This video of John McCain shows video clips of him saying one thing and then the opposite on a number of subjects including the war in Iraq, the Confederate flag, the religious right, and gay marriage. Some of these are a bit misleadingly edited, such as the gay marriage item, where it doesn't look like he actually contradicted himself to me.
Hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
I wouldn't call his gay marriage comments contradictory, but I would call his first version a classic waffling.
ReplyDelete"Some of these are a bit misleadingly edited, such as the gay marriage item, where it doesn't look like he actually contradicted himself to me."
ReplyDeleteWithout the context that is left out of the video, I am equally suspicious of his alleged self-contradiction on Iraq. If he was predicting that the victory over Hussein would be "easy", and that the Iraqi regime would topple "quickly", etc., he was absolutely right.
This is of course very different from saying that it would be easy to maintain order and security, and bring some sort of stable democracy to Iraq.
I am fairly certain that McCain publicly held both of these two (mutually consistent) positions, but the video does nothing to help establish whether he is guitly of holding others.
Not sure if anyone will be looking at these comments again, but in case they do, I thought I'd note my careless wording: by "both" of the "mutually consistent" positions, I of course meant:
ReplyDeletea. Victory over the Iraq regime would be easy.
b. Creating stable democracy in Iraq would not.
My wording regarding 'b.' indicated its own opposite.