The Flip-Flop machine rolls on...

BLITZER: Why do you think [Maliki] said that 16 months is basically a pretty good timetable?

MCCAIN: He said it's a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it's a pretty good timetable, as we should -- or horizons for withdrawal.  

May 16, via Jed Report

MCCAIN: For him [Obama] to talk about dates for withdrawal, which basically is surrender in Iraq after we're succeeding so well is, I think, really inexcusable.

If you're wondering why the Maliki "correction" issued by CentCom doesn't sound like a "correction" and doesn't specify what needs to be "corrected," you're missing the point.Bush and McCain aren't trying to get Maliki to retract the  his statement in terms of the policy he endorsed, they just want to salvage a meme they have been carefully cultivating since the beginning of the month: namely, that Obama has supported some mythical position called "precipitous withdrawal" and that the reiteration of his old position over the July 4th weekend constituted a "flip-flop." Now, with the insanity surrounding Maliki's statements, we can clearly see that this campaign wasn't just an effort to make Obama look indecisive and inconsistent. The campaign, facilitated by a shamefully compliant media (and even some progressive bloggers), was intended to give McCain cover to steal Obama's policy.

This diary is composed of two sections.  In the first half, I will recap some of what we know about the immense impact of media narratives in Presidential campaigns, and argue that the emergence of the recent "flip-flop" narrative on Obama has done more damage than most people realize, reducing his lead by more than 3 million votes.  In the second section, I will argue that a new narrative is forming right now, based on a fortuitous combination of inexplicable reversals on foreign policy by the Bush administration in the direction of Obama’s long-held policies at the very moment that Obama begins his high-profile trip abroad.  Now is the time for us to do what we can to spread this narrative, and if done correctly, it could potentially leave McCain in a position from which he cannot recover.

Follow me over the fold for the full argument...

This is an open letter to the "legitimate press" to ask that they stop using the derogatory term "flip-flop" when characterizing Democrats.

I address the letter to Bob Schieffer of Meet the Press for reasons that will be made clear in the letter.

I was researching McCain's past position on the war in Afghanistan, and came across this very interesting Meet The Press transcript from October 21st, 2001. This transcript reveals a very intriguing blunder by John McCain that should be discussed in the press today.

He said that he thought the war in Afghanistan should be settled first before going to war with Iraq. This simply puts to lie his arguments on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He used to think that it was important to have everything in Afghanistan settled first, Osama bin Laden caught, and the Taliban regime extinguished before going to war with Iraq. Senator Joe Lieberman also makes a cameo in this transcript.

I'm going to write a diary every day until I start hearing the main stream media cover John McCains flip-flops as much as Obama's recently perceived flip-flops. This is important because Obama is starting to get branded as the bigger flip-flopper of the two. Even though on the internet McCain is the biggest Flip-Flopper; however in the selective MSM Obama is still taking the cake. So we can start by having every liberal talking head and guest on cable news and otherwise using the nickname: John "60 Flip-Flops" McCain whenever refering to his name.

Please recommend this. I want at least to start with Rachel and Keith, Markos and Arianna to use this every evening and every day till election day; and anyone else who has the guts to point out McCain's position changes. This must be the message. Right now the mainsteam media focuses so hard on Obama's changes because he is new(er) and talks about a new kind of politics. However the new kind of politics to me is they same as saying "straight talk express" that McCain runs on.

How many times has John McCain Flip-Flopped? For the cause of spreading the word and keywording the globe here is a list of 61 John McCain Flip-Flops.  

Recently, the AP has been failing to uphold its standards of journalistic integrity. Josh Marshall at TPM has been documenting this carefully, even stating semi-facetiously that the AP has "endorsed" McCain. He has even charged the AP with bamboozlement over its distortion of Obama's Iraq stance.

In particular, AP writer Liz Sidoti (of McCain donut sprinkles fame: see first link) has written that: "On Iraq, he has gone from hard-line opposition to the war to more nuanced rhetoric that calls for a troop drawdown process that could last 16 months." Of course, this is patently false for Obama has always talked about a 16 month withdrawal. She also writes of Obama's Iraq stance: "a potentially flexible formulation that has troubled liberals."

However, this is also patently false. The uniform response from the liberal blogosphere has been condemnation of the media for distortion, not Obama.

Below I describe how you can take action. Please rec this diary to encourage others to do likewise.

Although I was aware that Obama's support for faith based initiatives was not entirely outside of his belief system, I have to say I found it quite discouraging - more discouraging than FISA even.

