Ken Berwitz

When you flip-flop and then try to reverse your flip-flop, I suppose it must be a flop-flip.  Or at least an attempt at one.

Here is how the folks at Reuters and, with strong commentary,  www.sweetness-light.com see Barack Obama's flop-flip on Iraq:

Obama Flip Flops On His Iraq War Flip Flop

July 4th, 2008

.

Flip flops are flying everywhere.  We have jeremiah wright, Trinity United Church of Christ, bill ayers and bernardine dohrn, NAFTA, FISA and now a double flip-flop on Iraq.  Plus, I'm writing this off the top of my head so I probably left out a few others. 

Can you trust this man?  Is he still the sterling, pristine property media have made him out to be? 

Or is Barack Obama just a good looking, well spoken politician, straight from the Chicago Democratic machine?

You tell me.

Ken Berwitz

Does MSNBC have any standards at all any more?  Or any shame?

Read this, from "allahpundit" of www.hotair.com and by all means watch the video:

MSNBC host: Was the Colombia hostage rescue a sham designed to benefit McCain?

posted at 1:58 pm on July 3, 2008 by Allahpundit
Send to a Friend | printer-friendly

Like so many conspiracy theorists these days, he doesn’t have the balls to level the accusation squarely, preferring instead to “just ask questions.” It falls to Buchanan to flesh out the theory before rejecting it. Wade through some nutroots blogs and you’ll find breathless reportage noting that McCain did, apparently, know in advance — around 12 hours in advance, per the NYT, after he got to Colombia. Uribe told him on Tuesday night that they were going to try a rescue on Wednesday. The Times itself states matter of factly, “the timing of the rescue was a coincidence and Mr. McCain’s trip to Colombia had nothing to do with it,” and since he didn’t meet with the rescued hostages he gained nothing politically of any value — aside, of course, from a galaxy of leftists screeching about the timing. Oh well. Behold, per Blake Dvorak, one of the first documented cases of McCain Derangement Syndrome.

SEE VIDEO BY CLICKING HERE

.

With a lineup that includes olbermann, abrams and this genius, Chris Matthews actually comes out as the resident right winger. 

And in the eyes of the lunatic left, which flock to MSNBC like lemmings to the sea, he probably is just that.

Ken Berwitz

I thought I was writing pretty well about Barack Obama's burgeoning number of flip-flops on major issues --- until I read Charles Krauthammer's column in yesterday's Investors Business Daily. 

Since he says it so much better than I do, allow me to defer to Mr. Krauthammer by posting his analysis verbatim and without additional comment.

And Now, For Obama's Next Flip-Flop: Iraq By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER | Posted Thursday, July 03, 2008 4:30 PM PT You'll notice Barack Obama is now wearing a flag pin. Again. During the primary campaign, he refused to, explaining that he'd worn one after 9/11 but then stopped because it "became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism." So why is he back to sporting pseudo-patriotism on his chest? Need you ask? The primaries are over. While seducing the hard-core MoveOn Democrats that delivered him the caucuses — hence, the Democratic nomination — Obama not only disdained the pin. He disparaged it. Now that he's running in a general election against John McCain, and in dire need of the gun-and-God-clinging working-class votes he could not win against Hillary Clinton, the pin is back. His country 'tis of thee. In last week's column, I thought I had thoroughly chronicled Obama's brazen reversals of position and abandonment of principles — on public financing of campaigns, on NAFTA, on telecom immunity for post-9/11 wiretaps, on unconditional talks with Ahmadinejad — as he moved to the center for the general election campaign. I misjudged him. He was just getting started. Last week, when the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, Obama immediately declared that he agreed with the decision. This is after his campaign explicitly told the Chicago Tribune last November that he believes the D.C. gun ban is constitutional. Pliant Principles Obama spokesman Bill Burton explains the inexplicable by calling the November — i.e., the primary season — statement "inartful." Which suggests a first entry in the Obamaworld dictionary — "Inartful: clear and straightforward, lacking the artistry that allows subsequent self-refutation and denial." Obama's seasonally adjusted principles are beginning to pile up: NAFTA, campaign finance reform, warrantless wiretaps, flag pins, gun control. What's left? Iraq. The reversal is coming, and soon. Two weeks ago, I predicted that by Election Day Obama will have erased all meaningful differences with McCain on withdrawal from Iraq. I underestimated Obama's cynicism. He will make the move much sooner. He will use his upcoming Iraq trip to acknowledge the remarkable improvements on the ground and to abandon his primary season commitment to a fixed 16-month timetable for removal of all combat troops. The shift has already begun. On Thursday, he said that his "original position" on withdrawal has always been that "we've got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable." And that "when I go to Iraq, I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies." The flip is almost complete. All that's left to say is that the 16-month time frame remains his goal but he will, of course, take into account the situation on the ground and the recommendation of his generals in determining the ultimate pace of the withdrawal. Done. And with that, the Obama of the primaries, the Obama with last year's most liberal voting record in the Senate, will have disappeared into the collective memory hole. Hip Guy Wins Obama's strategy is obvious. The country is in a deep malaise and eager for change. He and his party already have the advantage on economic and domestic issues. Obama, therefore, aims to clear the deck by moving rapidly to the center in those areas where he and his party are weakest, namely national security and the broader cultural issues. With these — and most importantly his war-losing Iraq policy — out of the way, the election will be decided on charisma and persona. In this corner: the young, sleek, cool, hip, elegant challenger. In the other corner: the old guy. No contest. After all, that's how he beat Hillary. She originally ran as a centrist, expecting her nomination to be a mere coronation. At the first sign of serious opposition, however, she panicked and veered left. It was a fatal error. It eliminated all significant ideological and policy differences with Obama — her desperate attempts to magnify their minuscule disagreement on health care universality became almost comical — making the contest entirely one of personality. No contest. As Obama assiduously obliterates all differences with McCain on national security and social issues, he remains rightly confident that Bush fatigue, the lousy economy and his own charisma — he is easily the most dazzling political personality since John Kennedy — will carry him to the White House. Of course, once he gets there he will have to figure out what he really believes. The conventional liberal/populist stuff he campaigned on during the primaries? Or the reversals he is so artfully offering up now? I have no idea. Do you? Does he?

