How many times has Tulsi Gabbard warned us against getting involved in a “regime change war” in the Middle East?

A hundred times? A thousand?

For a while, it was all she talked about.

“Regime change war” became her catchphrase, like J.J. Evans saying “Dy-no-mite!”, Gomer Pyle saying, “Goll-ly!”, or Gary Coleman asking Willis what he was talking about. 

She said “regime change wars” nine times during the 2020 presidential debate (when she, a lowly Democratic congress member, had the audacity to run for president.)

She talked about “regime change wars” during her Senate confirmation hearing for director of national intelligence earlier this year.

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She warned of “regime change wars” during her 2018 congressional reelection campaign.

“Every dollar spent on interventionist regime change wars is a dollar not spent on education, health care, infrastructure, and a myriad of other needs desperately needed right here at home,” she told Civil Beat then.

A clip search of Newspapers.com found more than 100 news stories in which Gabbard said America should not get involved in regime change wars.

Maybe she truly believed getting involved in regime change wars in other countries is the biggest threat to America. Maybe she only read that chapter of her high school civics book and, like a student who thought they could wing it, had just that one answer at the ready.

But all that passionate anti-interventionism came screeching to a halt when President Trump ordered attacks on Iran last week and then posted to his Truth Social:

“It’s not politically correct to use the term “Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”

Doh!

Suddenly, Tulsi Gabbard is cool with it all.

She changed her tune about Iran’s nuclear weapon capability and let it be known that Trump is right about Iran being nuke-ready, that he has her full support, and that the media lied about what she had said about Iran not having nuclear weapons.

Did she not believe what she said before? Does she not believe what she’s saying now?

It doesn’t matter. That’s just how she rolls.

Her about-face isn’t so much about Trump’s brutal power of persuasion. It’s about Tulsi Gabbard never standing for anything in her life except Tulsi Gabbard.

There used to be words for people who turn on a dime like that, words like two-faced and spineless and hypocritical. People who flip-flopped on issues and values used to be seen as having a weak moral compass; their character was suspect, their judgment was not to be trusted.

These days, they get named to head powerful federal agencies.

Civil Beat has been pretty tough on Gabbard over the years, from calling her out for skipping a meeting on veterans’ services so she could get her picture taken at the beach, to detailing her connections to a religious group that sounds pretty cult-y, to her hate speech about gay marriage followed by her support of LGBTQ rights followed by trying to limit the rights of trans people.

There are so many character flaws and outrageous flip-flops to chose from. Gabbard is the most craven, shameless, opportunistic, self-centered, morally empty, say-anything mega-ambitious political animal that Hawaiʻi has ever set forth upon the world. We should be ashamed of how we aided and abetted her start in politics by electing her to every county and state office she ever set her sights on whether she displayed any real commitment to serving that office at all. 

She was, for a time, the most popular politician in the state. That should make us shudder, like thinking back on a crazy love-crush who ended up being a total psycho. If/when she washes up with the Trump regime like so many other empty, ambitious people who have gotten close to the mercurial president only to be tossed out like a wet wipe when he no longer has use for them, should Gabbard show up back in Hawaiʻi, we’d better not fall for her slick silver tongue and weird silver hair.

Maybe it’s not likely she’ll come back home to Hawaiʻi to reinvent herself. She long ago set her sights higher than these little islands and us little people.

But if she does show up, Hawaiʻi cannot give her another chance. She broke up with us years ago, and you can’t trust what she says, even if she says it hundreds of times.