From CBS news: Bush's Top 10 flip flops

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/28/politics/main646142.shtml

A couple of examples:

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Announcing the invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, Mr. Bush said, “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”

Two months into the war, on May 29, 2003, Mr. Bush said weapons of mass destruction had been found.

“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories,” Mr. Bush told Polish television. “For those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them."

On Sept. 9, 2004, in Pennsylvania, Mr. Bush said: “I recognize we didn’t find the stockpiles [of weapons] we all thought were there.”

Same-Sex Marriage

During the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush said he was against federal intervention regarding the issue of same-sex marriage. In an interview with CNN’s Larry King, he said, states “can do what they want to do” on the issue. Vice President Cheney took the same stance.

Four year later, this past February, Mr. Bush announced his support for an amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as being exclusively between men and women. The amendment would forbid states from doing “what they want to do” on same-sex marriage.

Citing recent decisions by “activist judges” in states like Massachusetts, Mr. Bush defended his reversal. Critics point out that well before the 2000 presidential race, a judge in Hawaii ruled in December 1996 that there was no compelling reason for withholding marriage from same-sex couples.

CBS is not lying down all the way.

Clearly, all of those are forged flip-flops.

The first one is being mistaken, but the second one is “flip-flopping”, under the current loose definition of the term.

I think all this “flip-flopping” talk is really bad. Do Americans want to breed a nation of stubborn mules who will refuse to ever change their mind on any issue, no matter what the evidence, lest they be accused of being a “flip-flopper”? Being a stubborn old goat myself, I find it very difficult to admit that I am wrong and change my opinion on something, and so this trait is actually something I admire in other people. Of course, there is changing your opinion in in order to win popularity, but you have to prove that by showing opportunism, not by simply showing that someone changes their mind, or even that they change their mind a number of times.

I mean the number of “flip-flops” that Kerry and Bush have been accused of in the past decades, I have been as guilty of myself, and I do not change my mind easily.

Who knows, it works apparently.

Does anyone here wear flip flops in the winter?

Wait a sec… Bush lied when said he’d do one thing (re: same sex marriages) and then ended up doing another thing. Whether he changed his mind or not, is not the point. He said one thing, he did another.

And I’m pretty damn sure he didn’t come out and say “you know what, I’ve had some time to think about it and I’ve changed my mind.” Nope, he just does different than he said.

This is true of Kerry also. I’d call it what it is. Lying. Why try to couch it or make up for it. LOTS of politicians do it.