Pivoting Around the Memory Hole

For those who've lost track, the featured Obamite Pivot of the Week®* is the Unwinnable Iraq War.

Barack Obama's aides have removed criticism of President Bush's increase of troops to Iraq from the campaign Web site, part of an effort to update the Democrat's written war plan to reflect changing conditions.

Debate over the impact of President Bush's troop "surge" has been at the center of exchanges this week between Obama and Republican presidential rival John McCain. Obama opposed the war and the surge from the start, while McCain supported both the invasion and the troop increase.

...The change was part of many broader changes that Obama spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said were made to reflect current conditions. She provided the full text of the old site and the updated version, which includes a new section on the recent resurgence of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and another on this year's negotiations over a Status of Forces Agreement that would detail the legal basis for the ongoing presence of U.S. military forces operating in Iraq.

Ms. Morigi obligingly waited for several hours AFTER the website memory scrubs had been outed by both media and blogosphere to rationalize the edits. After all, one mustn't respond until caught red-handed the press release is ready. Yet, as usual, according the Obama campaign his position hasn't really so much changed, it's just been refined.

Fortunately the documentation of Obama's ever-shifting and oft-contradictory views on Iraq and The Surge have been fairly meticulously documented by dedicated observers and focused bloggers.

Enjoy. And get set for the inevitable upcoming about-face "softening and refinement" of Obama-Flex™ polling-responsive policy positioning. (For reference, here's a relevant recent campaign statement.)

And let's also note Senator Obama's recently-stated desire for more rebate stimulus checks like the one he was against before he voted for it (the pork-laden version) which was vetoed and replaced by the clean version--which he didn't show up to vote for but was, I think, against because Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia....

[*--as determined by measurement of candidate website Memory Hole input volume.]