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Takes one to know one.
That about sums up the debate between presidential aspirants Barack Obama and John McCain over which one is guilty of changing positions to get elected.
Americans aren't impressed. After George H. W. Bush's "Read my lips, no new taxes" and John Kerry's "I actually did vote [to fund the Iraq war] before I voted against it," folks know campaign statements have a shelf life.
Indeed, a recent CNN poll showed 61 percent of voters believe McCain has changed his tune on important issues for political reasons while 59 percent believe the same is true of Obama.
The only surprise is that these percentages aren't higher, since both candidates have altered their stances on some subjects.
Of course, it hurts Obama more to appear motivated by sheer political expediency. The wave that may carry the Democrat to the White House is the belief that he isn't just another politician.
But since the Republican McCain has more than a few flip-flops in his closet, too, Obama isn't being judged too harshly yet.
The key for voters should be where the candidates have changed course, not that they did. Changing course can be good.
Think of the lives that might have been saved had President Bush not been hell-bent on waging war in Iraq despite shaky evidence of a weapons stockpile.
In that same vein, Obama's recent statement that he might modify his timetable for pulling troops from Iraq after he visits the country doesn't deserve dismissal as a political flip-flop.
It would be more worrisome had Obama said: I'm going to Iraq to hear what our generals have to say, but I'm not going to be listening.
Obama says he hasn't abandoned his commitment to get out of Iraq in 16 months, but doesn't want to rule out adjusting the schedule to make sure U.S. troops are safe.
That's an adjustment in his rhetoric since the primaries, but it's acceptable. It makes sense not to gamble with soldiers' lives.
What's not acceptable is shifting sides solely for the sake of your political life. That's clearly what Obama did in backing away from a promise to accept public financing of his campaign and be bound by the program's donation limits. The taint of politics is also on Obama's retreat from his past opposition to Bush's overly intrusive domestic spying program.
But how dare the McCain camp cast aspersions? The list of his policy reversals has grown longer than Pinocchio's nose. Extending the Bush tax breaks, offshore drilling for oil, warrantless wiretaps, intolerant evangelical Christians, torturing detainees, storing nuclear waste, the Confederate flag - McCain has, ahem, modified his position on all.
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