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Obama's Invisible Hand

By J. Peter Freire on 7.16.08 @ 1:52PM

I'm not going to write any articles on AmSpec about Obama for at least a week given the amount of attention (well-deserved, of course) he's getting. I'd suggest launching an Obama Fast, but the problem with doing that is that he'll then say something like this:

"I've always said that [Somethingorotheristan/Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan] won't be helped by [military aid/military intervention/continued military presence/money we send them/chocolates/toys]. This doesn't [contradict/change/bankrupt] what I said earlier, because it [is a natural evolution/doesn't exclude hefty caveats/perfectly complements the goals of some other foreign person]. The critics are all [playing politics/misrepresenting what I've said all along/being paid off by oil companies/confused by how brilliant I am]."

Anyway, all of this is to say that I want a large number of Obama supporters to click on this link (via Andrew Sullivan) and just tell me, in earnest, the same things they've been telling me about Obama for weeks. The Daily News writes:

A campaign spokesman says Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

This gets down to what I said in my article on the New York Times op-ed -- that you might get away with flip-flopping in a speech, but flip-flopping in print is different. And while "Chicago politics" might have permitted such flaps, an entire nation is watching as he tries to employ the same tactics here.

topics:
Military, Iraq, Iran, Oil