Wampum

Serving Waffles? Bring It On

Let’s Begin with a Quiz. Which of the following would constitute hypocrisy?

a) Madonna criticizing Janet Jackson for using sex to gain publicity;

b) Jesse Ventura criticizing Arnold Schwarzenegger for not having the background needed to become a governor;

c) Chris Matthews criticizing Howard Fineman for focusing on a candidate’s clothes; or

d) President Bush attacking John Kerry as a waffler.

If you answered "all of the above," you would be correct but the one I wish to discuss is d.

President Bush began his attack on John Kerry at a speech to the Republican governors:

The other party's nomination battle is still playing out. The candidates are an interesting group with diverse opinions," Bush said. "They're for tax cuts and against them. They're for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They're for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They're in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that's just one senator from Massachusetts.

Josh Marshall does not think that President Bush is a waffler:

Indeed, I'm really not sure you can say the president is a waffler at all. His policy positions remain fairly consistent over time. It's not his positions that change, but his facts.

I'd almost say that the president -- or the White House, more broadly -- is something like the inverse of a waffler. He continues with policies even after the factual arguments upon which he initially justified them collapse entirely.

Josh is surely correct that President Bush holds positions independent of any facts to support them. Mr. Bush’s contempt for facts does not imply that his positions remain constant. They have not. In fact, Bush’s record for waffling is long and broad. A few examples:

Fiscal Policy
In February of 2001, President Bush promised to retire “an historic $2 trillion in debt over the next 10 years.”

Now, President Bush proposes to retire no debt and in fact proposes to increase the national debt by more than $2.4 trillion for the period from 2002 through 2009.

In the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush promised to devote the entire Social Security surplus to reducing the national debt, thereby helping to prepare for the retirement of the baby boomers.

Once in office, Mr. Bush has not used any of the Social Security surplus to retire debt but has used the entire surplus to fund the general operations of government each year since his first budget in 2002.

According to Mr. Bush’s budget projections (scroll to table S-12), the entire Social Security surplus will be used to fund the general operations of government through at least FY 2012. In total, Mr. Bush proposes to spend in excess of a trillion dollars of Social Security surpluses rather than retire debt as he promised.

Trade
In the 2000 campaign George Bush asserted that he was for free trade for “not just monetary but moral” reasons and pledged to make the expansion of trade a “consistent priority.” Once in office, Mr. Bush found it politically convenient to impose steel tariffs in order to help his election prospects in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other places.

When the European Union threatened trade sanctions, Mr. Bush
reversed course again and lifted the tariffs. The President’s insistence on imposing tariff’s on Pakistani textiles also conflicts with his free trade rhetoric.

Stem Cells
Mr. Bush has also waffled on the issue of whether or not frozen human embryos are human life. In his speech about stem cells, the President said:

Research on embryonic stem cells raises profound ethical questions, because extracting the stem cell destroys the embryo, and thus destroys its potential for life. Like a snowflake, each of these embryos is unique, with the unique genetic potential of an individual human being.

In accordance with that position, he barred the use of federal funds in research using any stem cell lines other than the ones existing at the time of his decision. Mr. Bush, however, has not barred in vitro procedures that destroy embryos. As Michael Kinsley has pointed out, his failure to do so is inconsistent:

George W. Bush claims to believe that (that a microscopic embryo is a human being with the same human rights as you and me), and you have to believe something like that to justify your opposition to stem-cell research. But Bush cannot possibly believe that embryos are full human beings, or he would surely oppose modern fertility procedures that create and destroy many embryos for each baby they bring into the world. Bush does not oppose modern fertility treatments. He even praised them in his anti-stem-cell speech.

Homeland Security Department
Mr. Bush waffled on the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. When first proposed by Democrats, Mr. Bush opposed the creation of the department. He later changed courses and supported it. He then argued that Democrats who supported the creation of the department but who favored permitting department employees to have Civil Service protection were “not interested in the security of the American people."

In essence, Mr. Bush argued that his previous position showed that he did not care about the security of the American people.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions
During the campaign, Mr. Bush promised to impose mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide on the nation's power plants. Less than two months into office Mr. Bush flip flopped on the issue.

North Korea
The administration’s policy towards North Korea has been one big waffle. Josh Marshall has documented that the administration was openly contemptuous of the Clinton policy towards North Korea.

As Josh has noted, the administration has changed its position dramatically:

As I say, most conservative commentators refuse to recognize what is obvious to everyone with their eyes open -- that the Bush administration is now looking for a deal pretty much just like the one the Clintonites were working on.

In the last few days, we have seen that the shape of administration policy towards North Korea is, in fact, remarkably similar to the Clinton policy:

The informal agreement between Washington and its Asian partners on how to approach North Korea represents a partial retreat by the Bush administration, which has long insisted that it would not reward the North for simply freezing its nuclear weapons program...

An Asian official said the proposed aid program would resume fuel oil shipments that were halted in late 2002, after the United States discovered that North Korea had violated a pledge it made eight years earlier to freeze the nuclear weapons program in return for energy assistance.

Disarmament vs. Regime Change
Even with regard to the war in Iraq, the administration has waffled, at least rhetorically, over the issue of regime change vs. disarmament. Before the war, Mr. Bush explicitly stated that war could be avoided only if Saddam disarmed. See, for instance here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

After the war, as it became clear that Saddam had no WMD to renounce, Mr. Bush waffled on the importance of that central rationale for the war.

There are no doubt many other issues on which Mr. Bush has waffled, equivocated, flip flopped or changed position. I did no systematic research and instead just listed the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Others could be listed. Mr. Bush was quite willing to share his daily briefings with Bob Woodward but has been much less willing to do so with the 9/11 Commission. He opposed the formation of the 9/11 commission as well as the commission investigating pre-war intelligence failures but changed his position in both instances. Mr. Bush’s position on nation building has changed more than a few degrees as well.

Mr. Bush’s attack on John Kerry as a waffler merely shows that Bush is without shame. If Mr. Bush wants to make consistency of position a central issue in the campaign, I think Kerry should turn to the waiter serving the waffles and yell, "Bring It On." Then he could begin to sing a certain song.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at February 25, 2004 04:59 PM | TrackBack