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By Jeff Emanuel Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Obamafiles — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The transition from primary to general election campaign mode has seen Barack Obama (D-IL) perform whiplash-inducing 180°s on Iraq, on abortion, on the DC gun ban, on FISA and telecom immunity, on welfare reform, on the death penalty for child rapists, on debating John McCain "anywhere, any time," on the financing of his campaign, and on too many others to recount here (not to mention on Jim Johnson, on Jeremiah Wright, on Wes Clark, on Austan Goolsbee, on Samantha Power, on Tony Rezko, and on Scarlett Johansson, as well as on too many other people to recount).

Those flips which have put him to the right of that famous Triangulating Moderate, Bill Clinton, recently caught the attention -- and the ire -- of the ever-vigilant New York Times editorial board.

On July 4 the NYT featured an editorial titled "New and Not Improved" that, in part, said the following about what the editors called Obama's "perplexing shifts in position":

Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush’s abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics.

Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election. His team explained that, saying he had a grass-roots-based model and that while he was forgoing public money, he also was eschewing gold-plated fund-raisers. These days he’s on a high-roller hunt.

Read on.

[...]
We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.

There are still vital differences between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain on issues like the war in Iraq, taxes, health care and Supreme Court nominations. We don’t want any “redefining” on these big questions. This country needs change it can believe in.

It is a sad, but accurate, indictment of today's mainstream media that the publication whose Public Editor took up column inches and bandwidth to promise the American Left that any and all statements and intelligence reports from the current administration regarding the proven fact of Iranian interference in Iraq would be viewed with the appropriate "skepticism" and reported with sufficient "qualification" as to ensure that the Times' readers knew that the paper, to put it colloquially, wasn't believing a word coming out of that Texas yokel who still unfortunately occupies the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, so naively allowed a manufactured politician with a record as the most Liberal member of the U.S. Senate and with no history of bipartisan dealings whatsoever to "raise [their] hopes" that he was a "man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games" and who would "change the old order of things."

A benefit of having an extremely brief legislative record -- and of the records from the longest-held of those positions having been memory-holed -- is that an empty-suit, run-of-the-mill politician with a slick marketing team, outstanding packaging, and the ability to read a TelePrompTer with clarity and gusto can become a phenomenon who puts stars in the eyes of so many who see and hear him -- until, that is, he is actually challenged, taken off script, or even listened to for more than the briefest period of time.

Until now -- and, for the most part, still -- Barack Obama has enjoying success that every cater-to-the-base, tack-to-the-center politician has only, to date, been able to dream of: He has been able to tell every audience, reporter, etc. exactly what they want to hear -- regardless how different that statement may be from any he has uttered in the past -- and that audience, reporter, etc. has not only believed him wholeheartedly, but has believed his claim, in the rare event that he was asked about the contradiction, that he has been consistent the entire time.

It will be interesting to see how long the NYT editorial boards of the world, who have long accepted the many-faced Obama's claim that his flavor-of-the-month views on issues were "passionate convictions," will be willing to call into question the veracity, or the desirability, of Obama's claims, (constantly changing) stated beliefs, and leadership. If the so-called "objective" journalists in the MSM do their jobs anywhere near correctly, rather than reacting to the tingles they may be feeling in their respective legs, then Barack Obama's days as a serious candidate for President of the United States may be numbered.

However, if the media and the general public -- not to mention Obama's followers themselves -- are willing to respond to the presumptive Democrat nominee's current policy of saying absolutely anything to please whatever audience he may be addressing at the time by, to paraphrase my friend and RedState colleague Dan McLaughlin, accepting hook, line, and sinker that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, despite Obama's claim throughout the primary that Eastasia was the true and constant enemy, then the truth, and the consequences of elections, have simply ceased to matter to a significant enough portion of the American electorate that nothing can be done at all.

Now that is a scary proposition, is it not?