Timothy Noah goes over the various complaints about Gore supposedly "flip-flopping", and finds them lacking at best and deliberate falsehoods at worst.

I've got to wonder, though... why the hell is this supposed to be a critique of the speech? Even if he's changed, that doesn't mean what he says isn't true, or that he doesn't believe it... just that his opinion has changed between 1991 and 2002. There's rather a lot of warbloggers out there whose opinions changed rather a lot over the past two years, so why the hell couldn't Gore's have changed over the past eleven? Even if his opinion changed only three months ago, who are these people to presume the reasons for that change? Do they have a direct pipeline into Gore's head of which I am not aware?

It's a dance around the substantive critiques in Gore's speech; a way of trying to make sure that the electorate doesn't start seriously questioning the party line on Iraq. If wouldn't even be possible were the media (and the Echo Chamber) not already desperately trying to keep that infantile "flip-flop" narrative intact, as Gore jumps in and plays a role that only he can. Predictable, yet still somewhat sad.