Expanded Flip Flop

Proving once again that in Barack's eyes, any position that matches up with the polls is a good position, The One has now expanded his flip flop on the oil crisis. Last week, he backed off of his opposition to offshore drilling. Today...

Democrat Barack Obama called today for tapping the nation's strategic oil reserves to help drive down gasoline prices, a shift from his previous position on the issue.

The reversal is the second refinement in Obama's energy policy. Last week, he said that he would reluctantly consider accepting some offshore oil drilling. Obama had previously said he opposed such drilling, which is strongly backed by rival John McCain, who has urged that states be allowed to decide whether to drill.

Losing ground to McCain on the issues, Barack has now adopted McCain's positions, even while arguing that McCain holds the wrong positions! Oh, this Obama is a slippery character.

In his speech at Michigan State University, Obama, who celebrates his 47th birthday today, tipped his hat to McCain, quoting the Arizona Republican: "Our dangerous dependence on foreign oil has been 30 years in the making and was caused by the failure of politicians in Washington to think long-term about the future of the country," Obama said.

"What Sen. McCain neglected to mention was that during those 30 years, he was in Washington for 26 of them," Obama said.

And remember when, during primary season, Barack attacked McCain's gas tax rollback proposal as a gimmick? Barack now supports the gimmicks of tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserves and a Windfall Profits Tax, both of which may sound good to voters, but would have no positive effect on the price of oil.

To learn why, read this:

Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is an energy solution for politicians who are not serious about real energy solutions, but H.R 6578 seeks to do just that.

And this:

...according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), is that the 1980s windfall profits tax depressed the domestic production and extraction industry and furthered our dependence on foreign sources of oil.¹

Same Old Drill

Barack is shrewd to do change his stance on offshore drilling. The question is why anyone would be confused about what he's up to.

Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday he is simply acting pragmatically in softening his opposition to additional oil drilling along the nation's coastline, a shift Republicans say shows he is calculating and out of touch with voters.

Speaking in Florida, Obama insisted he still generally opposes additional drilling—as his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, once did as well—but would be willing to support it as part of a new bipartisan energy proposal that seeks to lessen dependence on foreign oil.

75% of Americans are in favor of drilling now to help alleviate the gas price crisis. Come voting time in November, folks will be very concerned about the cost of heating their homes this winter.

"If we can come up with a genuine bipartisan compromise, in which I have to accept some things that I don't like, or the Democrats have to accept some things that they don't like in exchange for actually moving us in the direction of actual energy independence, then that's something I'm open to," the Illinois Democrat said.

The nature of legislative compromise is that there are very few things that are entirely non-negotiable. Barack has opened to door to making a claim later that, "I've always said that drilling was on the table," when, in fact, that will be a misrepresentation.

Oil drilling, a hot topic in Florida, has been a point of dispute between Obama and McCain in recent weeks.

Will this drill work again? Sure, why not? It worked on Iraq.

Scared By the Numbers

The Obama campaign saw the numbers, and caved.

With the World Tour having failed to deliver a boost, poll numbers have dropped back to an even race with John McCain.

Barack's strategy? Abandon another position.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

With the only philosophy that Barack holds dear being his own victory, he dumps another policy position, and again throws his core supporters under the bus.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Another demonstration of the new kinda politics?

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

Health Plan Flip on Illegals?

Barack's proposal for health insurance has always mentioned offering a plan for 47 million Americans. From his website:

Millions of Americans are uninsured or underinsured because of rising medical costs: 47 million Americans — including nearly 9 million children — lack health insurance with no signs of this trend slowing down.

And he says he has a plan for the uninsured.

Obama's Plan to Cover Uninsured Americans: Obama will make available a new national health plan to all Americans, including the self-employed and small businesses, to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to members of Congress.

Thus, it is reasonable to assume, as most have, that his plan would not discriminate against those in the country illegally, since the 47 million number includes illegals.

There are an estimated 47 million persons on the U.S. without health insurance. Illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children make up 8.3 million of that uninsured number, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

So what's going on?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign Friday said his universal health plans do not extend to undocumented immigrants.

Is it Withdrawal or is it... Confusion?

Apparently, Barack has so beautifully articulated his Iraq policy that absolutely no one knows what it is. This is the only explanation I can come up with for the fact that I have been ranting all week about how he has now officially abandoned his commitment to the 16 month, unequivocal pullout, while others, much smarter than I, interpret his New York Times op-ed, his speech, and the new website language as meaning the precise opposite.

