We've all been fooled - how dare he pretend to be an honest, upstanding, decent person? And we bought it, shame on us! He and Bush planned it all back in 2002. He advised Bush that the invasion of Iraq was exactly the right thing to do, and in a bait-and-switch move, Obama would make a speech in opposition. THEN, it would ensure that in 2009 we'd get another Republican in office, cleverly disquised as a liberal Democrat. So obvious, since no "real" Republican could get the job.

Yep, we're all just to stupid to see the forest for the trees.

You are missing the point.

You have been numbed by years of FNC seepage into the MSM into thinking that every choice is "either/or".

Obama was not supposed to be an "anyone but a GOP" candidate.

Why not pressure Obama into defining the issues rather then letting the issues be defined for him? He did that well during the primaries. Why not now? After all, it takes the battle back to the GOP -- and that is a winning strategy.

Perhaps he is defining issues that we are not seeing - being too blinded by the MSM and all that. Maybe he sees issues on a larger scale than you or I, maybe we're all too bogged down with FISA and Clark. Think there may be a chance that he's just a TEENY WEENY bit smarter that we pretend to be?

Nah. Not possible. Never mind.

I knew all along that Obama was a stealth Republican. I have only pretended to back him because I knew that he was tracking my INTERNET posts, and the Telcom Industry was helping him.

Oops. I just realized that he can also track what I just wrote. Never mind. I was just kidding Barack. You are the greatest. No need to waste your FISA efforts on me, your most loyal supporter.

Regarding "sending us all to hell," you left out another reason not to vote for BHO. Obama's full name has 18 letters, divided amongst his first, middle, and last names. That averages out to 6 letters per name. That's 666...

Gasp! Talk about The Beast...

Perhaps he is defining issues that we are not seeing - being too blinded by the MSM and all that. Maybe he sees issues on a larger scale than you or I, maybe we're all too bogged down with FISA and Clark

It is certainly very important that he beat McCain. And the Republican brand is so badly damaged that he probably can win as a generic Democrat. The problems are that 1) he promoted himself- and yes, the actual centrist track record was there for all to see- as a bit more than that; the sudden about face tends to dampen enthusiasm, and 2) as the football cliche goes, the prevent defense tends to prevent wins. Having said that, the campaign stopped undercutting Clark and hasn't stepped on Webb's comments, so they seem to have gotten themselves pulled together a bit since yesterday. On FISA, let's see how things end up after the break.

I finally read your whole piece...funny. What - Obama is not perfect?

Wow, you know it's entirely possible that Barack Obama is a douche and a better candidate then McCain (Not to mention Hillary *shudder*). I think we got the best candidate out of the bunch, and I haven't seen a single person ragging on him for FISA suggest voting for McCain.

But, we can't be blinded by political "man crushes" like the MSM gets all the time, it's an important responsibility we all have to monitor "our" candidates and give them hell when they make the wrong choices.

I used to love him, but the mutant kitty has opened my eyes to his treachery!

Obama - he peed in the pool!
Obama - he kicked my dog!
Obama - he drank my milkshake!

Thank you Pangaea for your astute rendering of what many of us already believed: Obama is in league with the Devil--and I don't mean the Mormon Church and Mitt Romney either!

Let me see if I've got this right, before I share this with my profuse extended family in New Jersy and Fla.: There are eighteen letters in Obama's full name, divided by first, second and middle--that's three--equals 6 per name so his name signifies 666--Mark of the Devil! Wasn't 666 very popular with the Nazi SS too? Ah, it all comes together: BHO is an Islamofascist Devil Worshipper! What 'til all my relatives hear this! Wow! Obama's toast!

"Everything he has done in the past has now been exposed as fake and/or opportunistic pandering. This is SOOOO depressing. How could he have fooled so many millions of people?"

I don't even believe he's black any more.

*sniff* *sniff* I smell snark!

Goes great with a 2008 Rec. :)

Bunny:
I like Obama and agree that much of the sturm und drang coming from the left is overdone. I generally trust his instincts and don't begrudge his attempt to demonstrate his centrist bona fides, as any good politician must. And your post cleverly exposes the self-defeating self righteousness of some of his erstwhile supporters on the left.

A few points of my own.

Some of the frustration with Obama comes from Hillary supporters (or those like me who supported her tepidly but defended her avidly) who endured months of vitriolic denunciation of the Clintons' "triangulation" their centrism, their betrayal of progressive causes, their willingness to say or do anything to get elected, etc. Despite his less than stellar record on some issues, Obama was embraced wholeheartedly by the left, even as many of us pointed out that his positions were as much, if not more, centrist than HRC's. Now, in some quarters, the same traits Obama has shown that were vilified in the Clintons are embraced by the same crowd.

Additionally, Obama is in one sense reaping what he sowed. By presenting himself as a reformer who would transform politics, while leaving the specifics somewhat vague, Obama encouraged unrealistic expectations among some on the left. Of course, the evidence of his centrism was always there to see. But Obama raised the bar under which he is now being judged.

Finally, these aren't exactly trifling issues. Obama's turn to the center has been, to say the least, pronounced. As Paul Krugman pointed out in his latest column (which should have credited my own blog, I must say in all modesty), with the Republican brand so badly tarnished, this election carries the possibility of a real realignment. By embracing a vague mantra of change while supporting safe, centrist policies, Obama actually jeapardizes his chances of effecting the real, lasting change many of us hoped for. To quote Krugman (who, I say again, owes me a debt of gratitude):

"The Reagan-Clinton comparison suggests that a candidate who runs on a clear agenda is more likely to achieve fundamental change than a candidate who runs on the promise of change but isn’t too clear about what that change would involve.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that Mr. Obama really is a centrist, after all.