Ken Berwitz

Just in case you think Iraq is the only major flip-flop by Barack Obama, try this one on for size.  Now he is talking about limitations of abortion rights.

While running for the candidacy of his party, which required ingratiating himself to the Lunatic-left And Mega-moonbat Brigade which largely own it, Mr. Obama wasn't talking about which abortion opportunities are and are not acceptable to him.  That would have been political suicide. 

Remember, this is the man who worked triple-overtime to prevent BAIPA legislation from passing in the Illinois state senate.  BAIPA, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was a declaration that if a child is born alive it has constitutional rights and can't be just left to die if the mother doesn't want it.  (you can read about Mr. Obama's unbelievably depraved actions regarding BAIPA by clicking here).

I think it would be fair to assume that a man who would allow a live baby, out of the womb, to be "aborted" had no problem with any reason for a partial birth abortion.

But now Mr. Obama is trying to impress a national electorate, not just the LAMBs who run his party.  So suddenly, as with so many other things in this opportunistic campaign, the sands have shifted.

Here is an excerpt from yesterday's Associated Press article which provides the specifics:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says "mental distress" should not qualify as a health exception for late term-abortions, a key distinction not embraced by many supporters of abortion rights.

In an interview this week with "Relevant," a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain "a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother."

Obama then added: "Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term."

Last year, after the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on late-term abortions, Obama said he "strongly disagreed" with the ruling because it "dramatically departs form previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women."

The health care exception is crucial to abortion rights advocates and is considered a legal loophole by abortion opponents. By limiting the health exception to a "serious physical issue," Obama set himself apart from other abortion rights proponents.

The official position of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group that endorsed Obama in May, states: "A health exception must also account for the mental health problems that may occur in pregnancy. Severe fetal anomalies, for example, can exact a tremendous emotional toll on a pregnant woman and her family."

Ken Berwitz

For months now a lot of our "neutral" media have been trying to assure us that, because of the economy, Iraq is no longer the key issue of this campaign, maybe not even a major issue at all. 

I have been fascinated by this, given the fact that one candidate has been proudly taking credit for the troop surge that seems to be working so well and the other has been proudly committed to withdrawing all troops in 16 months regardless of circumstances.

I have also been sickened by the fact that the better we do in Iraq, the more these media want to talk about something else.   

But now Iraq is indisputably on the front burner, with no way for media to claim otherwise.  Why?  Because, despite a clearly worried Barack Obama almost immediately trying to pretend otherwise, his Iraq position - like just about every other position - is changing. 

Candidate-for-the-Democratic-nomination Obama had no problem at all with the issue of Iraq.  He was always against the war, it was a monumental failure and his entire strategy for Iraq was an expeditious removal of our forces regardless of how things were going there.

