The NY Times is running an article by Richard Stevenson entitled Sifting for Truth as Bush and Kerry Wage a War of Words Over Iraq Policy. In it, the author does his very best to convince us that Bush is (*gasp*) framing Kerry’s words to make Kerry look bad! Can you imagine? The gall..

Stevenson writes:

Deconstructing Mr. Bush’s statement [that Kerry "woke up yesterday morning with yet another new position, etc."] on Tuesday shows that as has often been the case as the two sides fight over Iraq policy, there is a basis for his assertions about Mr. Kerry, but also that the president ignores statements by Mr. Kerry that flesh out his position in ways that make Mr. Bush’s claims less persuasive.

Note that last part: statements that “flesh out” Kerry’s position and make Bush’s claims “less persuasive”. Not statements that “correctly represent” Kerry’s position and show Bush’s claims to be “wrong”. A small point, perhaps, but it’s interesting that even in an article so painfully contorted as this one to demonstrate equivalence between the candidates on the “flip-flop” issue, Stevenson recognizes that there is an irreducible core of truth to Bush’s charges. But I digress.

Mr. Bush, as Democrats frequently point out, is also vulnerable to assertions of inconsistency on Iraq. They point out that his rationale for the war has shifted over time, from removing the threat posed by chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to breaking up a relationship between Al Qaeda and Mr. Hussein to freeing the Iraqi people from a tyrant to planting the seeds of democracy in a region that is a breeding ground for Islamic radicalism.

So Kerry goes from supporting the war, to not supporting it, to supporting it again, to — which day is it? — oh, yes, Tuesday, so opposing it again. And this is the same as the fact that the Bush administration has actually introduced more than one good reason for us to have invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam.

Riiiiiiight. Well, to quote their guy, if this is the best Democrats have on the flip-flop issue, then Bring. It. On.