I suggested that Barack Obama needed a rational explanation for all the flip-flopping other than denial. Along comes Gail Collins, who, in what is either one of the stupidest or most disingenuous columns ever written, says we misunderstood the entire history of Barack Obama’s stated political worldview. (And adds an incomprehensible metaphor involving penguins. No really. Read it. Paragraphs 7-9.)

She says he never “was about ideology”–he was just against being dumb. But the full list of his complete policy reversals from FISA to NAFTA to campaign finance (even Collins has thrown in the towel on that one) to Kyl-Lieberman to corporate taxes to an undivided Jerusalem to . . . well you get the idea. . . it is a really long. The facts are facts.

This is just another variation on the “why are you all so dense?” defense. Although she says Obama only stood for “dumb-avoidance,” this isn’t quite right. And what she’s up to now is calling the voters and many of her own colleagues dumb. They are apparently too stupid to realize that Obama’s campaign wasn’t about any of the issues, his ads didn’t matter, his debate answers were outright lies, and he never intended for us to take him seriously. Hillary Clinton had it right all along: it was just words. In other words, it isn’t that he is flip-flopping: he just lacks any real “core principles.” (Or, as Daniel Henninger puts it, he’s a “flexible opportunist” who “lacks personal and political clarity.”) And this counts, somehow, as a defense?

Its closer, at least, to the truth. But it doesn’t sound very good. In fact, Obama is starting to seem like Clinton-lite. I think Obama’s supporters need to go back to the drawing board. Or maybe least stage an intervention for their candidate.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 11:16 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.