My Flip Flops fell off...

One year ago when I started "blogging" I made a decision to steer clear of political and religious topics on my blog because of the strong opinions they would certainly generate. As you have probably already guessed I am going against that decision and this blog is about a political topic more of an annoyance.

Every citizen of this country (of a reasonable age) is aware that every candidate purposely ?spins? news stories and the words of their opponent(s) to disparage their opponent and place themselves in the lime light. The latest spin on the Bush campaign, however, has me quite annoyed simply because it is against a very simple rule we were all taught in grade school. When you use a quote you must either use the full quote or paraphrase the quote. You can not pick and choose word or portion of a sentence, if you use a full sentence contained within a paragraph the sentence must be reflective of the paragraph and not change the message that the speaker/writer is conveying. This is an example of misquoting:?

In a speech, given in 2002, regarding the war on Iraq President Bush said this about Saddam?s Hussein?s ability to create nuclear weapons ?Well, we don't know exactly? just a few seconds later he said ?The inspectors discovered that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a workable nuclear weapon, and was pursuing several different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb?. Is the president confused or has he not made of his mind if Saddam can create weapons or not. Does Saddam have or not have the ability to create a nuclear bomb?

This is what the president actually said:
?Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem. Before the Gulf War, the best intelligence indicated that Iraq was eight to ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon. After the war, international inspectors learned that the regime has been much closer -- the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993. The inspectors discovered that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a workable nuclear weapon, and was pursuing several different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities, including three uranium enrichment sites.?
Reference:http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

This of course makes a lot more sense and the president is supporting his words and not contradicting himself. Now take a look at what the Bush ad campaign is saying about John Kerry.

Kerry: ?It was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision I supported him.?

And then later

Kerry: ?I don't believe the President took us to war as he should have?

? Ok. What is wrong with this?

The First Quote

??It was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision I supported him.?

This is a partial quote and is a small section of a much longer sentence. The full sentence reads.

?George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him."

The full sentence shows that Senator Kerry supported disarming Saddam but under different methods than utilized by president Bush.

The Second Quote

?I don't believe the President took us to war as he should have?

The first problem is that this quote is a response to a question and the question was neither paraphrased nor mentioned in Bush?s campaign ad. This is misleading to the reader and does not place the quote in the correct context. The second problem is that it is again a partial sentence. Here is the actual question and answer response:

Q: Do you think you belong to that category of candidates who more or less are unhappy with this war, the way it's been fought, along with General Clark, along with Howard Dean and not necessarily in companionship politically on the issue of the war with people like Lieberman, Edwards and Gephardt? Are you one of the anti-war candidates?

A: Kerry: I am -- Yes, in the sense that I don't believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely. Do I think this president violated his promises to America? Yes, I do, Chris.
Reference http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@DocID=269.html

Yet again Kerry showed that he position is still the same that he believes that the president did not handle the war in a correct manner. It is the same message that was given in the first quote and is the same message that is continued throughout all of Kerry's quotes used in Bush's campaign.

The campaign ad quotes many examples of Kerry flip-flopping on the issues and each and every one of them is misquoted and misleading. Take a few minutes out of your day to read the factcheck.org article on the topic and ensure that you are an informed voter and will not be swayed by a fraudulent charge against one of the candidates.

Disclaimer: I am aware that rules do allow for the quoting of partial sentences, however, it remains true that the meaning of the quote can not be changed and if a partial sentence is quoted an ellipsis must be used (i.e. ...) to inform the reader of the missing portions.??
Also Note: This blog entry has in no manner?endorsed either of the two major candidates instead it has merely informed readers of misleading information being putting forth in campaign advertising.