Barack Obama - wrong again

There's a common technique of sportswriters and pundits of talking about things that they got wrong, a way to do it so that you don't actually concede that you were wrong. Barack Obama has mastered it.

“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

There it is. He was wrong, dead wrong, absolutely, totally wrong, could not be more wrong. But he can't admit that he was wrong, and tries to frame it so that he doesn't have to.

1. Find the issue one which you were wr...wr...wrong


2. Defend your position as being the correct position


3. Retroactively declare that there was total unanimity - "no one could have POSSIBLY foreseen this!"

In the case of the surge, it is obvious that, not only was he wrong then, he's wrong now.

"The surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated."

Poppycock. George W. Bush, for one, anticipated the surge working. John McCain anticipated the surge working. General Petraeus, millions of other Americans, and I all anticipated the surge working. By retroactively declaring that no one anticipated it, you get to pass off poor judgment as good judgment. But he was W-R-O-N-G. George Bush was right. John McCain was right.

Barack Obama tried to lose the war in Iraq. He failed. And now, he wants no blame for taking that position, because he wants you to believe that winning was unforeseeable, and if it was unforeseeable, well, no one can blame him for not foreseeing it. But it wasn't unforeseeable, it was very predictable, it has played out much as many of us anticipated, and he demonstrated dreadful judgment in trying to prevent it from happening.

He won't tell you that that's what happened. But I will.

This is not a link to Sarah Palin in a bikini