[chumdawg]

Geez, where to start?

Originally Posted by wmbwinn

Obama Flip-Flops Leave the Race Tied

By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

This is as good a place as any. Morris is a mercenary nonpareil. So let's go into this bearing in mind the source.

this candidate — who we don’t really yet know very well —

Anyone who doesn't yet know him very well is, I would suggest, taking an unadvisable tack by burying his head in the sand for a good year or so coming up to an election.

What Dick Morris means is: "We don't really yet have any goods on him. We don't really yet know how what kind of tactics against him will play well with the voters."

Trust me, when Dick Morris says he doesn't yet know somebody, that's what he means.

Turning his back on a lifetime of support for gun control, he now recognizes a Second Amendment right to bear arms in the wake of the Supreme Court decision.

I'll point this one directly at you, winn. Do you see "gun control" and "the right to bear arms" as inherently opposite measures? I know that you don't, based on the ideas you have expressed in this forum. I haven't heard you advocate the idea that every American ought to have the right to own whatever sort of firearm he desires, and to wield it whatever he wants to. What does "gun control" mean? Surely it encompasses things like licensing concealed handgun owners and restricting the places in which said licensed folk can carry their guns.

But let's look further at this. Morris says that Obama "turned his back on a lifetime of support for gun control" in that he now "recognizes" a Supreme Court decision. Couple of problems with this.

At the start of the article, Morris said that we don't yet know Obama very well. But here he claims to know about a "lifetime" of Obama's views on an issue. The two don't reconcile.

But more importantly, consider this, from further down the article:

Obama’s breathtaking flips and flops are materially different from McCain’s. While McCain had opposed offshore oil drilling and now supports it, the facts have obviously changed.

I would consider a Supreme Court decision to be among the very ultimate in "facts" that "obviously have changed." What is Morris saying, that he expects Obama to act as if the Supreme Court of the United States has no bearing? Presidents don't override the Supreme Court, unless you are Andrew Jackson or Dick Morris, evidently.

From a 100 percent pro-choice position, he now has migrated to expressing doubts about allowing partial-birth abortions.

Once again, we have the issue of how well Morris thinks he "really knows" Obama. Here he claims to know him well enough to state that Obama was "100 percent pro-choice" to the extent that he favored partial-birth abortions.

Morris: "100 percent" necessarily implies that you know the candidate very well. And in this case, your credibility is next to nil. Nobody likes partial-birth abortions.

For the first time, he now speaks highly of using church-based institutions to deliver public services to the poor.

Here we go again! Remember, Morris's thesis here is that this is a flip-flop for Obama. This would imply that Morris knows that Obama has never spoken highly before of using church-based institutions to help the poor. How would Morris know that, if he doesn't "really yet know" the man?

Why should this be territory that Obama cannot claim? Morris is reaching horribly here. He is claiming that if Obama never said it just so, he never believed it. And he is taking it one step further by implying that Obama believed the opposite!

Having based his entire campaign on withdrawal from Iraq, he now pledges to consult with the military first.

Desiring withdrawal from Iraq and consulting with the military first are certainly not mutually exclusive.

As a candidate who was nominated to be a different kind of politician, Obama has set the bar pretty high. And, with his flipping and flopping, he is falling short, to the disillusionment of his more naïve supporters.

This quote pretty much says it all. To Morris, a candidate who doesn't retrench himself from time to time is a "different kind of politician," which is true and Morris knows that. People who believe that a candidate can stick to whatever he started with are "naive," which is true and Morris knows that.

Morris knows the game as well as anyone. The problem is that he is trying to use the game to aid McCain over Obama, but his efforts are as see-through as a plain glass window.

One wag even called him the "black Bill Clinton," a turnaround of the "first black president" moniker that had been pinned on Bill.

This is just Morris trying to defend his turf. He created the political persona of Bill Clinton. He hates it when someone else uses his methods even better than he did.

Republicans can drive a truck through the gap between this elite opinion and the need for ordinary people to afford the journey to work in the morning. And, with a 16-state media buy, the Republican Party and the McCain campaign are doing precisely that.

That's true, as Morris sagely knows. The only question is how well they will do it.

If Obama softens his aversion to drilling, it may be the final straw for some of his liberal supporters. Where would they go?

Where would they go? To McCain? Gimme a break.

So much for Obama's lead...

I'm sure you know that the polling at this stage is next to meaningless.