Not sure why I found this article so disturbing, but Obama seems to be totally clueless about the impact his words might have in real-world terms. He speaks and thinks in lofty abstracts, never in terms of what's physically happening. Then he's bewildered that people get confused. This guy's not ready for primetime.

He's trying to dig out by emphasizing "ending the war" as having been the hallmark of his old Iraq position (like that was nobody else's goal). That's not how Democratic primary voters took his words. To them it was "immediate" and "withdrawal".

Then, he says "I'm not someone who like George Bush is willing to ignore facts on the basis of my preconceived notions. I want to pay attention to what's happening on the ground." Huh? Isn't that ass-backwards? Bush was reacting to ground truths with the surge, and adjusting his assessments according to surge results, and it was Obama and the Dems acting like 2007 never happened!

This is probably just laying the groundwork for further "refinement" after he visits Iraq, after which I suspect his position will look an awful lot like McCain's. (Hey, good leadership, JMac.)

This was the issue Obama ran and won on, the stark difference between his Iraq position, and McCain's. Not so stark anymore.

But he's "learning" to be a better candidate, and will be an even more effective communicator six months from now. On the job training is fine, as long as you're not practicing on U.S. national security. Oy vey.

The Obama was genuinely suprised by the reaction he got for using the word "refine". I think what scared him the most was the Left going apeshit over the word. People aren't dumb; he was putting up a trial ballon right before the weekend to see how people would react. OOOPS, his bad. He won the Democrat nomination by his stupid policy on Iraq. On his website the word "refine" doesn't show up once on his plan for Iraq. It plainly states he already has a detailed plan to lose Iraq. Methinks, he's just painted himself into a corner.