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Bush Flip Flop Watch

Slate has an article by Michael Grunwald which it attempts to document some of John Kerry’s alleged flip flops. As Josh Marshall demonstrates, Grunwald’s argument is sloppy and tendentious.

In a separate post, Josh suggests that Slate run a similar article listing the flip flops of George W. Bush. He remarks that “a Bush flipflop scorecard is really in order, so long as Microsoft has the bandwidth to serve up a very long file.”

I think we should help by providing a list of flip flops by George W. Bush and his administration.

Matthew Yglesias has begun the list here. Matt’s commenters are also on the case. I discussed some other Bush flip flops here.

Today's installment includes three flip flops. First up is abortion.

Mr. Bush now describes himself as “pro life.” When he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the 1970s, however, he told a reporter for the Lubbock-Avalanche-Journal that he favored leaving the abortion question “up to a woman and her doctor.” That sounds pro choice to me.

Second is funding for LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

When Mr. Bush was asked about energy policy in the 2000 Presidential debates, he said:

First and foremost, we've got to make sure we fully fund LIHEAP, which is a way to help low-income folks, particularly here in the East, pay for their high fuel bills.

Once Mr. Bush got into office, we find that:

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) will face a cut of over $500 million if the budget for FY2002 released today by President George W. Bush becomes law.

The last example in today's installment of the Bush flip flop watch involves the 2001 incident when an American spy plane was forced to land in China. China demanded that the United States apologize. According to CNN:

But White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters that the United States was declining China's request for an apology.

"The United States doesn't understand the reasons for an apology," Fleischer said. "Our airplanes were operating in international air space and the United States did nothing wrong."

A bit later, according to the News Hour:

A carefully worded apology from the U.S. is bringing home 24 members of the U.S. Navy who have been held in China for 11 days… The U.S. ambassador to China said in a letter that the U.S. was "very sorry" the Chinese pilot died and apologized for landing on Chinese soil without permission.

I have collected more than twenty such flip flops. I will be updating this series periodically. If you know of a Bush flip flop, please relay it to me by comment or email complete with a link. Maybe we can help make the media's work a little easier if we do their research for them.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at March 8, 2004 11:54 AM | TrackBack