I do promise to stray away from these, but...
thanks, a whole heck of alot, to Slate for deciding to begin the criticisms to Kerry AFTER our last serious competitor dropped out. You wonder if headlines like "If you don't like the Democratic nominee's views, just wait a week" might have helped Edwards' campaign a bit.
You know how biased minds work...but I really do wonder if the conservative media picked the Kerry nomination to make this fight easy for Bush. "Picked Kerry," you say? Folks, asking Edwards before New Hampshire whethere he would happily take the VP slot is, if anything, some fairly clear evidence of the media sending a signal. Repeating the poll showing Kerry beating Bush, and neglecting to add that Edwards also beat Bush in the same poll; inviting Kerry endorsors and no Edwards endorsors to the round table, all night electathons; spending little time on the prevailing fact that Edwards, and not Kerry, wins over indies and repubs; and breaking stories of Edwards' withdrawal before several SupTues states voted...the media wanted their nominee. They greased the bandwagon wheels.
I thought it was simply because the reporters were tired of the campaign bus. Now I really wonder. Beginning yesterday, I was suddenly bombarded with stories to the effect of 'wow...should we have chosen Kerry so quickly?' My man, Daniel Shorr, on NPR, could hardly restrain from yelling at his fellow dems...

In any event, barring some bizarre event- I now have to see these attacks on Kerry in a defensive rather than offensive mindset.
And really...they are pretty stupid. To think Kerry is a flip-flopper is to be a fairly shallow thinker. The standard litany is thus:

Kerry did vote for the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq, even though he constantly trashes the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq. He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited marriage to a man and a woman, but he now says marriage should be limited to a man and a woman. (Although he also points out that he once attended a gay wedding.)

Patriot, No Child, and Iraq were all, Kerry would mostly rightly say, timely passed bills that met ill-performed enforcement. The Dems nearly all supported sunset provisions (which Edwards WROTE) in the USA PATRIOT Act, and passed it in a context wherein some response to the terror threat was expediant. The Dem response is to blame Ashcroft's enforcement, though that's not really the most responsible response. Better to say we passed a bill that we knew would require revisions, thus the sunsets. Now that we are three years removed frmo 9/11...we can make thoughtful changes where needed, and where it is now evident that costs outweigh beniefits. No Child's a no brainer- Kerry voted for a bill that isn't being funded. That's not called waffling, its called calling out the Pres. Iraq is also far too simplified in the media's and repub's revisions. The Senate voted, unnecessarily, to a resolution for Bush to use necessary force. This vote sent Bush to the UN, a move he'd been previously unwilling to make, in order to push for tougher inspections. Kerry's aner is not directed to the policy of disarming and eventually removing Hussein, but rather to the bungled fulfillment of that policy.

In point of fact, as I hope the media will pick up, Bush has waffled in his four years in federal politics, than Kerry could imagine in his several decades. And we're talking fundamental, what our country means, kind of waffles. Think of the humble presence Bush imagined of the US in 2000, and the place of federal government to states what to do about things like....say...homosexuals.