August 19, 2008

An Anatomy of Flip-Flopping

By Paul Shlichta
With accusations of flip-flopping coming from all sides this summer, we should make sure that we are using the word correctly."Flip-flop" is usually just a politician's way of saying that an opponent has changed sides on an issue. But in fact, such a change can be good or bad. The primary index of infamy is not the degree or frequency of change but rather the motive for doing so. I therefore propose that we to define flip-flopping as "changing sides in a political issue for a dishonest or deceptive motive".In order to have an objective basis for comparing Obama's and McCain's records on flip-flopping, I was forced to start by analyzing and organizing all of the different types of  motivation for side-changing in political issues. This "anatomy", which is summarized below, is arranged in approximate order of infamy.To spare you the complexities of the anatomy, I have condensed it into five levels of increasing flip-flop dishonesty:(1)  Honest...(Read Full Article)