The New Republic

Very good points. It was pretty disheartening to see just how powerful the flip-flopper meme stuck with Obama this week, and the media pushed this narrative vigorously; the McCain campaign barely had to do any work. Definitely a bad week for Obama. What's frustrating is that he essentially did a whole-hearted flip-flop on FISA, but his views on child-rape or faith-based initiatives have been part of his message for the past 2-3 years or so.

Considering McCain has changed his views on the Bush tax cuts, his own immigration plan, torture, and Guantanamo--all in my view, far more serious issues, and the media has not run with it, or even pointed it out in comparison with there Obama stories is extremely frustrating.  

- jyunis

July 11, 2008 at 2:42pm

The arbiters in the MSM have already anointed Senator McCain as a maverick straight talker, their credibility, not his, would be scrutinized if they change their collective opinion; who do you think will be protected in that case?

- jemerk

July 11, 2008 at 2:43pm

"the flip-flop attack certainly isn't the most damaging criticism against Obama"

Actually, I think this is an especially damaging criticism for Obama. He does not have the years of experience required to establish "credentials", and so his credentials are being established during the campaign by what he does and what he says, to whom and when. If he gets "officially" branded as a flip-flopper he is political milquetoast for the remainder of his career.

The sad part is, the MSM is going to be the ultimate arbiter in the decision: do they embrace the GOP tripe, or at the very least report it verbatim with no rebuttal, and allow Obama to become whatever Rove's imagination conjures up each week, or do they do their due diligence and actually report the factuals surrounding the claims?

"This journalistic norm will ensure that, by Election Day, McCain will have ginned up at least as many stories highlighting his own expedient maneuvering as Obama's."

Last weekend convinces me Noam thinks too highly of the MSM; the GOP claim ran in pretty much every media outlet for 4 days before anyone bothered to actually verify the claims, and noticed that Obama was actually repeating himself from a year ago. Until the media can conjure up such damaging fiascos against McCain, it won't matter how many articles they run.

- GSpinks

July 11, 2008 at 2:47pm

A mistake for a proof reader:

"Sp far, I don't see anything like this happening"

The first word should be "So"

- kevincollins

July 11, 2008 at 2:47pm

Barak hasn't been flip-flopping, but John has been having lots of senior moments.  (I'm waiting for the interview where he can't recall his name!)  Republicans used the phrase very successfully against Kerry and believe they can get away with it again.  Don't put any money on that one.

- WaltB

July 11, 2008 at 2:53pm

Is it possible Obama is pulling a rope-a-dope here?  After all it's only July, and I don't think alot of true swing voters are going to make up their minds this early. Eventually these two candidates will have to debate, a forum that clearly favors Obama's strengths as much as the current dialogue-via-press-releases masks McCain's weaknesses.  Obama will be able to parry and counterattack much more adroitly than McCain, possibly even getting him to blow his stack if he thinks his precious "Straight Talk" honor is being assaulted.  And that, conceivably, would be closer to Election Day and fresher in voters' minds.

Or maybe I'm just grasping at rationalizations because I'd really, really like to see my senator start hitting back.

- adaglas

July 11, 2008 at 2:54pm

I diasgree.  It's one thing to be arguably changing one's position on issues as Obama stands accused of doing.  McCain takes flip-floppery to a new level, making inconsistent and contradictory statements on a daily basis, depending on the nature of the audience.

Jon, I think you've become a bit too personally invested in this whole flip-flop thing.  Give it a rest.  

- WayneJM

July 11, 2008 at 2:57pm

A guy had a column in my local newspaper (Cincinnati Enquirer) this week about McCain's flip-flops. But that compares to five or six about Obama's . . . .

- tntnb

July 11, 2008 at 3:03pm

Hello Team Obama (and others)... I think what they DESPERATELY need to do about this between now and November is "redefine" the flip-flop discussion to include the notion of COMPROMISE then position Obama's vote on FISA as a compromise... which incidentally is what it was.

A "Flip-flop" is what McCain did re: Bush's tax cuts - a clear change of position for political expediency.  What Obama did was a compromise - this is the best bill that can be passed with Bush's veto threat still in the White House and a Democratic Majority that is held in place by bubble gum.  So what do responsible politicians do in such a situation?

Do they bicker and complain, double-down, draw red lines in the sand, demonize their opponents, engage in name-calling and use procedural tricks to hold up legislation?  Well, that's what many Republican members of the Senate have done during the past 15 years.  But responsible politicians like Obama (and often times McCain for that matter) don't engage in such petty nonsense.  

