The War Of The Flip Flops

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By what overall logic or principles, Kerry's opponents ask, can he explain a 1991 vote against the first Gulf War, a 2002 vote for the second and a 2003 vote against the money to pay for it? Only the logic of political opportunism, they answer. A certain amount of meandering may be part of any Senator's voting record, but Kerry also takes a walkabout in his own sentences. As voters get to know him better, they may see in his life, his choices and his principles a more complicated picture than Bush presents and one that the Republicans are sure to caricature. Kerry is a hunter who favors gun control, a Vietnam War hero who came home to protest the war, a former prosecutor who opposes the death penalty except in terrorism cases. His record is, as they say, a target-rich environment.

Bush, meanwhile, has made a fetish of constancy. He brags that he never revisits a decision or reads a poll. Intellectuals change their minds, he says; leaders know where they are going and act. "Steady leadership in times of change" is his campaign slogan, as though the steadiness is what matters, regardless of the direction in which he is leading. Voters have by now had plenty of opportunity to take the measure of his convictions, whether it's his immovable commitment to cut taxes or his resolve to take out Saddam Hussein. That has given the President a weird advantage when he decides to change course, as he has on occasion throughout his tenure. There is no attempt to explain his turnabouts, no ruminations on the meaning of is. Bush does not utter the phrase, "What I meant to say was ..." The sheer size of his reversals makes them, by some political alchemy, seem like acts of principle by a fearless Executive unafraid of bold actions, including bold retreats.

The clearest example came in the months after 9/11, when Bush resisted Democratic calls to reorganize the government to better coordinate domestic-security efforts. The last thing a conservative Republican wanted to do was create the biggest new federal bureaucracy in 50 years. But pressure grew to the point that even Republicans were abandoning him. When Bush finally did reverse course on the day FBI agent Coleen Rowley went public about the 9/11 clues that had fallen through the cracks he went on the air in a national address and insisted that a new Homeland Security Department was needed. And in the months that followed, he even helped Republicans ride the issue to victory in the 2002 midterm elections.

It helps Bush that when he backslides, he is typically shifting to a popular position from an unpopular one. He not only opposed Rice's testifying publicly before the 9/11 commission, on the ground of Executive privilege, but had opposed creation of the com-mission until the pressure from, among others, the victims' families became too hot. Yet any political damage, argues a senior Administration official, is "totally overwhelmed by the fact of her testifying." Bush is allowing another commission to investigate prewar intelligence on Iraq, which he had also opposed; wooing the U.N., which he had derided; and signed the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-reform bill, which he had resisted. In each case he ended up where a majority of the public sits.

Kerry reverses himself more subtly, over time and often with an intricate explanation, none of which can fit in a 30-sec. ad. A wise politician matures, Kerry allies argue. Back in 1988 the Senator opposed requiring a few hours of work by welfare mothers, then in 1996 voted for a Clinton reform bill that required more hours of work. That evolution, Kerry supporters say, just shows how he had come to appreciate the role of work requirements in combatting the culture of poverty. Kerry often claims that circumstances have changed between any given flip and flop. His equivocations often come over issues about which voters too have fairly textured feelingsabout gay marriage, for instance, or whether the security afforded by the Patriot Act is worth its cost in civil liberties or how to protect jobs in an economy that depends on globalization. Is the security fence that Israel is building in the West Bank a legitimate means of self-defense or a barrier to peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians? There is no consensus in the U.S. public, and Kerry has taken both positions. The problem is that he argued one way in front of Arab Americans in October and the opposite way when he met with Jewish leaders last month.