One thing is clear: for Democrats, winning this election should be the easy part. Everything is going their way: sky-high gas prices, a weak economy and a deeply unpopular president. The real question is whether they will take advantage of this once-in-a-generation chance to change the country’s direction. And that’s mainly up to Mr. Obama."

By presenting himself as a reformer who would transform politics, while leaving the specifics somewhat vague, Obama encouraged unrealistic expectations among some on the left.

Agreed and good point. I never really expected him to be a miracle worker, but I can see how people could get their hopes up. I always took him at his word when he said he was an "imperfect vessel" for peoples' hopes and that he would likely do things that supporters didn't agree with. But I still believe once he's in office, he'll live up to much of what people are expecting of him. First, though, he's got to win the election.

In today's climate, I do think he could afford to run farther to the left than he has so far. But I learned long ago not to question his team's strategy. Nearly every time I've second-guessed them, they've proven me wrong.

By the way, if anybody thinks people around here are too hard on Obama, you should go take a gander at the crazy Hillary diehards at TalkLeft. Over there it's like the primary season never ended.

Gosh, hr. You're right. Don't criticize The Leader. Accept all of his positions. He is the Leader, He is Right.

Thank you for your instructions on being a good Party member, comrade.

Don't forget Congress. Math is a pesky thing. Still need a "reasonable" majority.

ah well

Why are the netroots foaming at the mouth, you ask? Because it's been so damn long since they won, they forgot how to win, and take the traditional posture of standing on the sidelines tearing down the candidates for not being their fantasy. Obama never was a fantasy - he has a background, a record, an agenda and a platform. Vote for him or vote for McBush, but get outta fantasyland, Democrats!

Rally behind The One, no matter what he says or does, no matter how odious. That's what the Bots will tell you. Of course it ignores a fundamental precept in human (and other animal) psychology: Reward good behavior, sanction bad behavior.

Markos:

Obama will be fine without my contribution, and he may even still get it before this thing is said and done, but it would be at a time when he has done something positive. That's called rewarding good behavior. And if that opportunity fails to arise because Obama goes on a Sister Souljah'ing rampage, then no worries. Chances are good that the DNC would get the money instead. But at this time, I simply have no desire to reward bad behavior. Some of you don't care about his behavior, or don't think it's bad behavior, or whatever. I didn't ask any of you to follow suit, and don't care whether you do or not. I didn't pull him from the Orange to Blue list. I'm not going to start praising Nader or Barr. I'll still vote for him. Yadda, yadda, yadda. At the end of the day, I'm pretty irrelevant in the whole affair. Obama is going to raise a ton of dough and win this thing whether I send him money or not.

Ultimately, he's currently saying that he doesn't need people like me to win this thing, and he's right. He doesn't. If they've got polling or whatnot that says that this is his best path to victory, so much the better. I want him to win big. But when the Obama campaign makes those calculations, they have to realize that they're going to necessarily lose some intensity of support. It's not all upside. And for me, that is reflected in a lack of interest in making that contribution.

Meanwhile, Arianna Huffington on why moving to the "middle" is for losers.

Not that I buy the idea that, for example, trashing the Constitution is a "centrist" position. Unless you define "centrist" as "between the current positions of the Democratic and Republican Parties", which I emphatically do not. A great deal of polling suggests that the positions of actual Americans is well to the left of the conventional wisdom of the Beltway political class and media, in both parties. For example, on government

Here is none other than Arianna Huffington on your topic:

In a Los Angeles Times article detailing Obama's attempts at "shifting toward the center," Matt Bennett of the centrist think tank Third Way says that Obama is a "good politician. He's doing all he can to make sure people know he would govern as a post-partisan moderate."
But isn't being a "good politician" as it's meant here exactly what Obama defined himself as being against? Instead of Third Way think tankers, Obama should listen to this guy:

That was Barack Obama in February of 2007, announcing his run for the White House. "I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington," he said that day, "but I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change."
Was that just "overheated and amplified" rhetoric?
The Obama brand has always been about inspiration, a new kind of politics, the audacity of hope, and "change we can believe in." I like that brand. More importantly, voters -- especially unlikely voters -- like that brand.
Pulling it off the shelf and replacing it with a political product geared to pleasing America's vacillating swing voters -- the ones who will be most susceptible to the fear-mongering avalanche that has already begun -- would be a fatal blunder.
Realpolitik is one thing. Realstupidpolitik is quite another.

Ah the Return of the Knee Jerk Liberal....I thought the species was extinct

What Obama is doing, has done, is as American as apple pie, it is called "bait and switch".

And as another great American once said, "there is one born every minute."

I am having a certain schadenfreude with all the people who are beginning to wake up to the possibility that their beloved leader might just be a fake.

I don't expect people to say, "gee David, you were right all along". Like some Indian scout,I was picking up signs of something phony for months now and have taken endless crap for sharing my doubts in this forum.

I am reminded of the people who went off to join the International Brigades that fought in the Spanish Civil war in 1936 and then, when the USA finally went to war with Hitler in 1941, they weren't admitted into the army because they were judged to be, "premature anti-fascists"

Here is something to read, quite thought provoking