Wrichard wrote:

“In Greenwald’s case, he’s objecting to Obama’s ‘drift to the right’ and Olbermann’s failure to notice.”

Every candidate has to appeal to the base in the primaries and move to the center for the general election. Anyone who has lived through several presidential primary cycles has seen the routine quite a few times. In some ways it’s reassuring to see that Sen. Obama knows the dance steps.

The wink-nudge quality to the Senator’s centering steps is obvious, and Olbermann’s response illustrates that the Senator’s base, for the most part, understands his moves. Revolution is so messy. If you can get your results slowly over a period of time (e.g.European Union, Supreme Court rulings), you can have your cake and eat it too. And then you can enjoy the humiliation of your reactionary foes for dessert.

Bill and Hillary stumbled badly upon entering the White House, trying to accomplish a leftward quick-step, attempting to ditch “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” and create a federally-funded national health plan. I suspect Senator Obama learned something from that fiasco and will take his time, if elected, to build some trust with the general electorate before initiating inexorable leftward change.

The current incompetence of the Pelosi-Reid leadership and the veto power of the President keep such change from happening at this time, but elect a Democratic president and, presto or largo, the balance will shift; and the shift will be towards, I suspect, the kind of policies we heard about during the primaries.

McCain seems determined not to play the two-step, irritating his base. At what point does a surfeit of such virtue become a vice? Pretty quickly, I suspect, in the view of his base.

Senator Obama, unlike McCain, desires to and will probably succeed at showing his good balance. Even if it’s all a stage show.