Obama a flip-flopper?

A co-worker just told me her sister is training her dog to bare its teeth every time it hears the word Obama. When I asked why her sister doesn’t like Obama she said, “Because he’s a flip-flopper”.

I get a little irritated when people make sweeping generalizations about people or form random opinions. I try my hardest never to do this – if I want to know about something I research it from as many angles as possible before I form an opinion.

In the matter of whether or not Barack Obama is a flip-flopper I think the very best analysis, though certainly not the only one, was done by Hendrik Herzberg of the New Yorker magazine in his article Obama’s flip-flop flap. The gist of the analysis is that in almost every case Obama has refined his position to either clarify it or, here’s a real shocker, because he’s trying to win an election. To hold this against the man is, in my somewhat less than humble opinion, like holding against your doctor that he get’s additional information and refines his diagnosis.

It just really bothers me that people look for excuses to tear people down. It’s as if we as a society are taking joy out of seeing other people suffer. If anyone of reasonable intellect and with a modicum of reasonableness and reason looks at Obama’s statements over the last 18 months he/she cannot conclude the he has radically altered his position on any substantive issue. This is the same erroneous argument the neo-conservatives made about John Kerry in the last election. It was patently false then but the moniker stuck and it added to the reasons he lost the election.

At the end of the day for me it’s about will we be better off with Obama in office or McCain. I’ll take Obama any day of the week and twice on Sunday and I would feel that way even if he was a flip-flopper.