“I’m surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured. I wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t said before, that I didn’t say a year ago or when I was a United States senator,” said Obama, who is still a senator from Illinois. (source)
I keep coming back to that first sentence. “I’m surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured.” Here is a man running for President who apparently doesn’t understand that every word he utters in a public forum or in the presence of any member of the press (including snarky progressive political bloggers) will be scrutinized, analyzed, and fantasized — and yes, even measured to fine calibration — before the next deadline.
If Mr. Obama has not yet figured that out, maybe he’s not quite ready to sit in the Oval Office. What you say in that office is measured on a whole other level.
aloha
[posted with ecto]
I met you after you misrepresented Obama’s statement on Iraq. I see you’ve done the same in your related post on your blog. Now you’ve taken his comment about the GOP tactic of misrepresenting what “refine” means as evidence being a naive presidential candidate. You conveniently ignore his 7/3 press conference in which he made clear that his use of the word refine did not represent a change in his commitment to withdrawal the troops. It had to do with listening to the commanders in the field so that we’re as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. Reading your blog, it seems you don’t substantively disagree with this policy, but instead you want to play a little game with his words for partisan purposes. Here’s a suggestion. Attack Obama on the merits of his policy (which again, I fail to see the big conflict with your own position), not over a disingenuous argument based on what you know he did not say. While you do so, please explain why McCain is flip-flopping on his prior position to respect the desire of Iraqi’s democratically elected government if it says it wants a timeline for our troop withdrawal. Now that Maliki is saying that, McCain seems very reluctant to respect the Iraqi wishes.