Have you noticed how so many of the wannabe presidential contenders are accusing one another of “flip-flopping” on the issues.

“Wait just a minute,” one candidate says. “In 2002, you said you supported the invasion of Iraq, but now you’re flip-flopping and saying you think it was a mistake.” To which the accused replies, “And what about you? Just last year, didn’t you say this country needed to enact a national healthcare program, but now, today, you’re saying it’s not feasible? If that isn’t flip-flopping, I don’t know what is.” Of course, it doesn’t end there because yet another candidate laughs and says, “Oh, please. You’re both flip-floppers, and you know it. Look at the issue of fast food? I seem to recall you both saying you preferred McDonalds, and now you’re saying Subway. Come on, you old flip-floppers, can’t you make up your minds?”

Enough already. My question is this: what, pray tell, is wrong with changing one’s mind? Isn’t that supposed to be a sign that someone has actually been thinking—at least at a more advanced level than that associated with the mere firing of synapses within one’s brain? That he or she has carefully considered the issues, examined the evidence, and then perhaps discovered there is a better way to resolve a problem or approach a situation? Moreover, if people aren’t open to having their opinions changed, the results can often be disastrous. Just look at the current situation in the Middle East. If the Powers-that-be in Washington had bothered to learn there are both Sunni and Shiite Muslims and then reconsidered what was obviously a rather impetuous decision to go rushing pell-mell into an nation where these two factions have been warring for centuries, then perhaps our American troops wouldn’t now be bogged down in a quagmire of nightmarish proportions with no foreseeable end in sight. 

Personally, I think anyone who wants to be President of this country should be a man or woman with an open mind, and having an open mind means, among other things, possessing the ability to recognize when you were wrong then having the guts to stand up and admit it. That, my friends, is not what I call “flip-flopping.” It’s what I call wisdom.

My husband, Chet, a political junkie, inspired this blog with his rather fervent and long-winded expression of annoyance with the state of political discourse in this country while he and I were having dinner this evening. Thank you, darling.