But candidate-for-the-Presidency Obama has a very different view.  He is going to go to Iraq see for hmself and listen to those generals he had no interest in listening to until now.  Then he'll decide what to do.

Since any position other than "we're outta here" inherently moves Mr., Obama closer to what John McCain's position, this provides Mr. McCain with a political opening roughly the size of  Eurasia.  And, for once, his campaign has acted immediately to exploit it.  Here is the statement it issued yesterday:

Statement by McCain Campaign on Barack Obama's Iraq Comments Today

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today released the following statement from McCain spokesman Brian Rogers concerning Barack Obama's remarks on Iraq:

"Since announcing his campaign in 2007, the central premise of Barack Obama's candidacy was his commitment to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq immediately. He campaigned in Iowa, New Hampshire and across the country reaffirming this pledge to the American people.

"Today, Barack Obama reversed that position proving once again that his words do not matter. He has now adopted John McCain's position that we cannot risk the progress we have made in Iraq by beginning to withdraw our troops immediately without concern for conditions on the ground. There is nothing wrong with changing your mind when the facts on the ground dictate it. Indeed, the facts have changed because of the success of the surge that John McCain advocated for years and Barack Obama opposed in a position that put politics ahead of country.

"Now that Barack Obama has changed course and proven his past positions to be just empty words, we would like to congratulate him for accepting John McCain's principled stand on this critical national security issue. If he had visited Iraq sooner or actually had a one-on-one meeting with General Petraeus, he would have changed his position long ago."

In a previous blog I noted that the hard left is going to go bat-excrement over his flip-flop on Iraq because it will be seen as the ultimate betrayal.  This has already started, and will explode over the next few days.

Mr. Obama is trying to square a circle here.  He is trying to be a hard line anti-Iraq absolutist to the moveon.org/dailykos/crooksandliars/code pink crowd, while being a circumspect deepthinker willing to change his stance to the rest of us. 

There is no way this can work. 

Mr. Obama is going to have to immediately lurch back to the hardline anti-war stand to retain his most enthusiastic base.  But now he has put an irrevocable element of doubt into them about who the real Barack Obama is.  And that isn't going to do this candidacy any good at all.

Ken Berwitz

This is it.  The mother of all flip-flops.  The left is absolutely going to go through the ceiling on this one.

Here are the details, courtesy of Mike Allen at www.politico.com:

Obama to 'refine' Iraq plan By MIKE ALLEN | 7/3/08 4:16 PM EST Updated: 7/3/08 5:55 PM EST :

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Thursday backed off his firm promise to withdraw combat forces from Iraq immediately and instead said he could “refine” his plan after his trip to Baghdad later this month. Earlier, a top Obama adviser had said that the senator is not “wedded” to a specific timeline. Obama told reporters in Fargo, N.D., that he is “going to do a thorough assessment." "When I go to Iraq and I have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies," he said, according to CBS News. “I have been consistent, throughout this process, that I believe the war in Iraq was a mistake.”  Obama later said at a second news conference he still intends to stick to the timeline. The original Obama plan, still on his website, promises: “Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.” In a separate six-page Iraq plan, he says in a section headed “All Combat Troops Redeployed by 2009”: “The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to begin immediately to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year — now.” David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, began backing off during remarks Wednesday on CNN’s “Situation Room,” telling guest host John Roberts that Obama has actually advocated “a phased withdrawal, with benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet, that called for strategic pauses, based on the progress on these benchmarks and advice on the commanders on the ground.” “He's always said that he would listen to the advice of commanders on the ground, that that would factor into his thinking,” Axelrod said. “He's also always said that we had to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. So he's been very consistent on this point. ... “I think he will take the advice, not just the advice of the commanders on the ground but his general assessment of conditions on the ground in calibrating that withdrawal. He said he thought we could get one to two brigades out a month. But he's not wedded to that in the face of events. No president would be. And he's always said that he's never said that this withdrawal would be without any possibility of alteration based on events on the ground. That would not be a prudent thing to do for any president.” The Republican National Committee plans to make an issue of the evolving statements and has posted “Obama’s Iraq Guessing Game,” rounding up various statements on Iraq by the senator, his aides and surrogates.

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, is more central to Barack Obama's appeal to the left than removing the troops from Iraq --  regardless of whether there is any progress or any success.

The other flip-flops are grating to the left and are troubling evidence that Obama is nothing more than a two-faced machine politician.  But they are chicken feed compared to Iraq.  Iraq is absolutely, positively the main event.

