The Obama team is struggling a bit as evidenced on the morning shows to come up with explanations on several fronts. First, on the “conditions based withdrawal” Robert Gibbs essentially gave away the game: Barack Obama’s sixteen month schedule is rather meaningless because he plans on keeping an undetermined number of troops in Iraq for an undetermined amount of time. If the McCain camp had a bold enough sense of humor they’d run a “Obama would stay in Iraq 100 years” ad.
Second, the Obama camp hasn’t come up with anything approaching a decent excuse for Obama backing out of his visit with the troops. The latest — “We would have been criticized no matter what” — is the lamest yet. Let’s see: the Pentagon says no cameras or campaign entourage and he says fine and quietly visits with a Senate aide. Yeah, the Republicans would have jumped up and down over that one. ( Hint: when Democrats scream that McCain is being “inappropriate” or “has gone over the line” you know something is sticking.)
And finally, it does appear after all that Obama is sticking with the netroot line that the surge was really a bad idea. Gibbs says our casualty rates went up (same thing happened at Normandy, I believe) and . . . you know the line . . . we haven’t seen political progress. (That Maliki fellow who seems to be in charge now, the Shi’ite militia groups losing power and the Sunnis rejoining the government? Don’t bother him with facts.) It is bizarre of course to simultaneously claim that current conditions permit him to continue with his withdrawal plans, indeed accelerate them, but to say the surge wasn’t a success. It’s all a muddle, carefully calibrated to keep his netroot followers from revolting.
And what will stick? Something may be penetrating the media circus. Perhaps an overall sense that Obama has been opposed to and still opposes a strategy leading to victory. But I’m thinking that the troop snub and the never-ending variations on a theme of “not my fault/the Pentagon made me do it/the Republicans are mean” won’t sit very well. For a guy who criticized George W. Bush for not admitting errors and not accepting responsibility Obama sure doesn’t set a very good example.