Karol,

How do you know James Taranto? He is getting to be famous.

You are right Karol. Zell's weapon's list should be a prime Republican commercial.

James Taranto is my hero. His writing on OpinionJournal.com lately has been consistently laugh-out-loud funny.

"If we could just change his voter registration, the man would be perfect."

I don't know. There's the matter of him calling Kerry an "authentic hero" 3 years ago.

Or do only the true Democrats get harangued by Republicans for their flip flops?

Rick,

Three years ago... that's significant! 9/11/2001 the world, as we know it, changed... and Zell's whole perspective changed watching the Democrats reaction to that, especially on the Homeland Defense intitiatives...

The NYC rightwing scene isn't that big. You get to know everyone. James lives around the corner from me.

Rick, do you know what the difference is between a change of position and a flip-flop?

A change of position comes with a sensible reason. A flip-flop doesn't.

I'll use myself as an example. On 9/10/01, I was a pretty serious non-interventionist, and I was in favor of shrinking the military. Today... not so much. See, there was an event in there that inspired me to re-think my opinion and to ultimately change my mind.

Senator John Kerry said during the primaries, when it looked like Dean was going to get the nomination in a walk, that he thought the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Today he says that given the same choice, and even given the fore-knowledge of the outcome, that he'd vote to support the invasion again.

What changed between this past spring and today? Well... Howard Dean and his staunch anti-war position are out of the picture, and now that Kerry's landed the nomination he needs to appeal to moderates and undecideds. Anti-war is out, pro-war is in.

That's a flip-flop.

Sen. Miller covered his own reasons for changing his position during his speech tonight. Flip-flop? No.

See the difference?

I don't think I've ever heard the word "spitballs" used in a convention speech before. Well done. I thought he was amazing. I'll admit though, I was incredibly bummed that steam never flowed from his ears as I anticipated.

Jeff,

So when someone makes what you deem to be a "sensible" change in their position, it's no longer a flip flop?

I suppose if I were to lie to you for what I thought were "sensible" reasons, it would no longer be a lie. I might be "fudging the truth" or "stretching the facts." Really?

Call it what you may, Zell's "change in position" is sensible only given the fact that Georgia has "gone red" in the last couple of years.

Rick, Zell isn't running for re-election. And Georgia has 'gone red' because they no longer have anything in common with the party they used to vote for in droves. Positions on issues can change with the times, with John Kerry they change and then they change back again though. Is he for or against the Patriot Act or the No Child Left Behind Act these days?

The thing that disturbs me from this convention is how it is being portrayed as
(1) remember 9/11, everyone should be afraid
(2) Bush is the man taking it to the terrorists
(3) Kerry sucks.

Now, #3 is politics and the Dems have been going after Bush. Fine.

But, the connections between #1 and #2 are so tenuous. Bush hasn't been taking it to the terrorists, he invaded IRAQ. He has not caught Osama, he instead took troops from Afghanistan to attack IRAQ.

So let's get this straight. Bush first justifies war in Iraq on the basis of connections to terrorists and WMD. Then we discover there are not real connections and no WMD, so war gets justified as Saddam was a bad man and that is what we have heard for the last couple of months. Now, however, Bush is running on the "I'm taking it to the terrorists", but the evidence of that is that we kicked Saddam out of Iraq. Hello?!? Disconnect?!? It is like the last two months didn't happen.

Seriously, leaving asided partisanship, leaving aside whether Kerry is good, bad or a putz, how can this not disturb you? How can it not disturb Republicans?

This whole convention acts like Bush is out there turning over every rock to root out the terrorists, but there is no evidence of that happening. Rather than have our troops out there hunting down the terrorists, they are fucking around in Iraq (and aiding to the creation of more terrorists -- though hopefully those terrorists will stay local to Iraq).

Oh, and the world hates us now, whereas after 9/11 we had the world's sympathy, making it easier to get cooperation to go out on commando anti-terrorist missions. Not as easy now.

How can it be that Republicans are not disturbed by this?!?