After hinting earlier this month that he might "refine" his Iraq strategy after visiting the country and listening to commanders, Mr. Obama appears to have decided that sticking to his arbitrary, 16-month timetable is more important than adjusting to the dramatic changes in Iraq.

That's what the Washington Post wrote in its scathing editorial yesterday morning, as it accused Barack of being inflexible and unwilling to adjust his policy in the face of dramatically changed circumstances as a result of the surge.

Just to recap, here is the position he erased from his website this week:

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.

Now, his new position, as articulated in his speech Tuesday.

We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months... After this redeployment, we'll keep a residual force to perform specific missions in Iraq... We will make tactical adjustments as we implement this strategy - that is what any responsible Commander-in-Chief must do.

The transformation, for me, is absolutely dramatic - from a clear, decisive withdrawal schedule without caveat to a suggestion that "we can" withdraw in 16 months. This sentence doesn't even make clear that a 16 month withdrawal is part of Barack's plan - we have to infer this from the later statement, "After this redeployment." And, that redeployment is now contingent on tactical adjustments. Then, Barack insults himself for having previously held a position without an exception for tactical adjustments, which he says is an imperative for any Commander-in-Chief.

Mr. Obama reiterated yesterday that he would consult with U.S. commanders and the Iraqi government and "make tactical adjustments as we implement this strategy." However, as Mr. McCain quickly pointed out, he delivered his speech before traveling to Iraq -- before his meetings with Gen. David H. Petraeus and the Iraqi leadership. American commanders will probably tell Mr. Obama that from a logistical standpoint, a 16-month withdrawal timetable will be difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill.

But his commitment to consult with commanders and the Iraqi government and make adjustments as needed is the big flip flop!!! How can they skip right over the fact? Is the Post just throwing up it's hands and saying, "It's not for us to read between the lines. If we can't figure out what he's saying, we'll assume there's nothing new?"

The Post concludes:

Whether or not the war was a mistake, Iraq's future is a vital U.S. security interest. If he is elected president, Mr. Obama sooner or later will have to tailor his Iraq strategy to that reality.

Exactly. That was always the case, but it was never admitted to by Barack until now.

Surge Purge

When the Obama campaign purged his website Sunday night of his troop drawdown proposal for Iraq, it also purged his claims that the surge wouldn't work. If you're going to rewrite history, it's a good idea to delete the record, no? Here's the truth of Barack's poor analysis, in video, as compiled by Wake Up America.



And from the Top of the Ticket blog at the LA Times:

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

The Arizona senator, who advocated the surge for years before the Bush administration employed it, says the resulting reduction in violence is proof it worked with progress on 15 of 18 political benchmarks and Obama's plan to withdraw troops by now would have resulted in surrender.

When President Bush ordered the surge in January, 2007, Obama said, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse," a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he acknowledged progress, but maintained his position that political progress was lacking.

Tuesday, while Obama gave a speech on foreign policy, the New York Daily News was first to notice the removal of parts of Obama's campaign site listing the Iraq troop surge as part of "The Problem." An Obama spokeswoman said it was just part of an "update" to "reflect changes in current events," as our colleague Frank James notes in the Swamp. The update includes a new section on the rise of al-Qaeda violence in Afghanistan.

It's Official - Barack Flips on Iraq

Welcome to visitors from sites like Instapundit, The Real Barack Obama, Small Dead Animals and Pundit Review. After you read this post, check out "Barack Lied, Hillary Died."

Barack's website has been updated - he is no longer calling for a blind withdrawal of troops from Iraq - the position that outflanked Hillary and won him the nomination.

Here's what his official position has been since before the primaries, as outlined on his website, without any caveats about talking to commanders or conditions on the ground:

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.

Could you give that to us again, just to make sure no one is confused?

Obama has a plan to immediately begin withdrawing our troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year.

Here's Barack's new position:

Barack Obama believes we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – more than 7 years after the war began.

Under the Obama plan, a residual force will remain in Iraq and in the region to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda in Iraq and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel. He will not build permanent bases in Iraq, but will continue efforts to train and support the Iraqi security forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.

Democrats were duped into dumping Hillary. Has a more malicious and manipulative politician ever walked the earth? It's hard to imagine.