When Obama threw his long time friend and mentor, the Reverend Wright, into the dumpster, I think a lot of us thought it was an act of necessary political expediency, and not worth serious analysis - getting the Right Wing out of the drivers seat was the overwhelming goal.

It wasn't only Rev Wright that got thrown into the dumpster by Obama. It was also Howard Dean and Jimmy Carter and probably others we don't even know about. Recall that Jimmy Carter wasn't allowed to speak at the Dem Convention probably because he would anger some Jewish voters. As for Dean, I am not sure why he wasn't given any position in the Obama administration but suspect this had a lot to do with ill feelings between Dean and Emanuel regarding Dean's 50 state strategy.

But unlike you I saw these events as symptoms of something about Obama that I didn't quite like.

Obviously there were more valid reasons to dump the Rev Wright when he did than say Howard Dean but you can also view this as taking the politically expedient path which is how we can also describe many of these horrible Bush supporting decision Obama has taken too.

I find the whole Obama is (worse than) Bush meme a little idiotic and shortsighted. Is he torturing? Is he lying us into war? Is he denying climate change? I dunno, maybe I'm missing something. -- homeruk

Don't you find it rather disconcerting that you don't know that a President you support (and voted for?) is not breaking both domestic and international law or lying us into war? Precisely what has Obama done which makes him any different than McCain?

Frankly, when I voted for Obama, I thought I was voting for a President who I knew would obey the law. If I wanted to vote for someone who I didn't trust, I would have voted for another candidate, not Obama.

Since his FISA flop last year, Obama has made a string of decisions which are contrary to both his own stated positions and the positions of most liberals. He's lied repeatedly about his position on several issues.

When he advocated for the reinstatement of Holy Joe to the good graces of the Democratic caucus, I felt as though he had merely misread the position of his supporters. Now, I know that he was merely positioning that piece of excrement to assist in implementing his real agenda - which is no where near the agenda he was elected as supporting.

He needs to be impeached and he needs to be impeached soon.

Is being a "shrill bitch" better or worse than being a dick?

Is being a "dick" better than being a "pussy", even if you are a "hard left" dick?

Is there something called a "soft right" dick?

Glenn, I love your work and in general think you are on the whole a Godsend to all political discourse. On the subject of Obama’s decision to suppress the torture photos, however, I think you have been deliberately obtuse and, in this morning’s post, downright obnoxious.

The calculation behind Obama’s reversal was a very simple one, and it was not that the release of the photos would “endanger the troops.” That was, and is, a politically useful euphemism for what the release of such photos actually would have done, which is “endanger Obama’s RELATIONSHIP with his troops.” He is the Commander in Chief of our armed forces. Despite the fact that you and I may agree that the ultimate responsibility for the atrocities depicted in those photos lie with Bush Administration officials, the likelihood is that such images would have played throughout the world is basic illustrations of brutality perpetrated by U.S. soldiers against possibly innocent civilians. In other words, it would have made the young men and women in uniform look bad. The idea that Barack Obama, at the same time as he is sending those young men and women into new theaters of war, could also be seen as facilitating the release of photos that would be so obviously damaging to their reputation (and their capacity to perform effectively in those theaters), is absurd and naive. His troops would rightly question whether he truly had their back. Their salutes would, from that moment forward, be justifiably single fingered.

Your failure to recognize this rather obvious fact – that Obama’s decision was driven by the desire to preserve his own relationship with the troops he commands – demonstrates, if I may say, one of your MAJOR blindspots, and that is the occasional inability to recognize that the various players in Washington and the public discourse are bound by the roles in which they find themselves. Had Obama remained a constitutional law professor, I have little doubt he would argue positions similar to yours. Indeed, I suspect on some level he believes the release of the photos would probably be the best and most cleansing thing, and wishes that some enterprising young lawyer or journalist would see to it. He is not an enterprising young lawyer or journalist, however, and the expectation that he, as POTUS and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, should be the main agent behind releasing those photos is simply, as I say, ridiculous and myopic, and suggests that you haven’t actually given two seconds of thought to what his present responsibilities entail, including the maintenance of a positive and supportive relationship with the people he is sending into battle.

And that is why you are having such trouble finding the principled democrats who both support Obama’s current position and who criticized his former position – because most of us HAVE taken those two seconds to consider the nature of Obama’s current role; we recognize the euphemistic nature of the “endangering the troops” argument; and we see his reversal as a function not of hypocrisy or political expedience, but of a belated recognition – likely prompted by his military advisors -- of the difference between what it means to be an effective journalist, say, or lawyer, or even congressmen, and what it means to be an effective President. These are not the same thing. Nor should they be.