The Change that Obama is Bringing

Since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama has changed his mind on many key issues that he has been campaigning on for the past year. Gerard Baker of The Times of London reported on all the changes of heart that Obama has recently made. Baker wrote:

"Change, it turns out, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Having campaigned for the past year as the agent of transformation, the man who would lead an historic shift in America's political direction, Barack Obama is discovering that there is quite a lot he likes about the way things are."

"Since securing the Democratic nomination a few weeks ago, the only change coming from the Illinois senator has been in what he seems to stand for. Last month he dropped his opposition to a Bill before Congress that would give telecoms companies immunity from prosecution for carrying out illegal wiretaps on potential terrorist suspects."

"He told a cheering crowd of Israel's supporters of his fervent commitment to the security of the Jewish state and added, for good measure, that an “undivided” Jerusalem should be the nation's capital. He said that he likes free trade after all, and that his primary campaign pledge to dismantle the North American Free Trade Agreement was a case of “overheated rhetoric”."

"Last week he expressed support for a Supreme Court decision that struck down a ban on handguns and opposition to another that outlawed the death penalty for rape of a child."

"This week he promised to expand President Bush's faith-based organisations initiative, a programme that channels funds to religious groups so that they can deliver social welfare services, which the Left regards as a heinous blurring of Church-State separation."

"If next week he named Dick Cheney as his running-mate and revealed that he spends his spare time drilling for oil in wildlife habitats, the only surprise would be that it took him so long."...

"A whimper of pain has gone up from the base. Those who really believed in the Audacity of Hope now fear a Timidity of Despair. Thousands of Obama supporters have signed a petition on his website begging him to reconsider his position on the illegal wiretaps - a seemingly minor campaign issue, but one that carries great talismanic symbolism for civil libertarians."

Baker comes to the "surprising" conclusion that Obama's change in what he stands for is part a brillant plan. That's a little too optimistic. As one of the few people in this country who has not caught hope fever, I believe that Obama is realizing that his catchy phrases of "hope" and "change that we can believe in" (whatever that means) will not carry him into the White House. He is also realizing that some of the ridiculous positions that he stood behind for so long are too far to the left even for an electorate that is overwhelming sick of the current Republican administration.

Baker's full article.