They work together to reach a COMPROMISE.  A situation that is not ideal, but is the best possible scenario currently possible.  That's how politics work and American voters understand this... so long as someone is out there explaining to them that that's what happened and that Obama's willingness to work together on tough issues and compromise is exactly why he is more equiped to unite the country as President to face the many challenges that lie ahead.

- Gavriel Meir-Levi

July 11, 2008 at 3:18pm

The flip-flop attacks are straight out of the Rove playbook. Throw something up against the wall; if it sticks, great; if not, you've crowded out bad news about your candidate from at least one news cycle. Although they would like it if the flip-flop label stuck, McCain strategists must be almost as happy that there's a debate about flip-flopping, which they see as vastly better than news about McCain's gaffes, of which there were several just this week. Example: He did not seem to know, let alone admit, that the Iraqis want a timetable for withdrawal, a bombshell that has barely made the news.

- abgerard

July 11, 2008 at 3:20pm

As expected, McRove is going to 'swift boat' Obama and the MSM is going right along.  Mr. Straight Talk is always consistent is the meme, and they are doing his work for him.  So what else is new?  And we wonder how bush got put in office twice?

- tnmats

July 11, 2008 at 3:34pm

The Republican camp knows that the evidence for their flip-flop attacks on Obama is flimsy at best, and that the attack itself is disingenuous. Yet, they persist because "it's a viable bridge for other attacks"

That's why I don't understand why Obama, on this issue, seems to lay back and let the media defend him. The media don't defend anybody no matter how ridiculous the ttacks are. Ask John Kerry. Republicans know it may not be a one big knock-out but the little jabs, sooner or later, become effective enough to sneak McCain into the White house.

To me, there seems to be a media tone-deafness around the Obama campaign at this time -- just idling while the Republicans attempt to stick mud tiny bit by tiny bit.

Often in tha past, Democratic candidates are too dismissive of points/issues that they deem ridiculous.

- scrubbyoak

July 11, 2008 at 3:36pm

Part of me wishes that Obama would forcibly make the case against all this flip-flopping nonsense, not because it's largely inaccurate (which it is), and not because McCain has changed his own positions quite a bit (which he has), but because changing your positions is *not fundamentally a bad thing*.  Consistency for the sake of consistency is utterly idiotic.  You'd think that after 8 years of Bush we might have learned that stubbornness and rigidity are not desirable traits in a President.  When Obama screws up (and Obama will screw up, just like the other 42 guys that have held the position), I don't want him to "stay the course." I want him to realize his mistake and "flip-flop" as fast as he can.

It amazes me that conservatives would criticize Obama for what they see as a move toward more conservative positions.  I sure as hell wouldn't criticize McCain if he decided that universal health care was a good idea; I'd be ecstatic.  Do we criticize Robert Byrd for flip-flopping away from his former racist positions (or Strom Thurmond for doing the same)? Of course not, because shifting away from racist positions is a good thing.  So we should stop acting like changing views is some sort of moral failure.  Part of me wants Obama to make that case as strongly and convincingly as I know he's capable of making it.

...And then there's the sane part of me that realizes that anything from Obama saying that changing positions isn't a bad thing would simply be taken as a confession of guilt for the sin of flip-floppery, and since both parts of me would like Obama to be President, I realize that that case will have to wait to be made by someone else.

- AlanSP

July 11, 2008 at 4:00pm

Continuing our back and forth over whether Operation Flip-Flop has damaged Barack Obama, Jon cites a

- Anonymous

July 11, 2008 at 4:09pm

The Stump - please stop with the incomplete sentences already.  It is neither enlightening nor amusing.  Just annoying,

- JackR

July 11, 2008 at 4:26pm

Alan, unless I miss my guess, Obama *has* been railing aganst the allegations during his town-halls and stump speeches. But, as scrubbyoak describes, there seems to be some sort of tone-deafness in the media surrounding Obama. It seems that they dropped the issue all together instead of continuing the story-line into how it was not actually a flip-flop.

