During the invasion of Iraq, the Information Minister would come on TV nightly and tell the world how the US was losing the war. No one paid any attention because his pronouncements came straight from the government. There was no "information" there, only misinformation from the government.

Dan Rather and CBS News are in danger of becoming a weird negative version of the Iraqi Information Minister.

First there was the Texas Air Guard story which was based on forged documents and un-trustworthy witnesses. Next came the story on the draft. Now CBS's web site has Bush's Top Ten Flip-Flops. This reads like a press release from the Kerry campaign. In fact, the Kerry campaign was pushing the idea of Bush as a flip-flopper just last week (there is a quote in the Columbus Dispatch but you have to subscribe to read it). The left-wing Daily Kos has several entries calling Bush the "real" flip-flopper.

The list appears to have been written by the Kerry campaign. Many items on the list are unfair. Bush's views on nation-building were changed by 9/11. It was against his principals to levy steel tariffs but he was forced to drop them.

Other points are simply wrong. In 2000, gas prices went up because OPEC cut production and candidate Bush said that the President should "jawbone" OPEC to decrease prices. In 2004 prices are up because demand suddenly grew faster than projected. No "jawboning" can solve this.

Bush's statements about winning the war on terror are nitpicking.

They quote Bush before the Iraq war and immediately after as being confident that WMDs would be found. Later he admitted that they were not. This is not a flip-flop in the Kerry sense (changing a position for political advantage).

Bush was originally against establishing a 9/11 committee in 2004 for fear that it would be politicized. He changed his position due to pressure and was proved correct - the commission became a political circus.

Bush also signed campaign finance reform legislation that he opposed. Bending to political pressure is not flipping and one need look no further than the current election to see what a disaster the reform turned out to be.

The point on the 9/11 attacks is misleading and boarders on fraudulent. It reads:

In a press conference in September 2002, six months before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush said, “you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror... they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.”

In September of 2004, Mr. Bush said: “We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September 11th." Though he added that “there's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties,” the statement seemingly belied earlier assertions that Saddam and al Qaeda were “equally bad.”

The Sept. 11 commission found there was no evidence Saddam was linked to the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

I don't see any change in position there. Neither do I see any assertion by the President that Saddam was involved with September 11. What is not mentioned is that the commission did find contacts between Saddam and al Qaeda.

CBS only included this to give the false impression that Bush had tried to tie Saddam to 9/11.

Same sex marriage represents a minor flip. In 2000 Bush was for letting the states decide. In 2004 he announced support for a constitutional amendment. Since this amendment is unlikely to pass this is a bit of political posturing - possibly the only real flip in the list.

Everyone has to adjust their positions from time to time, especially a President. Sometimes political pressures force a change. Other times events overtake preferences. I see one flip (steel tariffs) and one bit of pandering (same sex marriage). Neither is on a critical issue. Contrast that with Kerry's positions on Iraq.

Tomorrow CBS is supposed to examine Kerry's flip-flops. It will be interesting to see how fair this one is. I suspect that they padded the Bush list (by cribbing from the Kerry campaign) in order to have ten flip-flops for each candidate.

In the meantime I advise stocking up on salt and taking a few grains when digesting stories from CBS.