THE END OF THE FLIP-FLOPPER?
&
ZZZZZZZZZ

Josh Marshall:

Now this is rich.

President Bush's new line of attack is that John Kerry is a man of few achievements.

"My opponent has good intentions," the president said today. "But intentions don't always translate into results. After 19 years in the United States Senate, my opponent has had thousands of votes but very few signature achievements."

This might be a plausible line of attack coming from another opponent. Unlike, say, Russ Feingold or Ted Kennedy, there's no prominent piece of legislation with Kerry's name on it, though admirers of Kerry point to his critical role in a series of high-profile Senate investigations.

But coming from George W. Bush? A guy whose handlers had to get some of the more gullible run of journalists to refer to his life before he turned forty as his 'lost years'?

Yes, this is a ridiculous line of attack. And yes, some of the Iran Contra veterans employed by the Bush administration might remember a thing or two about Senator John Kerry.

But given this new line of criticism from Bush, does this mean that the flip-flopper meme is dead? If so, Kerry killed it last night.

"How do you ask a meme to be the last meme to die in the 2004 campaign?" Hehehe.

Another interesting tidbit from the Reuters story to which Marshall linked:

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush did not see the speech.

"He went to sleep last night. That was a late speech," McClellan told reporters, but he said Bush had "read some of the coverage."

He was in Crawford, Texas at the time, which I'm pretty sure is in the Central Time Zone. That means the speech began at about 9:10 PM there, and concluded at around 9:50.

Let's just say that ain't exactly a Clintonesque schedule that man keeps.

Guess it's up to me to protect America during the mid-evening hours.