Stand and Don't Deliver

A lot of people like to say they're voting for Bush because they "know where he stands." They may not always agree with him, they say with pride, but they know where he stands.

But is knowing where someone stands, even if they're wrong, really such a virtue? Don't we know where Osama bin Laden stands, and where the Unabomber stands, and where the cast of America Pie 3 stands? (For the record, they support more jokes about crotch shaving.)

What matters isn't so much whether a candidate sticks to their guns, but whether their reasons for sticking to their guns are good. Bush isn't continuing to say he's on the right course in Iraq because he actually is -- no reasonable person believes things are going well there. Fifty of the people who are supposed to be taking over for our troops were ambused and killed this weekend, sold out by someone on their own side. And of course you know about the missing 350 tons of explosives, which would be sufficient to bring down 700,000 commerical airliners. (Considering that it took less than one pound to bring down Pan Am Flight 103.)

Bush is sticking to his guns because he's boxed in. He can't reverse himself on his wrong course -- or even change diretion slightly -- after building so much of his campaign on calling the other guy a flip-flopper.

So yes, you know where Bush stands -- he's over on the right, with at least one foot in the quicksand.