Rich Lowry identifies the fraud which is Barack Obama.

In the past few weeks, Obama has broken two pledges (to take public financing in the general election and to filibuster legal immunity for telecoms that cooperated with the government in terrorist surveillance); has belittled his own rhetoric during the primary campaign (saying it could get “overheated and amplified” on the issue of trade); redefined his promise to meet without preconditions with the leaders of hostile states until it’s basically meaningless; endorsed a Supreme Court decision striking down a Washington, D.C., gun ban his campaign had previously said he supported; and made muddy, centrist-sounding statements about his positions on Iraq and abortion that he had to go back and try to clarify.

Has there ever in recent political memory been so much calculation and bad faith by a politician who has made so much of eschewing both? We now know that Barack Obama is not naive, but his ardent supporters are. Obama exhorted them to “believe” — one of his favorite words — in him and his virtue above all, and as soon as they gave him the nomination he wanted, he showed how foolishly credulous they had been. When it comes to triangulating, he’s Hillary Clinton without the baggage.

Forget the debate about whether Obama is “American enough.” He’s that great American archetype, the audacious salesman with an eye on the main chance. Nothing in his utterly orthodox left-wing record ever suggested he was a transformationally unifying figure, but he sold himself as that to the audience he needed in the Democratic primaries. Nothing in his record suggests he’s a sensible centrist, but he’s going to sell himself as one to the audience he needs in the general election, whatever contortions it takes. In his current TV ad, he touts his support for welfare reform when he actually opposed it.

Obama is calculating shrewdly now — just as shrewdly as back when he was attacking calculation. His left-wing base won’t abandon him, and all the dewy-eyed new voters attracted by him will stay that way, so long as he continues to look and sound good. His task is to win over general-election voters in a center-right country who value hardheadedness and practicality in their presidents.

Barack Obama doesn’t need to be a messiah figure. He needn’t even be particularly admirable. In a poisonous year for Republicans, he just needs to be a minimally acceptable Democrat, and so minimally acceptable he aims to be.

————————————-

Hat tip to the News Junkie (who likes a lot of the same stories I do this morning, I see).

————————————-

And Rich Lowry is not the only one who notices.

Tony Blankley sees a gifted demagogue at work fleecing the bumpkins.

Way back in June, Sen. Barack “middle name not permitted to be mentioned” Obama campaigned on the theme of “Change We Can Believe In.” Now, several days later, his theme should be “Change We Can’t Keep Up With.” Apparently, the change he was calling for was not for Washington politics, but for his primary campaign positions. …

Which brings us, as it always does in such circumstances, to America’s greatest fraud sniffer, H.L. Mencken. He defined a demagogue as “one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” It is not surprising that the youth is particularly enchanted by the senator from Illinois. Being young, they are inexperienced in the ways of the world.

————————————-

Iowahawk paraphrases the great man.

Let me be crystal clear: if elected president, my first act will be to call for the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. I have always been consistent and forthright in this position, and I want to reassure my supporters that my recent statement backtracking from it was just some bullshit my staff came up with to tack to the center for the general election. To win this election, it will be critical to appeal to the dwindling but stubborn group of idiots who cling to fantasies of American “victory” in this tragic disaster. It’s an unfortunate part of the complicated game of presidential politics, but let’s face it: I can’t stop this war if I’m not in the White House. However, you should know by now that whatever I may say from now until November, once elected I will immediately pull the rug from these gullible pro-war rubes.

Or will I? As is obvious to all but the most deluded HuffPo retard, the surge in Iraq has produced dramatic improvements in security throughout Iraq, and the roots of a stable pro-American democracy. We have the terrorists on the run, and it would obviously be crazy for us to pull our troops from the region just as we are on the verge of victory. And it is equally obvious that everything I said in the previous paragraph was designed to placate the naive hipster moonbats I brilliantly exploited to destroy the Clintons. (You’re welcome.) Now that the nomination is in the bag, I am finally free to stake out my genuine pro-victory Iraq position, and have a good laugh while the dKos morons screech like a bunch of apoplectic howler monkeys. Let’s face it: at the rate I’m heading right on national security, I’ll be raining nukes on Tehran by February. …

Just look at all of the comsymps and pinkos I’ve thrown under the bus in the last 6 weeks – Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, Samantha Power, Jim Johnson, the list goes on. And you know what? I enjoyed it. Ask yourself this: when was the last time John McCain stabbed a lefty asshole in the back? Then ask yourself: who’s the real conservative in this race?

In conclusion, this should make it clear to the broad moderate middle mainstream of independent American voters that I am willing to reach out to both sides of the contentious war debate, and forge a new national consensus based on unity. Together, we can build a new era of hope, and bring an end to politics of cynicism.