Having It Both Ways (flip-flopping?)

Bush has so little to run on that he can't even stick to his attacks on "his opponent." (By the way, why does he refuse to refer to Senator Kerry by his name but consistently call him, "my opponent"? Is it meant to be a snub? Is it meant to mean that the race is between Bush and whoever shows up that day?)

The Republicans spent the early summer trying to smear Kerry's war record in Vietnam. They've given up on that because it's hard to support the troops in Iraq when you're denigrating the service of a volunteer who has three purple hearts from Vietnam.

They spent the later summer branding Kerry a flip-flopper, gleefully quoting the "I voted for it before I voted against it" sound bite at every possible turn.

Now, when the public is tiring of that attack and beginning to see through it by finally beginning to understand Kerry's war position, the Republicans are backing off the flip-flop tag in favor of consistency: consistently liberal.

If Bush can't be counted on to be steadfast and resolute in his position on John Kerry, how can he be counted on to be steadfast and resolute in the "war on terror"? The Republican Party has more people dedicated to more lines of attack on John Kerry than they have on Osama bin Laden. They've flipped and flopped on their way to finding out that Kerry is much tougher and more resolute than they ever expected.

Bush spends so much time and effort twisting reality about Iraq, twisting reality about Kerry, twisting reality about the economy, twisting reality about everything, that through his eyes, the world must look like some strange, unholy mixture of Dali surrealism and Escher relativity. When Bush administration officials speak these days, reality takes a very strange shape indeed.