Although the New York Times tells us today that dissatisfaction with Obama’s FISA stance is the provenance of hairshirted liberals and bloggers on the internet doing their Youtubing and hoping (Comments from Left Field has more, including some ruminating on the question why the dissatisfied elements of the GOP base are never “far-right”), there’s something that we fair hippies are allowed to be dissatisfied about: Obama’s completely consistent position on Iraq.
I reference Margaret Carlson, who I’d actually forgotten existed until until MoDo quoted her today pulling the same schtick she has for the past decade plus: being the renowned hostess of elite, A-list parties who, because she has funny glasses and a librarian haircut, gets to weigh in on how utterly weird and alienating to regular people Democrats are.
That someone is Obama. His familiar line is to say he will be as careful getting out of Iraq as President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were careless about getting in. He put 16 months as a deadline for removing troops.
That was in the Democratic primaries. In the general election, he’s ``refined’’ his timetable depending on what the generals on the ground have to say.
To the potent and vehement antiwar members of his party, this was like saying he’d stay 100 years, so he’s carefully walked his refinement back. He told an audience in Powder Springs, Georgia, this week: ``Don’t be confused. I will bring the Iraq War to a close when I am president.’’ Assuming he meant ``in my first term,’’ that’s 48 months, not 16.
Oh, the Obama rule, I almost forgot: in lieu of explicit, mind-numbing detail that would put even the tenacious, insightful press corps to sleep, assume Obama’s fucking up.