This column in the WaPo today is quite good:

James Monroe had one, and so should we. That seems to be the theory behind the rampant and premature speculation among national security wonks about what kind of new doctrine President Obama or President McCain would use to guide U.S. foreign policy. But let's not get carried away thinking about what a McCain or Obama doctrine might be. In today's complex world, a president doesn't need to have a one-size-fits-all template for handling foreign affairs. In fact, the next president would be better off without one.

Indeed. Enough with the doctrines. More . .

So the "Far Left" position on Iraq troop withdrawal now becomes the "centrist" view. The NYTimes reports:

The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Now, as usual, for reasons unknown, in the Village this is considered good political news for Republicans. Personally, I do not believe that but I also do not care. I want our troops out of combat in Iraq and anything that makes withdrawal from the Iraq Debacle more likely is welcome news.

Sully found a very interesting 1996 piece by Tom Edsall on Bill Clinton. I defy anyone to read it and tell me Barack Obama was not, until recently, reprising Bill Clinton's 1992 election campaign.

But what is really interesting is Edsall's focus on the mandate Clinton won in 1992:

Clinton not only overestimated the magnitude of his election victory but initially proceeded to govern as if cultural and social post-sixties liberalism had won, when in fact a moderated centrism had won.

Of course, that seemed to be what was possible in 1992 - a win for moderated Democratic centrism. In 2008, we can seek more for the mandate. We must. More . . .

A funny thing happened to Obama's "Move To The Middle" tour. After two weeks, it has abruptly ended, as the AP's Liz Sidoti writes:

Barack Obama has found something that eluded him during the primary season — contrast. And, he's basking in it. . . . [V]ast disagreements with McCain — on everything from economic philosophies to security proposals — seem to have given Obama license to more aggressively and enthusiastically go after his foe. . . . These days, Obama assails McCain's position on the issues every chance he gets. He levels his charges with a commonsense tone and lighthearted touch that couches the criticism while making his core argument: McCain and President Bush are the same.

"If you are satisfied with the way things are going now, then you should vote for John McCain," Obama says before rattling off a list of current concerns, including rising gas prices, home foreclosures and job losses as the country fights two wars.

Actors Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Wright were arrested in Shreveport today, along with some members of the crew filming the Oliver Stone movie "W." Apparently they are suspected of participating in a bar fight. Perhaps they were just getting into the spirit of the president's partying days at Yale.

Russ Walker, a former Yale classmate and friend from Oklahoma City, recalls returning from a party with Bush one night in college when the inebriated Bush dropped to the ground and started rolling in the middle of the street. "He literally rolled back to the dorm," recalled Walker. "It was raucous, teenage stuff that he perhaps grew out of later rather than sooner."

(Guest Post by Anita Thompson)

Hi. It's Anita Thompson. I'm sitting here in my hostess's spotless new living room as we make plans to go to dinner. So... Please forgive me for taking the lovely Jeralyn away from you for the evening. She smiled and asked me to put up tonight's open thread. So have fun posting, as we look forward to reading your comments when we return.

We have Hunter's favorite drink mix here to sip while we read: Bailys Irish Cream with a splash of Chivas. "It's the drink that's always good." he liked to say. It's called a Bif. I'm sure so many of the times Hunter and I would watch Jerri on TV while cheering her on, there were Bifs on the counter. So have fun with the open thread, and if you can, enjoy a Bif too. Your friend, Anita Thompson

A reader comments in an e-mail:

Why are you [BTD] so stuck on attack threads on and branding Obama as just another politician? Making the same argument over and over which does nothing but divide our party and [keeps] us from fighting for the issues we care about is stupid. When you make the same case over and over again by selectively picking stances and articles that support that point you lose credibility. I do give credit to TChris and Jeralyn regardless of whether I agree with them their threads have been interesting and fair.

I agree with the praise for Jeralyn and TChris. This is an Open Thread.

The New York Times interviews several progressives, including bloggers about their support for Sen. Barack Obama given his recent FISA vote and the other centrist positions he's staked out in recent weeks.

Will it cost Obama in votes? I hope not. I want a Democratic president. But if it does, it's Obama's own fault. He's now at risk of "being viewed as someone who parses positions without taking a principled stand." On this, the Times quotes liberal writer and blogger David Sirota who says:

“I’m not saying we’re there yet, but that’s the danger,” said David Sirota, a liberal political analyst and author. “I don’t think there’s disillusion. I think there’s an education process that takes place, and that’s a good thing. He is a transformative politician, but he is still a politician.”

I disagree. I see no transformational quality to either Obama or his candidacy. Obama said he was a new kind of politician. He sold an entire younger generation on the theory of change, a new kind of politics in Washington and he's delivered the status quo. He's shown us that on FISA, the death penalty, guns, religion, Iraq, Afghanistan and trade policy (so far) he's all about preserving the status quo and not rocking the boat in his quest for votes. How much more "politics as usual" can you get?

Other Obama supporters interviewed for the article are angry at Obama. One says she's going to vote for the Green party candidate. [More...]

Miami's large Cuban population, often referred to as "Little Havana" has always been predominantly Republican. Sunday's New York Times Magazine has a five page article questioning whether Cuban support in Miami might shift and vote Democratic in November. Primarily it examines some Democratic challenges to traditionally Republican House seats in Florida, But it also touches on the Presidential election.

Backstage, something very new is happening. Call it the Miami Spring, or Cuban-American glasnost. This community that has clung for decades to its certainties — about the island itself, about the role the exile community would play after the Castro brothers passed from the scene, about where Cuban-Americans should situate themselves in terms of U.S. domestic politics — is in ferment. This matters not only in terms of the destiny of the Cuban-American community itself but also in terms of the 2008 elections since, despite claims made on background by some of Barack Obama’s advisers, Florida is likely to play a pivotal role in determining whether Obama or John McCain becomes president, and the Cuban-American vote is likely to play its usual outsize role in deciding which candidate prevails in the state.

The Times recounts Obama's May speech in Miami seeking the Cuban vote. The Times reports:[More...]

Jane Mayer, who has done such great writing on CIA secret prisons for the New Yorker, has written a book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. It goes on sale this week.

Mayer writes of a Red Cross report warning that the interrogation methods used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and others are war crimes. [More...]

In a mailed in column railing at Clinton supporters, Michael Kinsley proves how little he understands about politics and the Obama brand:

[O]ther Democrats are upset at Obama's recent moves toward the center. T[his] complaint is childish. Securing your base and then moving to the center is the fundamental move of politics, like the basic steps of the fox-trot.

(Emphasis supplied.) It is as if Kinsley did not watch the campaign. The one thing Obama ran on was CHANGING politics. Now I thought it was ridiculous - I want him to change the governing policies of the United States, not change politics - but I know what he was selling. He can not now blatantly pretend he did not run on "changing politics." Some of the stuff coming out of the national press is so ignorant it defies belief. And Kinsley says he is arguing FOR Obama here. With friends like these . . .

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

My title is a joke. As is Newsweek (here is J's writeup on the poll):

Obama quickly went about repositioning himself for a general-election audience--an unpleasant task for any nominee emerging from the pander-heavy primary contests and particularly for a candidate who'd slogged through a vigorous primary challenge in most every contest from January until June. Obama's reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage.

More seriously, some Obama supporters worry that the spectacle of their candidate eagerly embracing his old rival, Hillary Clinton, and traveling the country courting big donors at lavish fund-raisers, may have done lasting damage to his image as an arbiter of a new kind of politics. . . .