Now, thanks to lord_mike at OpenLeft, I am flip-flopping on this issue.  While it's possible that some may see this as a pander on my part to the religious right, it is also possible that I just changed my mind.  I guess we'll never know.

Anyhow, here is the comment in it's entirety:

For the past 2 or 3 weeks I have seen multiple diaries ripping into  Obama's because is said that the newly revised FISA bill is one he could support.  

Many supporters decried his position and demanded that he hold firm that he would filibuster against any bill that included immunity for telecoms.

Several diaries have ended saying that they would not vote for Obama if he supported the FISA bill or that they simply would withold their donation from his campaign like a treat to a poorly behaved child.

What I don't understand is all of the hysteria.

Cross posted at The Left Anchor.

The following post is cannibalized from a comment I made at TPZoo.  It seems to me that some Obama supporters might be going a bit overboard with their declarations that Obama has made "massive" shifts to the center (I feel his biggest shifts are on FISA and NAFTA, the second of which doesn't surprise me, and the first of which would probably pass no matter what he did).  As for foreign policy, here is my take on Obama's Iraq position:

There are two basic elements to military action: strategy and tactics. Strategy is the long term plan aimed at achieving a given goal. Obama has very clearly stated that his strategy is to remove troops at roughly two brigades per month until all troops are out. This will achieve the goal of removing us from the Iraq quagmire. What is important to note here is that specific tactics for achieving this strategy do not fall under Obama’s domain. He doesn’t have the military training to be making those decisions. Presidents in general don’t make those types of low-level decisions. That would be micromanaging, which is just generally a poor way to run things.

I know there have probably been lots of diaries on this subject.  But over the weekend I made some comments on a diary regarding Obama's position on late-term abortions.  I expressed concern that Obama had discounted the importance of mental health when he discussed exceptions to the ban on late-term abortion and stated that he didn't think "mental distress" should qualify as such an exception.  And I worried that this was part of the "rush to the center" and evidence of Obama backing off from previous pro-choice positions.  
                                          I was wrong.
Since my comment, two things have happened that have changed (and corrected) my view on this subject:

1.  There is a longer quote from Sen. Obama on the subject

2.  My husband, who is a child and adult psychiatrist, weighed in on the side of those who say "mental distress" shouldn't be an exception.

This is the technology age and a technology election.
Youtube is not John McCain's friend.
Nor is the actual record of McCain.

I want to float something so obvious that it is probably already in place.
Even the existence of the remotest possibility that this isn't in place makes me want to put the thought out here.

Everybody has wondered when Obama was going to push back against the flip-flop meme that the media was tarring and feathering him with. Paul Krugman today went so far as to suggest that it had Rove's fingerprints written all over them. But Obama has begun pushing back against the flip-flop meme by releasing a fact sheet on Iraq. The fact sheet points out that Obama has the same positions on Iraq now that he did several months ago. You can read the fact sheet here.

Note: I'm the author of a new book, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, but I'm not part of the Obama campaign.

An Associated Press news "analysis"this weekend reveals a great deal about the right-wing attacks on the Obama campaign and media’s complicity in spreading their falsehoods.

The articleby Jennifer Loven begins, "Is Barack Obama close to being shadowed by giant flip-flops and, worse, having the image stick with people all the way to the voting booth?" If the press keeps falsely reporting Obama’s policies as flip-flops when they’re not, he certainly does.

This image suggests some of kind of bad monster movie, where an enormous pair of casual footwear haunts Obama everywhere. But the reality is much worse than cheap sandals: Media coverage in the past few weeks indicates that the press in 2008 may be even worse than in 2000 and 2004, when we "learned" that Al Gore invented the internet, and John Kerry invented his military service in Vietnam.

Barack has taken a lot of flak recently here.
Obama is a Progressive. He always has been.
He spoke out against the war when 58% of the DEMOCRATIC SENATORS VOTED FOR IT. Populista pointed out his work on behalf of this planet for the last two decades. He is unabashedly a supporter of Universal Health Care (albeit a different way of getting there). He proudly supports unions. He is not a DLC Democrat. His general positions are progressive, but take a slight turn to the center on some details.
Posters here pointed out correctly that Obama's current position on FISA is wrong, appears different and doesn't seem to be defensible (exclusivity is not unique to the new legislation).

Is Obama a flip-flopper? Has he been shifting to the right since the end of the primaries?

Let's take a look at Obama's positions on the issues now and then.

The Associated Press in an "analysis" piece where no analysis was actually conducted, proceded to blast Barack Obama for alleged "centrist positioning" that "gives the GOP ammo" to make the flip-flopping charge that undermined Kerry four years ago.

Here's the laundry list of supposed flip-flops: