Now, even the reliably democrat-friendly Today show is complaining that "cut and run" Kerry is leading his party to ruin:

    Maybe it was just tough love, but the Today show gave the Democrats a rather rough going-over this morning. And cast in the role of flip-flopping heavy was none other than John Kerry.

    The subject matter was Democrat disunity over plans for Iraq, and co-host Campbell Brown set the tone by suggesting that the internal debate could be evidence of "a Democratic party at war with itself."

    Norah O'Donnell began the segment she narrated by observing that "Republicans are working to exploit Democratic divisions in November elections." After noting that Kerry has a proposal to pull all troops out by 2007, she cut to a clip of Sen. Mitch McConnell [R-KY] on the floor of the Senate pointing out "the junior senator from Massachusetts has had four positions on Iraq."

    It got worse. O'Donnell suggested that Kerry's flip-flops "are once again exposing his party to attacks" in the same way Kerry's voted-for-it-before-I-voted-against-it meanderings hurt Dems in '04.

    When Campbell Brown brought in Tim Russert, she summed up the Dem predicament with her very first question: "Walk us through how in two weeks' time the Democrats could go from having all of the momentum leading into the mid-term elections to allowing divisions over bringing troops from Iraq to create this disunity, and are they giving Republicans the upper hand?"

    Brown then effectively accused Kerry and Hillary of selfishness, asking whether part of the Dems' problem is that the pair are "focused on their own presidential ambitions for 2008 and less focused on Democrats' chances in 2006?"


At the same time, Town Hall reports that, in a 2003 speech, Kerry said setting "troop withdrawal dates" "is tantamount to a cut and run strategy."

Wow. Kerry had better be careful. If he keeps this up he might get a reputation as "flip flopper" or something.

But, seriously. It interesting to note that MEM is accusing Republicans of using the phrase "cut and run" as an inaccurate smear when, in fact, John Kerry was using it in the exact same manner three years ago.

So, is it still a smear? Or only when Republicans use it?