or worse yet, grading him on his understanding of that?

I planned to take our discussion in a different direction with book marked sources and quotes and research and all of that type stuff. However I found that DU has it's advanced search function disabled at the moment, and I know what I am looking for but do not have it bookmarked so that will have to wait. Maybe that is as it should be. Maybe digging into all that stuff will just prolong a flame thread. Depending on what else is said or not said on this thread I may or may not go through the effort later. I was honest about thinking it is a terrible idea to go down this road but if you remain hell bent on it we shall.