Jimmy's weblog

Like a clown at the circus, George Bush has a habit of making people laugh when he opens his mouth and this week was no exception. What was different however, was that this time it was a deliberate joke rather than a verbal stumble. I’m not the World’s Biggest George Bush Fan but even I had to laugh.

“It’s been a little tough to prepare because (Kerry) keeps changing positions on the war on the terror.”

“He could probably spend 90 minutes debating himself.”

George Bush, Karl Rove and the Republican party have made an art form of tagging Kerry as a “flip-flopper” (meaning someone who keeps changing his mind) but how do Bush and Kerry compare in the decisiveness stakes? CBS news has listed the “Top ten flip-flops” from both men.

Highlights from Bush:

“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories,” Bush told Polish television on May 29, 2003. “For those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.”

On Sept. 9, 2004, Bush said: “I recognize we didn’t find the stockpiles [of weapons] we all thought were there.”

“I don’t think you can win it [the war on terror]” Bush said during August. “I think you can create conditions so that . . . those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”

Things had apparently changed less than a month later when he said “We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win.” He later added, “we are winning, and we will win.”

Highlights from Kerry:

In September 2003, Kerry implied that voting against wartime funding bills was equivalent to abandoning the troops. “I don’t think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running,” he said.

A year after voting for the use of force in Iraq, Kerry voted against an $87 billion bill for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, instead voting for an alternative bill funding the money by removing tax cuts.

98 senators, including Kerry, voted for the Patriot Act in October 2001. He defended his vote, saying, “it has to do with things that really were quite necessary in the wake of what happened on Sept. 11.”

Campaigning in Iowa in December 2003, Kerry advocated “replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time.”