a contest between Republican Lite (Mc) and Democrat as Republican Lite (O) formerly Democrat (Progressive). By falling for the hype over Clark's remarks and not dealing with the context Obama (and his advisers) are playing the same chickenshit game as the Repugs. If winning is more important that principled positioning then I guess it does not matter which of these two will get the White House.

if being a POW is a crucial qualification for the presidency, Jose Padilla and a bunch of guys in Guantanamo are well fit for the office.

that is what happens when the Democrats refuse to be an opposition party .. it is very sad ... I know .. it is what happens when you have government run by special interests

Criticisms of that sort aren't unhealthy or counter-productive. They're the opposite. Of course one ought to object if a political candidate -- even Barack Obama -- is advocating policies that trample on one's core political values or promulgating toxic narratives.

No. Especially Barack Obama. Regardless of where this candidate winds up, as he meanders across the political landscape, I do think one thing will be constant, and will contrast highly with Bush and McCain. The constant is that Obama has the intelligence and proclivity to pay some heed to a broader slice of public opinion. Avenues--vectors--of persuasion, influence, and yes, pressure, will likely be available in an Obama administration to those of us not fortunate enough to be in the upper 1%.

"Alright, I agree with you. Now make me do it", FDR famously said. If we are lucky, this is where we are headed with Obama--a pressure-point for government. A once-again functional lever for getting good, beneficial things done via government. He's a tool, in the very best sense of the word.

In this light, viewing Obama as any sort of holy grail or political folk hero is entirely dysfunctional. You don't put your tools up on a pedestal, where you can't get at them, and where they can't work. You keep them close, and you use them. "Using" Obama is going to entail strong, clear condemnation of bad ideas and policies, strong pressure, hard lobbying. In other words, it will require the things that blind followers and/or corporate media is largely not willing or able to supply.

But bloggers will.

On four of Glenn's seven. Four of the seven positions Obama took are consistent with his campaign philosophy. He never opposed capital punishment, so criticizing the Supreme Court for limiting it is no betrayal of principle. Wesley Clark's criticism of McCain, while reasonable, is a personal attack. Obama has rejected personal attacks. MoveOn accused Petraeus of betraying the country--another personal attack--as opposed to merely arguing against the surge, which was the point in contention at the time. And when Obama rejects unpatriotic elements of the 60s counter-culture, it is in keeping with his goal of dismissing old battle lines in favor of a new politics of hope.

I personally oppose capital punishment, resent the automatic honor accorded to generals and have a soft spot for anti-American elements of the counter-culture, but these predilections would not make for an attractive candidacy--not only because such a candidacy opens itself to easy attack, but because it would make enemies of many voters whom we need as friends.

Obama's position on FISA is abominable, though. We must criticize him for it. But he has us over a barrel--voting for him is still the best chance of ensuring that the new powers sunset before they are abused with too terrible a consequence.

is this:

"A presidential election is a unique time when Americans are engaged in a discussion over our collective political values (at least more engaged than any other time). Why would anyone watch the Obama campaign use this opportunity to perpetuate and reinforce this narrative, and watch Obama embrace polices that are the precise antithesis of the values he espoused in the past, and not criticize or object to that?"

The argument that Obama (may) harbors secret plans to do the right thing when installed in office and we must all quell dissent in the interim is deeply flawed. When Obama embraces the narrative that Glenn has outlined above, he substantially contributes to the mind-set shifting this country away from progressive -- scratch that: fundamentally AMERICAN and CONSTITUTIONAL -- ideals.

This narrative is doing incalculable damage to the national discourse. As a legacy, I can't imagine a worse one for Obama to embrace.

Thank God Obama is at least showing his true colors before the election.

I have always felt the man was unprincipled, but I did not think he was a putz, which is what he really is. At least Wes Clark has the balls to stand for what he believes in. And the man is absolutely right. I believe Obama is corrupt to the core, and this is pathetic, selecting which of the 2 is worse. This is a sad commentary on what the American system has become.

The only way we can cure our system is to have publicly financed elections. Give candidates free air time. Remove pressure for money. That will cleanse the kind of candidates that will run for office.

And bring back the draft. This at least will reconnect everyone to the country. By having a mercenary military, we have a president with his own army. This is downright dangerous.

If Obama is merely pandering, that's bad enough. If he's sincere, that's worse. His stance on FISA along is excellent reason to not vote for him, though of course not reason to vote McCain.

Yes, Obama's policies seem less offensive than McCain's, but then how do we know what Obama's policies really are? I don't know? Do you? Are you sure?

I live in Democratic-safe California, so he doesn't need my vote (and his recent behavior suggests he doesn't want it), but I pity those in swing states who have to vote for him as the lesser of evils. He knows that, too, which is why he can pander his ass off and know he still gets the votes he needs - those voters have no one else to turn to. This is cynical politics at its worst.

I've always taken offense at his sophism about the '60s. If not for the '60s, he wouldn't be the Democratic nominee, plain and simple. He would have grown up the victim of a much more racist culture. He may not have been able to go to Harvard. He wouldn't have the degree of free speech he has now. He would not have absorbed the importance of and right to dissent. He would not have understood the need to avoid pointless war (I'm still not sure he does...). He may not have even been able to listen to the kind of music he likes. He would not have been able to benefit from the struggles and victories of feminism and the civil rights movement and environmentalism.

All these things show how rigid American society was before the '60s and just how drastically the youth of the '60s changed life in America, building on both the guarantees in our liberal Constitution and the successes of those who fought the same battles before them, through the centuries, to essentially break the bonds of a conformity that suppressed basic liberties.

Yet when he speaks of these times, he labels them "divisive," barely acknowledging the importance of dissent. When he says the debate about patriotism "remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s" he ignores the fact that it is the conservatives who are still fighting those wars - they have never accepted their defeat; meanwhile, the culture has moved on, and civil rights, women's rights, children's rights, environmentalism, freedom to choose your own way of life - all these have been incorporated into the collective culture, to its great benefit.

But conservatives are so intent on reversing these freedoms that they continue to bring up the '60s as the time when America lost its bearings, and when Obama echoes this canard, he becomes one of those whose reactionary policies we have been suffering under since Reagan and especially for the last eight years. Conservatives have been trying to reverse the progress that began in the '60s, and it is they who are still fighting the Vietnam War.

It is these regressive, anti-liberty policies and reversals we're trying to shake off with this election, and the more Obama talks like a conservative, the less hope I have - anyone should have - that he will truly be any different. The list of his positions in the last two weeks that Glenn Greenwald has assembled should give all of his supporters real pause.