The Case for Flip Flopping

It's kind of amazing how the charge of being a phoney is the worst thing that can be leveled in politics. It unfairly killed Al Gore and John Kerry. (It's variation, flip flopper, counts under the same rubrik.) It's the charge against Hillary Clinton, for whom my spouse works, that seems to be sticking. What's interesting is that this wasn't always so. Yes the charge of phoniness has been around for a long time but it hasn't always had this kind of saliency. FDR was famously called a "Chameleon on plaid" for his flip flopping and he was so evasive on prohibition between the "wet" and "dry" camps that he was called a "damp." But somehow Americans in the 30s looked past that in a way that we can't seem to. Often the phoniness charge is trumped up. Al Gore didn't say he invented the Internet, but he did play a part in its expansion. I guess what amazes me is that all politicians equivocate and I'm not sure that's even a necessarily bad thing. None of them are truly authentic and being a flip flopper isn't the worst thing. Lincoln hedged on slavery in the election of 1860 and then did a huge flip flop with the emancipation proclamation. We should be asking ourselves why a candidate is hedging what they say? Is it for good reason? And if they've flipped is it for a good reason, too? The mere fact that the flip flop shouldn't be an indictment.

This will be on my mind tonight when they go after Clinton.