ratbastid

And how do you feel about it when he mocks his political opponent as a "flip-flopper" because that opponent changed his mind based on receipt of more complete information? I "question" that myself.

This WHOLE thing is because the Rove administration is so masterful at manipulating the sound bite. I'm guessing there are staffers in a basement office in the White House watching every single speech that anyone gives for bits to take out of context and smear people with. "I voted for the war before I voted against it" actually MEANT "Once I got a look at all the intelligence, I saw that I had been conned into voting for this war on the first go-round, so I voted against it the second time." In the context of what he was saying, it was impossible to not understand that. But you pull it out of context, and put it on heavy rotation on Fox News, and you've got "flip-flopper".

If you actually look at Kerry's speech, this "stuck in Iraq" thing was one sentence in a long list of (somewhat) humorous jabs at Bush's competence. In context, it's impossible to misinterpret as an attack on the troops. You can just imagine the glee some little GOP staffer felt when he saw that excising that one statement made Kerry look anti-troop. And a week before Midterms, no less! I hope he got a nice little bonus for that.