Talk about politico speak.

Come on say it, Senator.  Just say it right out loud.

"I am a progressive."  

On other issues, his position is really all things to all people -- like supporting the right to bear arms and restrictions on that right.

No one is fooled by all these "nuanced" positions that Democrats always adopt in an attempt to find common ground with every single person in existence.  "Gee, I believe government can do good things, but I'm not one of those people who believes government is the solution to everything!"  Well golly Senator Obama, who IS one of those people, aside from cartoonish caricatures of liberals you might find on the Rush Limbaugh show?

It is sad that while I have major doubts that he will stand firm on issues that are important to me,  I'm convinced he will remain constant on an issue I oppose 100%.

I think he is going to be looking back fondly on the days when all that was needed to silence the (what was then minimally) negative media was the simple issuance of a statement to reporters; I think the days of "Oh, okay, Barack - whatever you say!" are over.

And he's totally unprepared for it.

Obama gained his advantage in the Democratic race by convincing the bourgeois left that he was their dream candidate. At the heart of that was his pimping a minor anti-invasion speech in 2002 into proof beyond all doubt that he was the only genuine candidate with regard to opposition to Bush's Iraq war policies.

When Bill Clinton pointed out in detail that Obama's actual positions vis-a-vis Bush's Iraq policies were all over the map, they had to shut him up fast or see Obama's candidacy derailed. So they had their proxies call his "fairy-tale" remarks a racist trope, and then sat back to watch pathological Clinton-hating liars like Chris Matthews go to town with it.

When Samantha Power let the cat out of the bag with regard to Obama's wishy-washiness on Iraq in an interview with a British journalist, the campaign fired her. The business over the "monster" comment in the same interview was a cover the Clinton campaign sadly provided the Obama campaign with. I think they were as surprised as anyone when the Obama campaign actually fired Power--they were otherwise treating the "monster" remark as a joke.

For example:

"Some people think government is the solution to everything. I think personal responsibility and faith are good things."

"Some people bristle at the notion that faith has any role in public life. I think that it can have a positive role."

"Some people think there are no moral issues with abortion. I understand that there are complicated moral issues involved."

"A lot of the counterculture of the 1960's spit on veterans and hated America. I don't agree with spitting on veterans or hating America."

"Some people think we should worship the devil and drink the blood of human sacrifices. I think we should celebrate motherhood and apple pie."

What is he really saying all this time?

1. advocates the death penalty
   
2. Continues to gray the line between church and  state
   
3. Advocates random spying on citizen
   
4. Believes in weakening woman's choices even over the advice of the attending physician
   
5. Refuses to adhere to their oath of office to defend the Constitution

The key difference on healthcare is that the plans put forward by Clinton and Edwards, because they set up a public plan in direct competition with private insurers, would have established a clear road to single-payer because - assuming the public plan delivers the benefits we expect of it - people will opt out of private insurance and opt into the public plan.  When enough people do that, market forces will have effectively made the private insurers irrelevant, and who can argue with a market-based solution?  So we get to single-payer slowly but in a politically doable way.

Has his candidacy actually succeeded in perverting the meaning of everyday words?  Obamaspeak as the national language?  Ugh.

• he's just a politician, what did you expect? (Not his fault but yours for trusting him.)
  
• so? He's not PERFECT. (Except the criticisms aren't about Obama's lack of 'perfection' but his lying and flip flopping.) Jeez, how arrogantly lame to pretend critics are unreasonably up in arms cause the poor dude's only close to perfect!
  
• so what's one leetle issue like [core Dem principle] anyway; I must have more money and power. (Except, he's been on a spree of flip flopping to right wing interests now that he's removed his Dem rivals based on misrepresenting himself and what he stands for.)
  
• FISA's not a little issue and it's within his immediate power to stop this atrocity.

If one is expecting a "pure" liberal candidate, then they are out of luck.  There is no such thing.  Dennis Kucinich was the only primary candidate that represented that position.