John Kerry is a flip-flopper. In 2001, for example, he voted for the No Child Left Behind Act, but now he says that federal education spending should be further increased. In 2002, he voted to give the president authority to threaten the use of force in order to get United Nations inspectors back in Iraq, but now he says that the president was wrong to invade Iraq when without a UN mandate when inspectors were already in the country. He's unprincipled, see?
The president, by contrast, is a man of steadfast convictions, as witnessed by the blank gaze he exhibits when speaking. Not one for nuance, George W. Bush papers over the distinction between harsh, accurate advertisements financed by “527” groups capable of raising unlimited funds and harsh, inaccurate advertisements financed by 527 groups capable of raising unlimited funds. No, to him it is a point of principle: The "shadowy groups" must be stopped, whether their charges are accurate or not. It's a bit hard to say what the principle here is, exactly, seeing as the president is apparently untroubled by unlimited fund raising undertaken by political-advocacy groups organized under section 501 of the tax code rather than section 527 of the tax code. Nevertheless, there's got to be one in there somewhere, I'm sure of it. (Just as sure as I am that, if I really thought about it, I could figure out why the president invaded Iraq to halt its nuclear program but literally shrugged at North Korea's.)
Sometimes it looks like the president might be flip-flopping. After spending years denying that scientific evidence indicated that global warming was a serious problem largely caused by human activity, the administration released a report that said otherwise. Flip-flop! A reporter from The New York Times asked him about it, though, and Bush explained that there had been no flip, no flop.
The new report, you see, was based on scientific evidence, and the president always upholds the principle of ignoring empirical data. He's impressive that way. David Brooks pointed out last week that one of the big problems with Kerry is that, instead of just being "hawkish" or "dovish," he changes his mind about the appropriate conditions for using force after new information comes to light. He saw Vietnam firsthand, and it made him more anti-war. After the Gulf War was won with far fewer casualties than predicted, he became less hesitant to act aggressively. He's grown more critical of Bush's conduct in Iraq as the results of administration policy have worsened. It's a terrible way to behave, but what else do you expect from a man who thinks that false ads are wrong but truthful, critical ads are OK? From the sort of man, in other words, who would put the facts ahead of his principles.
Back in 2000 and 2001, the press corps was gaga for John McCain and his signature legislative initiative, the McCain-Feingold bill, which he co-sponsored with Democrat Russ Feingold (about whom the press was less gaga, apparently because he never used the term "gooks" when speaking to the media) and which was intended to put some new regulations into the campaign-finance system. It was a popular bill, a bill beloved by the press, and a pretty bad idea. Bush, to his credit, took a stand on principle and didn't bow to the fashions of the day.
As he explained on a March 5 Face The Nation appearance, "There are people spending ads that say nice things about me. There are people spending money on ads that say ugly things about me. That's part of the American process." The Washington Post reported on March 28 that "George W. Bush opposed McCain-Feingold … as an infringement on free expression." He took a lot of heat, both during the primaries and from Al Gore during the general election, for that stance, but he was right. By March 2001, when he was in office and the Senate was considering the McCain-Feingold bill, the president expressed his view in a letter to Republican Senator and noted segregationist Trent Lott that he was open to changing the rules of the game somewhat, but that he was fundamentally committed to "protecting the rights of citizen groups to engage in issue advocacy." Nevertheless, the bill passed the Congress, complete with restrictions on the rights of citizen groups to engage in issue advocacy.
And Bush signed it because, hey, what's signing an unconstitutional bill or two between friends? Indeed, Bush has consistently upheld the principle that nothing should ever be vetoed, and has never used his authority to do so. This has meant signing a lot of bills that increase spending while the president criticizes the Congress for failing to enact spending restraint. Once again, though, he stands on principle: Other people should do his dirty work for him. He's not going to block bad legislation himself, especially not when it's popular.
In the case of McCain-Feingold, the Congress had failed him, but the Supreme Court was supposed to come to the rescue. As the president explained in March 2002, he had "reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election." Why sign an unconstitutional bill? Why not? It's not as if it's the president's job to uphold the Constitution (it's not in the oath of office or anything). Besides, as the Office of Legal Counsel has explained to us with regard to the use of interrogation procedures banned by international anti-torture treaties and U.S. law, the president has the "inherent authority" to break the law if he wants to. Because the Constitution is the highest law of the land, violating it is the very essence of presidential leadership. And the president, aside from being principled, is a strong leader. So he was standing on principle, you see.
The Supreme Court, though, got a bit goofy and upheld the law. As a result, people stopped giving the old kind of soft money and started giving money to these technically independent 527 groups. Most of that money wound up going to 527s that were supporting Democrats, but others were supporting Bush. For example, John O'Neil, an old hatchet man for Richard Nixon, got together a group of veterans who don't like John Kerry and were willing to go on TV and lie about him. O'Neil found some longtime Bush family fund-raisers to give him the cash to put these ads on the air. This was pretty helpful to those in the Bush campaign, seeing as their man's misspent youth of alcoholism and coasting on family connections didn't compare all that well with Kerry's combat service and medals.
Sadly for the president, people starting pointing out that the things being said in these ads weren't true, and that maybe he should speak up and say so. On the one hand, the president didn't want to make it look like he was in bed with a bunch of liars. On the other hand, it would be really helpful to his re-election if people believed the lies. A sticky situation, indeed. So what did he do? What anyone in his situation would have done: reiterated his view that McCain-Feingold was a bad bill. It's a view Bush had consistently maintained except when he was busy signing the thing, so why not trot it out again? Except this time, instead of saying it was too restrictive of issue ads, he would say it wasn't restricted enough.
As he told Larry King, "I haven't seen the ad, but what I do condemn is these unregulated, soft-money expenditures. … What I think we ought to do is not have them on the air."
There's got to be a principle in there somewhere.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.