FLIP-FLOPPER?

EDITOR: With the glaring reversals of their own candidate, I didn't think

Republicans would have the audacity to charge ''flip-flopper'' this

presidential campaign, but Charles Krauthammer has proved me wrong (''So who

is the real Obama?,'' July 5).

McCain, who once decried the Bush tax cuts, now favors them. Last fall, he

still spoke out against torture but this year voted against the ban on CIA

torture. He has backed away from his own immigration reform law and may have

broken his own campaign finance reform law. This is just to name a few, most

far more significant than the ''to wear or not to wear the flag pin'' issue.

About Iraq, Krauthammer claims that Obama will be the one to erase all

meaningful differences between himself and McCain. Of course McCain himself

has backed away from his prediction that the U.S. will still be occupying Iraq

100 years from now. There's a big gap between 16 months and 100 years as

timetables for withdrawal. McCain has already made up more than 90 years by

his reversal. Obama has been very consistent, saying, ''We must be as careful

getting out as we were careless getting in.''

PHYLLIS MESHULAM

Sebastopol