The Gotcha Rule

Instead of trying to explain why their candidate looked like a kid who didn't want to be at the mall with his mommy last Thursday night, the GOP has decided to pore through debate transcripts, trying to find any scrap of material that would prove their flip-flopping claim against John Kerry. Here's the thing. Republicans have run a flip-flop Presidential campaign for years and years. Clinton was a waffler, Gore had no convictions. They're always willing to play into the conventional wisdom that politicians are, well, politicians, and use it to their advantage. Why? Because it's easier to go through old opposition speeches and find quotes than create and defend actual policies.

And what it leads to is a kind of willful obfuscation on the part of people smart enough to know the difference. As long as it plays into the narrative, they will collapse time, they will take words literally, they will just decide not to comprehend. There are several examples of this coming out of the debate. This passage, for example:

KERRY: Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the President made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?

I believe that when you know something's going wrong, you make it right. That's what I learned in Vietnam. When I came back from that war I saw that it was wrong. Some people don't like the fact that I stood up to say no, but I did. And that's what I did with that vote. And I'm going to lead those troops to victory.

LEHRER: All right, new question. Two minutes, Senator Kerry. Speaking of Vietnam, you spoke to Congress in 1971, after you came back from Vietnam, and you said, quote, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Are Americans now dying in Iraq for a mistake?

KERRY: No, and they don't have to, providing we have the leadership that we put -- that I'm offering.

Now, people have taken this bit to say that Kerry first says the war is a mistake, and then he says it isn't. NO HE DOESN'T. It was a mistake to invade, in March 2003. It is not a mistake to remain there, in October 2004. That's what he's saying. And that's been a very consistent stance for Kerry. He's said all along that now that we're in Iraq, we cannot fail, because of the geopolitical implications. That's not inconsistent. Except Republican operatives choose to see it that way.

Another example is this thing about the "global test." It's completely clear what he meant: the universal test of legitimacy. In other words, if you're going to attack another country, you might need proof, lest it become illegitimate. Now, considering this Administration DID attack another country without any proof, maybe it's no surprise they misread the phrase.

I'll let the candidate himself have the last word on this:

Speaking at a town hall meeting on stem cell research in Winnacunnet High School in Hampton New Hampshire, Kerry replied, "This is what they do. It's almost sad. It's certainly pathetic. All they can do is grab a little phrase and scare America."

Alluding to the New York Times' Sunday story on Iraq intelligence, the Democratic nominee insisted, "They misled Americans on intelligence."

Then Kerry returned to the question at hand, continuing, "What I said in the preceding sentence was, "I will not cede America's security to another country." No one gets a veto over our security. No one...I'm never going to allow America's security to be outsourced."

Concluding, Kerry clarified once more, "The test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy."

This willful obfuscation on the part of the Republicans is so maddening. Anyone with a brain knows exactly what Kerry is talking about here, but BushCo takes it in the completely literal sense. It's like if I took Bush saying "I know bin Laden attacked us!" and taking it to mean "See, he KNEW bin Laden was going to attack!!!"

The reading comprehension from the other side is at about a 3rd-grade level. I'd like to see some SAT verbal scores. I mean really.