- GSpinks

July 11, 2008 at 4:36pm

I think Chuck Todd had it right on MSNBC the other day:  The press so far is treating the election as a referendum on Obama.  So long as that's the case, Obama will suffer under disproportionate  media pressure and scrutiny, and be victimized by the inevitable unflattering and misleading narratives that accompany such scrutiny.  This explains the odd and infuriating focus on the thin Obama flip-flop narrative recently while the other guy's ideological reinvention passes with barely a comment or a mention.  Interestingly, the only large publication I saw that recently featured the *McCain* flip-flip story was the British, and conservative, Economist, which apparently continues to view the election not as a referendum on a compelling phenom but rather a choice between two candidates.  Hopefully the American press will come around to that view in short order.

Meanwhile, what can Obama do?  scrubbyoak suggests that he's just taking it, like Kerry did.  I don't think so.  He's disputing it, and his objections are getting coverage.  He took on the flip-flop charge saying that people who say he's changing his views "haven't been listening."  Which is both true and truthy -- in that it sounds right.  Howard Fineman says that Obama is his own best defender, often tackling these issues with the press in a coherent, intelligent way that they understand, and that more of that is what's called for.  Maybe so.  That approach seems to have worked well for him so far every time the press gets ahold of the latest thing that will cause Obama's downfall.  One thing he is *not* doing is answering the experience charge, which allows the "who is this guy?" stuff to stick.  He never did really in the primary either, which puzzled me.  He has a substantial record in politics that is nothing to be ashamed of or worried about.  One reason that you have not been hearing about Obama the Communist Illinois Senator is that there's no substantial ammunition there.  I suggested a long time ago that he should get in the habit of rattling off some datapoints about his record so that the notion that he actually has one will sink in.  It's not a point to beat McCain on, just a threshhold point, to build *comfort*.  (I spoke with a woman recently who thought Obama had spent one year in the U.S. Senate.)  Because even if the press makes the election a referendum on Obama, Obama should win.

- jhildner

July 11, 2008 at 4:40pm

GSpinks,

My impression is that Obama has been fighting back in the sense that he has (correctly) pointed out that he's been saying most of this stuff the whole time.  He hasn't fought the implicit assumption that flip-flopping is bad.  Chait doesn't either, by the way.  He just says it's McCain doing it.

There are 3 basic responses to the flip-flopping charge

Critic: You're a flip-flopper

Responses

1) No I'm not

2) My opponent is

3) Even if it were true, that's a stupid criticism.

Obama uses (1).  Chait uses both (1) and (2).  I want (3) because it gets at the absurdity of the whole nature of the accusation, rather than focusing on specific charges.  (2) is actually the worst, as tempting as it may be to point out hypocrisy, since it affirms that changing positions is in itself a bad thing.  I don't give a damn *that* McCain changes positions; I care *how* he changes his positions.  Reversing his position on the Bush tax cuts isn't bad because it's a change; it's bad because it's a change for the worse.

- AlanSP

July 11, 2008 at 5:12pm

I don't think he is just taking it, jhildner, just that he is not aggressively counter-punching McCain on his flip-flops and, at worst, render the issue a draw. Hell, when it comes to flip-flopping, Obama has more ammo than McCain to fire back. Obama can keep a sustained barrage going with all the catalog of McCain's flip-floppery. The media won't do it for him.

Obama should make more effort to disrupt this attempt by the Republicans before they get into a good rhythm. Right now they are just sketching, and any picture that manages to appear won't clean off easy.

- scrubbyoak

July 11, 2008 at 5:35pm

I saw Obama speak the other day and I last saw him over a year ago - pardon my simplistic contribution compared to the great analysis here on Talkback, especially on the press, but Obama is bone tired.  He seems soul tired.  

How many times a day can you stand up there kissing Hillary's ass - rather than conducting the public shaming for her  irresponsible, racist campaign that we'd see in an ideal world -  without it draining you?  

His frenetic traveling seems to have drained his unique sharpness in responding on the fly to these sorts of things.  He should be politely enviserating McCain on this whole kabuki flip flop process, its like the circadia bugs, it shows up like clockwork and means so little.  Maybe a brief speech and a deadly, amusing quip or two or three and that really would do it.  We're all rather childish that way, the press and public alike. Amuse us and we're yours.  

Check out his schedule some time, he's on 24/7 while McCain takes frequent breaks.  Look, I know and completely accept that selling your soul and traveling so much that your brain stops working is part of the game and certainly part of the Presidency, but I think Obama's best strategy right now would be to take a solid  4 or better yet 5 days off, let the yammering go on without him and stay in one place. Pick a good beach book and sleep, recharge.  He needs it.

- Wandreycer1

July 12, 2008 at 6:21am