when Obama has said a thousand times at virtually every campaign rally for six months that he will “remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months”?

Of course, it's a timetable -- and that is exactly what Obama has meant it to be, because it's what his voters want. This is so clear that Slate's lame attempt to make it murky reveals nothing so much as Slate's eagerness to get in the tank for Obama.

Ms. Power unambiguously let the cat out of the bag. Of course, it's not really desirable or even possible to pull all the troops out in short order -- and as President Obama no doubt would move more slowly. But THAT IS NOT WHAT THE MAN HAS SAID HE WOULD DO AND CONTINUED TO SAY YESTERDAY IN SCRAMBLING TO RECOVER FROM POWER'S BLUNDER.

In short, the man is full of beans. Not that this should be a surprise about a glib politician, but a good deal of Obama's support has come from those most adamantly anti-war who mistrust Hillary. So now, they really ought to mistrust Obama equally, but sorry to say, they've mostly drunk the Kool Aid.

The wider impact of this and the Nafta episode on voters is bound to be that Obama is not the man he pretends to be. Whether that helps Hillary much remains to be seen but it's nonsense to try to shrug this off as trivial.

So Barack Obama isn't quite sure about how to get us out of a war that Hillary Clinton helped get us into. Yeah, now that's a really good reason to support Clinton. And when President Clinton II gets us into a war with Iran, who will get us out of that war?

Obama 08!

both Obama and Clinton are lying to the people about Iraq. Power's was absolutely correct in her assessment of the situation - the next president will be making the real decisions on Iraq based on the advice of their military advisers at the time and the facts on the ground - not campaign rhetoric. Power's statement was a blunder simply because honesty does not win elections (someone needs to tell McCain that).

Although its refreshing to see some honesty in the primary (from Goolsbee, Rice and Power), its hard not to come to the conclusion that Obama's campaign isn't very good at playing this pandering game.

Power made a Kinsleyian gaffe by telling the truth about Iraq (and Clinton). Face it, the American people can't handle the truth about Iraq. The truth is that George W. Bush, aided and abetted by Hillary Clinton, has totally and forever screwed up Iraq. Clinton obviously can't admit that and it doesn't exactly resonate with Barack Obama's message of hope and change.

Obama 08!