And now? He is telling his loyal followers, the ones who have contributed all that time and money, the ones who have defended him in every which way, that his unequivocal position on Iraq is.......equivocal.

Do yourself a favor:  click on that link to "rounding up various statements" and see how many versions of Iraq policy Mr. Obama has had.  And then think about how the moveon.org, dailykos, crooksandliars and code pink crowd will feel about this latest one.

I think these folks just might have something to say.  Count on it to be very, very soon and very, very loud.

Ken Berwitz

As you may remember, I blogged about keith olbermann viciously - and entirely dishonestly - attacking Fox News as "the worst persons in the world" for talking about Tim Russert immediately after he died - because olbermann's claims about what was said were completely untrue, as you can see by clicking here

Now, what I'd like to know is whether olbermann will be doing a similar hit job on his employer, MSNBC.  Why?  Because of this, as chronicled by D. S. Hube of www.newsbusters.org:

MSNBC Gets Caught Cooking the Books, Has to Recant

Is it my imagination, or was MSNBC trying to exploit Tim Russert's death to boom up their ratings story? 

Russert was a news giant at NBC so its satellite network, MSNBC would of course generate major viewership by covering his death and memorializing him. There is nothing at all wrong with this.  But then using their coverage to make a bogus, inflated claim about ratings?  That is unbelievable.  And unforgivable.

So we're going to see olbermann do his patented "I'm so furious my head is about to explode" routine against MSNBC, right?  They'll be the worst persons in the world for exploiting the death of Tim Russert for PR purposes, right?  Maybe they'll even be the double worst persons in the world because, unlike Fox, MSNBC really did do it.

I'm just waiting on tenterhooks for this to happen.  Honest.

Ken Berwitz

My sister sent me the following letter which, it is purported, was actually sent to a passport office.

I can't vouch for its authenticity, but I very definitely can empathize with most of the points it makes.

I warn you that there is a lot of bad language here. 

Ok, you're warned.  Now here's the letter.

Dear sir
I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe
this. How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number
and knows that I bought a t.v. cable from them back in 1997, and yet,
the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what
date. For heaven's sakes, do you guys do this by hand?



My birth date you have on my social security card, and it is on all the
income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health
insurance card, my driver's license, on the last eight goddamn
passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've
had to fill out before being allowed off the planes over the last 30
years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done at
election times. Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that
my mother's name is Maryanne, my father's name is Robert and I'd be
absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I
die!!!!!!
SHIT!

I apologize, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you and me,
I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house,
then you ask me for my f-cking address. What is going on? You have a
gang of Neanderthal a ssholes working there! Look at my damn picture
Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for
shit sakes I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach. And
would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan
on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do
something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I'd sure as
hell not want to tell anyone!



Well, I have to go now, cause I have to go to the other end of the city
and get another f-cking copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of
$60. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same
spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day??
Nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe makes sense. You'd rather
have us running all over the f-cking place like chickens with our heads
cut off, then find some asshole to confirm that it's really me on the
goddamn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?!
(f-cking morons)Hey, you know why we can't smile? We're totally pissed
off! Signed - An Irate f-cking Citizen.



P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone
to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since
1776 . I have served in the military for something over 30 years and
have had security clearances up the yingyang. However, I have to get
someone important to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor
WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN COMMUNIST f-cking CHINA !

Ken Berwitz

Here, from www.littlegreenfootballs.com, is a humorous way of showing how many confidantes of Barack Obama he has disassociated himself from over the past several months.  See how many you can name:

The Return of the Disassociator

Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 5:42:57 pm PST

.

Some of these newly-dispatched people only recently became Obamacolytes.  But others include his spiritual mentor and a "man" he respectfully refers to as "Minister" - both of whom appear to hate White people, the USA, Israel, and Jews in general. 

Funny how they were okey-dokey with Mr. Obama until he needed votes from a national electorate.

Is this what a typical machine politician - not some glorified heaven-sent savior but a typical machine politician - would do? 

Do you really have to ask?

Ken Berwitz

The folks at www.politico.com seem to think there is.  As is obvious by their blog below, the folks at www.sweetness-light.com emphatically disagree.  

You decide:

“GOP Reaps What It Sowed With Spouses”

July 2nd, 2008

I wonder if the good folks at politico will do a story on where Michelle Obama got the money for her Ivy League education and how she managed to become a $325,000 a year or so executive at a hospital her husband passed a couple of nice, fat $$$ earmarks to.  I hope, in the interests of fairness, we'll be seeing stories about those juicy little items sooner rather than later.