Kevin Drum wonders just how we should understand Newt Gingrich's hilarious flip-flop on a no-fly-zone in Libya, namely that a few days ago, when Barack Obama wasn't doing it, Newt was firmly in favor of it, but now that it has become the Obama administration's policy, Newt is firmly against it:
I always kind of wonder what these guys are thinking when they do such an obvious and public U-turn. Do they think no one is going to catch them? Or do they not really care because they don't think the public really cares?I think it used to be the former, but has lately become mostly the latter. Back in the day, I remember a lot of people saying that it was getting harder for politicians to shade their positions — either over time or for different audiences — because everything was now on video and the internet made it so easy to catch inconsistencies. But that's turned out not to really be true. Unless you're in the middle of a high-profile political campaign, it turns out you just need to be really brazen about your flip-flops. Sure, sites like ThinkProgress or Politifact with catch you, and the first few times that happens maybe you're a little worried about what's going to happen. But then it dawns on you: nothing is going to happen. Your base doesn't read ThinkProgress. The media doesn't really care and is happy to accept whatever obvious nonsense you offer up in explanation. The morning chat shows will continue to book you. It just doesn't matter.
I wouldn't go that far, but it's true that Newt probably did a quick cost-benefit analysis and decided that the costs to this particular flip-flop were minimal. The challenge journalists face is how they can impose costs on politicians for things like lying and flip-flopping without stepping outside of the bounds of objectivity.
Not that they think in those terms. In practice, the rules are different for different politicians, depending on the conclusions reporters have already made about who they are and what their character flaws are. Part of Newt's qualified immunity on things like this is that when it comes to rhetorical excess, he's proved himself capable of just about anything. You can always count on him to say the most insulting or absurd thing about whatever the issue of the day is. For instance, no one was really surprised when Gingrich endorsed Dinesh D'Souza's insane contention that Barack Obama's policies could be explained as a product of his absent father's anti-colonial rage against white people. ("What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension," Gingrich asked, "that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" Yeah, what if?) It may have been worthy of note for a day or two, but it wasn't the kind of thing reporters will return to again and again when writing future stories about him.
So when journalists see this bit of brazen flip-floppery, they don't put it into the "flip-flopping" box, as they would if it were Mitt Romney. Instead, they put it into the "predictable mindless partisanship and rhetorical excess" box, because that's the one that belongs to Newt. And that box is just brimming over with stuff. As such, it's not really news.
