In response to your editorial titled "Drill ahead on energy debate" (Aug. 6): You stated, "Barack Obama, the candidate of change, has changed positions again. Now he's willing to consider offshore drilling. An interesting, even welcome flip-flop."

Are you kidding me? Do you really want to use the flip-flop card? John McCain has flip-flopped on torture, abortion, the Bush tax cuts, the Religious Right, the recession, the environment, gay marriage, the Confederate flag, campaign finance reform and ethanol, just to name a few. As a matter of fact, he was the original flip-flopper on offshore drilling, changing his position just a few weeks before Obama did.

How does the right treat McCain's flip-flops? They believe it shows, as Newt Gingrich has put it, that "he has an open mind, willing to listen and learn and work within the ebb and flow of the nation's pulse." He is labeled a "slightly eccentric maverick" who has "bounced around telling the truth as he knows it and being honest about why he changes." They claim, "When he does change, he does so very directly and very forthrightly."

Obama concedes that offshore drilling may be an inevitable compromise to pass a comprehensive bipartisan energy bill. And how is he labeled? A flip-flopper, of course.

The hypocrisy on the right and at The Augusta Chronicle is astounding, yet it never ceases to amaze me!

Ginger Sitler, Augusta