As the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama is taking flak from all sides, including our very own Jennifer Rubin, for the wild inconsistencies in the statements he has made since Hillary Clinton’s concession. In case after case, from federal wiretapping to handgun ownership to late-term abortion and most especially on Iraq, Obama isn’t just tacking to the center, he’s actually dipping his toe into the center-right pond.
There’s every reason to believe he doesn’t mean most of it. But so what? Particularly when it comes to Iraq, the real question about Obama’s leadership has never been whether he would stick to an anti-war line, but what he would do when faced with the practical reality that the United States may be snatching victory from the jaws of what appeared to be a near-certain defeat just around the time he decided to run for president.
Would he be clear-eyed enough to understand that, were he to be elected president, it would be vastly to his advantage to preside over a positive outcome in Iraq rather than be the manager of a defeat for which he might not be blamed but whose consequences would severely limit his maneuvering room as commander in chief? If that were one of the options, would he box himself into a corner and basically insist on losing because his anti-war stance was so central to his primary political triumph, or because he would remain blinded by his personal ideological disgust with the Iraq program?
The answer seems to be in. The answer seems to be that Obama will accept the victorious hand George W. Bush and David Petraeus may be dealing him. And for those voters for whom the war is the paramount issue, that is to be welcomed, even if it’s a very slippery business.
