- me’-ta-flip-flop. n. An individual’s sudden reversal in position on the question whether the individual has suddenly reversed position on something.
Really, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Mitt Romney yesterday called his onetime support for abortion rights his greatest personal and political mistake, and sought to reassure voters during a Republican presidential debate that he is a reliable and determined foe of abortion, an issue important to the party’s religious conservatives…. Romney acknowledged his switch on the issue but said he is now fiercely antiabortion. “I was prochoice. I am prolife. I never said I was prochoice, but my position was effectively prochoice. I’ve changed my position,” he said.
Let’s recall that, not so long ago, Romney’s position was that he hadn’t exactly changed his position. It’s just that, well,
“over time one’s perspective changes somewhat,” Romney told USA Today. “I’m in a different place than I was probably in 1994, when I ran against Ted Kennedy, in my own views on that.” The governor declined to elaborate. Yesterday Julie Teer, the governor’s spokeswoman, refused to explain how Romney’s position has changed, saying only that it has “evolved over time.” Teer emphasized, however, that his “commitment to the people of Massachusetts to maintain the status quo while he is governor has not changed.”
But lately it’s been looking like no one was really buying the “evolved” or “changed perspective” story. So it’s time for a new position on the change of position. Henceforth, no more evolution for Mitt Romney (which is probably just as well, since he’s also going for the “intelligent design” crowd). Before he was fer it, and now he’s agin’ it.
And if you believe that, I’ve got some terrific bridgefront property in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.
I’ve seen recent polls that show Rudy with the overall lead among wingnuts, yet a majority don’t know that he’s Pro Choice (shocking!).
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Romney changing his position on abortion is fine (for wingers), except that when he goes after Rudy on the issue, he’s going to be leading with his chin.
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Hoooboy.
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Question for PP and other Romney supplicants:
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What do you consider to be Romney’s strengths? When he’s talking about X, (rather than Mormonism, abortion flip flops, etc) he’s in his element. What is X?
Mitt Romney would ride to the White House on the backs of religious fundamentalists convinced he thinks like they do. But, sadly for this dream, he can’t convince them of this because it is at variance from his earlier stated positions. In short, not credible, or more succinctly, incredible. Thus, a laughable campaign, and a tragic instance of a reasonably capable person reduced to a grotesque political parody.
person? He’s such an empty suit. It’s embarrassing that this guy was elected governor.
all that hair grease.
and do that republican business fiscal conservative management stuff voters wanted someone to do, he promised not to change abortion rights. He said he was personally pro-life, but that he respected the wishes of this state’s voters (or papers) and so he’d be “effectively pro-choice” as governor. That was intentional, and he was honest that it was just a promise so that he could get elected governor of Massachusetts, which he kept. Does everyone forget that? There was no flip-flop, and the meta flip-flop is really just semantics, he is now admitting that by doing what he did in order to be the business manager he promised to be, he did nothing to stop abortion, and he has changed, he will presumably now do things to stop abortion and actually be anti-choice.
in not pro-life. he’s mercenary.
which is also a swipe at Guilliani, who’s trying the same tactic but with national security rather than fiscal management. Will Rudy have the same epiphany and change from being “pro-life but reasonable people can disagree”?
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Do you agree though that he explicitly made and kept a promise to Massachusetts citizens to be effectively pro-life even though it was against his explicitly stated true beliefs?
…that in his earlier positions on social issues he had been brainwashed. Just as his father, George Romney, had been about the Vietnam War.
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I’m sure that that would go over well with the electorate.
I think that there were three reasons why Kerry was vulnerable to charges of flip-flopping:
I don’t think anything like the above applies to Romney, so I’m not sure whether the flip-flop accusation is going to bother Republicans. Is there evidence that it does?
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Charges of disloyalty might damage him. As authoritarianism spreads its poisonous roots into the 28-percenters, loyalty becomes a cardinal value for them.
what counts as disloyalty to the 28% if not his jumping to and fro on life? but if you mean the salute-the-general type of loyalty, i’m guessing the place to look is his business practices. i suppose it is possible to become a gazillionaire by being fair and nice, cuz ya know it happens all the time, but the rape-the-little-guy method seems much more common. guess we’ll just have to wait for the disgruntled former employees and shafted partners to step forward.
I think we agree. Maybe I was too elliptical. Let me try lyrical.
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Flip-flopping v disloyalty The 28% do not care about flip flopping so long as it is done by one of the Truly Good Conservatives. Bush’s multiple and inconsistent reasons for his tax cuts in 2001 bothered no conservative; Bush’s flip-flopping on the importance of catching bin Laden raised no right wing eye brows. On the other hand, you’ll see Andrew Sullivan classified as a liberal by right wingers since his abandonment of Bush. His disloyalty earned him an ex-communication.
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In Romney’s case, his disloyalty to one of the True Beliefs of the Self-Disciplined and Righteous could indeed cause him trouble, i.e., the sanctity of life before it is viable.
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On the other hand, if he flip flops to discomfit liberals, that’s just fine with them. They want as many liberals discomfited as possible.
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Loyalty in the workplace Loyalty to one’s employees is part of a liberal model of business. (You hire good employees whom you value. You’re loyal to them because, if happy and secure, they’ll be creative and productive. The company will flourish.) The 28%-ers believe in a different model. (Life is tough, so are we. Only the tough are successful. In the company, the wheat are separated from the chaff. If we have to make hard decisions, we make them.)
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In a model that emphasizes toughness, there is no great value on loyalty to employees. It is employees who must demonstrate their loyalty to the company, or, in Romney’s case, to Romney.
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Or to use your word: in that context, shafting people is just part of business.
Loyalty in the workplace Loyalty to one’s employees is part of a liberal model of business.
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In a model that emphasizes toughness, there is no great value on loyalty to employees.
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Actually, in a conservative model of business, loyalty to one’s employees should be uppermost.
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Why? Because the employees know the employers’ trade secrets, marketing plans and so forth. If there is no loyalty employer->employee, it is highly unlikely that a former employer would expect much loyalty in the other direction.
If the Bush administration isn’t a show of ultimate loyalty, I don’t know what is. Even if not constrained by term limits, he would have had to throw in the hat due to the pool of loyal minions shrinking up. It is tempting to say, no, they’re more a band of brothers. But I dont think so. There are true underlings in that organization, and Bush has proven the loyalest of bosses to the peeps who rubbed his (or his dad’s) feet in Texas days.
The band of brothers metaphor is probably much closer than the lyrical business metaphor I tried to construct.
to Romney. One of the main criticisms I’m reading about Mitt, from pundits/bloggers outside of MA who haven’t seen much of him before now, is that this guy will say anything to get elected.
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Further, I expect both Giuliani & Brownback to attack him (from different sides) as a flip flopper, since he’s been all over the place on abortion.
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What’s funny is that one of the GOP’s favorite slurs against a candidate has been that he’s a pro-choice, flip-flopper from Massachusetts. This one also happens to be a Mormon, and he’s running for the GOP.