Others have pointed out that even after the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller, it was not clear precisely what Barack Obama thought of the opinion. Late in the day he came up with the whopper: he’s been saying the same thing as the Supreme Court all along. He, of course, hasn’t said anything of the sort, and he failed to join the amicus brief asking the Court to rule as it ultimately did.

Perhaps he was concerned that if had been crystal clear from the get-go, the media would have dragged out his prior statements and his support for gun-control efforts. But they were already doing that. So he didn’t avoid the consistency problem — he just added to it.

Why would Obama make a limited problem (gun rights and his inconsistency with regard to the same) into a larger one of leadership and political courage? I suspect his campaign is still surprised when he encounters pushback from the media and his opponent. Living in a media cocoon has its downside. One is the mistaken belief that he can slide through any issue with a slickly-crafted script.

All he did was spend a day making his problem worse and more pervasive with voters not necessarily tuned into the Second Amendment issue. If even sympathetic bloggers can spot the bobbing and weaving, won’t voters notice? Whatever voters’ beliefs on Second Amendment rights or Constitutional interpretation (or even if they don’t rate these concerns as key to their decision in selecting a candidate), they usually can spot someone trying to have it both ways. If that becomes a theme, then the “arrogant” meme will have stiff competition for the main Obama storyline.