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cloudboy -> RE: Barry's big flip (9/1/2008 5:55:31 PM)
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This is a pretty stupid and unsophisticated post. All politicians must moderate their positions to reflect changing times and circumstances. The situation in IRAQ has changed for the better, largely because BUSH finally fired Rumsfeldt in 2006 and installed new leadership to initiate a change of tactics there. (We can only pipedream about how the invasion might have gone had Rumsfeldt and Cheney not had their fingerprints on it.)
Just what exactly is a US politician supposed to do about IRAQ?
James Fallows addressed the idiocy of pledge questions in his latest article about the Obama-Hillary debates,
Here is my list of the Five Questions That Should Never Be Asked, with illustrations and reasons why they're wrong:
1. The will you pledge tonight question, which is always about something no responsible politician could ever flat-out promise to do. For instance, a question to Barack Obama: “Will you pledge that by January 2013, the end of your first term more than five years from now, there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq?” Obama’s reply was the only realistic one: “It’s hard to project four years from now, and I think it would be irresponsible. We don’t know what contingency will be out there.” Hillary Clinton got the same question and gave a similar answer: “I agree with Barack. It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting. You know, we do not know, walking into the White House in January 2009, what we’re going to find.” The questioner looked as if these were witnesses evading a question. In fact, if they’d said anything different, they’d be indicating that they were too doctrinaire for the job. But that didn’t get Clinton off the hook. “Would you pledge to the American people that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you are president?” she was asked at another debate. She replied, “I intend to do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb,” to which the follow-up was: “But you won’t pledge?” Then to Senator Joseph Biden: “Would you pledge to the American people that Iran would not build a nuclear bomb on your watch?” Biden’s reply: “I would pledge to keep us safe.” Taking a pledge would mean news for the show but would either handcuff the politician if elected or create a flip-flop trap later on.
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