Obama’s tactical blunder

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson has been one of Obama’s strongest defenders, but now even he sees and admits “The One” has made a tactical blunder. Gerson doesn’t call it a blunder, but instead tries to put it in positive terms as Obama's Tactical Gift to McCain

Since the primaries, Obama has made a tactical decision: He refuses to be painted as a liberal. America may be a discontented country, but it remains a center-right country. Democrats who understand this fact -- such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- become president. Democrats who don't lose elections.

But since Obama's short public career has been conventionally -- in some cases, extremely -- liberal, his tactical shift to the center has been startlingly obvious, on issues from guns to terror surveillance to Iraq, and now (reluctantly) to oil drilling. Says Peter Wehner of the Ethics and Public Policy Center: "Obama's political calculation may be correct, but it still involves a price. It has shattered his claim to be different. It calls into question his political character and leaves the impression he is consumed and defined by ambition."

At least temporarily, Obama's tactics have raised a damning political question: Who is this man? And the McCain campaign has begun to cleverly exploit these concerns, not with a frontal attack on his liberalism or his flip-flops but with a humorous attack on his "celebrity" -- really a proxy for shallowness. The argument is powerful: McCain has roots and convictions. Obama has fans and paparazzi. And Obama's European trip -- more Princess Diana than John Kennedy -- served only to confirm these impressions.

“Extremely liberal.” “Shallowness.” “Startlingly obvious.” “Political calculation.” “More Princess Diana than John Kennedy.” “Calls into question his political character and leaves the impression he is consumed and defined by ambition.”

When those are the “impressions” your supporters are saying you’re making, you just might be in trouble. Brings to mind the old political saying about impressions: If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it just might be a duck.” Quack, quack, quack, Obama.

If I may be so unkind as to mangle a phrase from your former pastor, the not-very-reverend Wright, “Your ducks are coming home to roost!”