I don't know if he and his campaign understand that, for some voters (blue collar, older, women, Hispanic/Latino, rural) having a D after his name won't be enough to guarantee their vote.  And his dash to the right/middle before shoring up these voters sets him up to look like he's pandering when he finds he has to backtrack to get the people he should have gotten FIRST!

Sure, I'll grant you that with parsing that yes, he technically didn't flip flop on the issue, but he emphasized the he would be C-in-C and that he would take the troops out on his terms.  (And he'd be right, unless we want the Generals to control the Fed. Govt., and I know none of us want that.  Well, maybe Gen. Clark, but that's not exactly what I meant.)  He said that he would get them out faster than Clinton, and he stressed that MUCH more than the conditions on the ground stuff.  Maybe we heard it the way we heard it because that's what he wanted us to hear!  

Hey, he is a pol, but I don't remember most of the blogs acknowledging that, instead they destroyed (or tried to at least, they got their man, but they did not destroy her) Clinton as a Republican hack who wanted our troops to die.  I know that is your general point, that issues should drive the blogosphere, not personalities.  But you just have to excuse those of us who saw a good and decent public servant raked mercilessly over the coals just so that Obama could do exactly what she would do getting a wee bit mad at him for it.  Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it" was a 100% accurate and honest statement, but it didn't do him one bit of good, did it?  So even if Obama is being 100% honest and accurate on his Iraq position, which he is, it hurts him because it seems like waffling.  

IMHO at least.

He "refines his positions artfully."

Pretty phrasing, isn't it.

As I recall there were only two candidate that were for bringing ALL the troops home and ending the war.  They were Kucinich and Gravel.

Of the top tier candidates Obama, Clinton and Edwards, there was very little difference in positions, although Edwards plan was more aggressive in getting more troops out sooner.  And, any troops left in the area according to Edwards, were to be located in a neighboring coutry instead of directly in Iraq.  Edwards kept saying in debates he would have ALL combat troops OUT of Iraq and always challenged Obama and Clinton on the fact that they planned to leave many combat troops in Iraq.

Both Obama and Clinotn countered Edwards by saying the combat troops they would leave in Irag would be there just to contend with left over pieces of AlQaeda.  Plus they would have troops to protect the embassy, contractors and finish training Iraqis.

The only difference I ever saw between Obama and Clinton's plans were that Obama always said it would take 16 months to get the troops out at a rate of removing 1 - 2 brigades per month.  Clinton always said she would start removing the troops at 1 - 2 brigades per month within 60 days of taking office.  But, she would never say how many months it would take.  But, since they both would be working in an environment with the same number of brigades, the fact that one did the math and the other didn't never seemed like much of a difference to me.

Neither Obama or Clinton ever gave an actual number of how many troops their plans would LEAVE in Iraq.  So, their supporters were always free to imagine what ever made them happy.  There seems to be an abundance of this ability among hard core Obama supporters anyway.

I assume you have seen the recent polling where voters declare by a 2-1 margin that the next President's priority should be "bringing the troops home" rather than "winning the war."  That's a pretty conclusive result, considering it's not like the numbers just got that overnight.

The problem is that Obama laid out a pretty concrete position in order to win the bidding war in the Democratic primary and has been trying ever since to send out signals that he doesn't really stand behind it.  Voters pick up on the cues a lot more than they sit there and parse the precise language.  I'm so tired of listening to people who buy the "responsible" flim-flam and insist that as long as Obama continues to say he'll do the responsible thing, he hasn't shifted one iota.  The "responsible thing" could be literally anything.

No, they just moaned about Hillary and the AUMF and declared only Change would do.

Only the most uninformed among us thought we could pull a bunch of troops out of Iraq with no consequences, there were even some on this blog saying so right up to the primaries. But the realists knew we could not and in this case so did Obama.

So he pandered (lied) to the Left to get nominated. And now as he has done with more that a few promises he is going where he knew he would go all along. But yet if he would have been truthful he would have not been nominated - so he lied.

Obama was supposed to be campaigning in Charlotte last night on behalf of Beverly Perdue.  His airplane had mechanical trouble out of Chicago and landed (for some reason I don't understand, it not being on the route) in Saint Louis at 9:51.  With all day to find alternate transportation to Charlotte, the campaign decided instead to phone in the speech.

Which would've been great if he could have remembered the name of the lady he was campaigning for.

Today, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki suggested having a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops. "The direction we are taking is to have a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or to have a timetable for their withdrawal," Maliki's office quoted him as saying.

But the administration has rebuffed Maliki's request for a timeline. Asked about the prime minister's comments today, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman hedged on whether the administration would follow the Iraqi government's request, criticizing timelines as "artificial."

And:

The State Department also hedged on whether the Bush administration would listen to Maliki. In a briefing today, spokesperson Sean McCormack said the remark may have been a transcription error:

McCORMACK: Well, that's really the part -- the point at which I would seek greater clarification in terms of remarks. I've seen the same press reports that you have, but I haven't yet had an opportunity to get greater clarify as to exactly to what Mr. Maliki was referring or if, in fact, that's an accurate reporting of what he said.

One gets the impression from his comments on the issue that a President McCain would take the Bush approach, putting up all kinds of roadblocks to leaving under any circumstance that could not be called unqualified "victory," while Obama would have - if he chose to take it - a huge opening to work with Maliki and the Iraqi government to get us out.  As the American people get wind of what is on the table with Iraq - assuming the media lets them in on the ongoing negotiations - it would be helpful to the Democrats' cause for voters to see McCain as being as stubborn and intransigent on this as Bush is and has been - it's an opportunity to sharpen the differences - for a change - and I, for one, will be hugely disappointed to see Obama not take advantage of a chance to do so.

Since then, a new U.S. counterinsurgency strategy has helped bring about a dramatic drop in violence, and the Iraqi government has gained control over most of the country. Among other things, Mr. Obama said "the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability" --

I remember someone on Faux saying that Reagan was too popular when he left office, should have ticked people off a little more with more right wing policies (huh?).  And that was why Bush ticked people off so much in his second term.  He was just spending his political capital (of course, he went overboard, to say the least).

Now Obama has flip-flopped many, many times...and whatdayaknow, his flip-flopping perception with the public is tied with McCain's.
Go here and look at the bar graph in the upper right.  http://www.pollingreport.com/.