McCains Says he NEVER Flip Flopped: OBAMA RESPOND NOW

[debbierlus]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/12/mccain-issues-a-challenge/

http://thinkprogress.org/mccain-flip-flops/

McCain Issues A Challenge: ‘Nobody Can Name’ An Issue I Have Flip-Flopped On»
On ABC’s The View today, host Joy Behar complained to John McCain that “you used to be more of the Maverick, then you sort of turned.” “In what way?” McCain asked. “You became much more lockstep, I think, with your party, with George Bush’s policies,” Behar answered, adding, “I don’t see the old John McCain. … I understand why — you want to get elected.” McCain issued this challenge in his defense:

I’ve been through this litany before, where I say, “ok, what specific area have I quote changed?” Nobody can name it. … I am the same person and I have the same principles.

McCain argued that on issues — “whether it be spending, whether it be climate change, whether it be the conduct of the war in Iraq, whether it be torture of prisoners” — he is “the same guy.” Watch it:




ThinkProgress has gladly taken up the McCain challenge. We’ve compiled a document that lists the policy areas on which McCain has changed his position.

The flip-flop document notes that McCain has changed his position even on the four areas he cited — spending, climate change, the war in Iraq, and torture of prisoners:

SPENDING: The McCain campaign has said that it will balance the budget by the end of McCain’s first time. But chief economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said McCain would balance the budget by the end of his second term.

CLIMATE CHANGE: In 1999, McCain opposed lifting the ban on offshore drilling, saying that it was just the “special interests in Washington” that advocated it. In 2008, McCain announced that “there are areas off our coasts that should be open to exploration and exploitation.”

IRAQ CONDUCT: He said in 2004 that Donald Rumsfeld was doing “a fine job” and was “an honorable man.” But by 2008, McCain was arguing that he was “the only one that said Rumsfeld had to go.”

TORTURE: In 2005, McCain pushed President Bush to sign a bill that would prohibit “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” of anyone in U.S. government custody. But in 2008, McCain voted against the Intelligence Authorization Bill, which requires the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and bans waterboarding.

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Never flipped flopped?

Yeah, Sen McCain. Thanks SO much for the opening.

[senseandsensibility]

1. Was he called on this by the hosts?

From what I've read, they did a better job of interviewing him than the corporate media.

[Zuiderelle]

2. List of 76 McCain Flip Flops...

From The Carpetbagger Report by Steve Bennen

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/flipflops

Jukebox John keeps changing his tune

National Security Policy

1. McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.

2. McCain insisted that everyone, even “terrible killers,” “the worst kind of scum of humanity,” and detainees at Guantanamo Bay, “deserve to have some adjudication of their cases,” even if that means “releasing some of them.” McCain now believes the opposite.

3. He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion, he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

4. In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.

5. McCain was for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay before he was against it.

6. When Barack Obama talked about going after terrorists in Pakistani mountains with predators, McCain criticized him for it. He’s since come to the opposite conclusion.

70 More at link!


Decided this list needs its own thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7055965&mesg_id=7055965

[ejpoeta]

3. did anyone tell mccain that we have something called youtube now.

i mean, someone should have told him by now, since he keeps trying to pretend that we don't have PROOF!! i'd feel sorry for the guy if i didn't think he did it to himself.

[Skidmore]

6. Ted Stevens didn't tell him about the youtubes of the internet and

apparently he didn't tell Sarah either.

[City Lights]

4. Like Bush, he's trying to create an alternate reality.

It's that or he's senile.

[applegrove]

5. Immigration and taxes too. He flip flopped on those issues to get the

conservative nomination.

[EndElectoral]

7. Obama should respond. crooksandliars.com has some good video on his flops