Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom is not swept up in the Obama wave. He voted for him and quickly regretted it:

Within a year, I recognized him for the fake he is. Voting down the highly qualified Justice Roberts was the tipoff. Even the Washington Post endorsed Roberts. It was the calculated move of a man with his eye on the White House, a guy trying to play both sides.

Since he's been in office, he's been a low—key, but mainline liberal voter: No to Bolton, No to CAFTA, No to ANWR, Yes to Civil Rights for Terrorists, Yes to every social activist program. With a couple of exceptions the media trots out to accentuate his so—called centrism, he is a classic leftist trying to pass himself off as a centrist——just like Bill. In fact, he may be brighter than Bill: writing a book that pre—emptively exposes your youthful cocaine snorting is nothing less than genius.

Left out of the breathless accounts of his centrism are items like these discovered by the Washington Times in 2004:

In October 2002, Mr. Obama said that the buildup to the war against Saddam Hussein was just a political diversion concocted by Bush political adviser Karl Rove....

Mr. Obama has been endorsed by the anti—defense organization Council for a Livable World, which supports cuts in defense spending and opposes missile defense.

Mr. Obama supports gun—control laws across the board. As an official at the Illinois State Riflle Association told us, "Mr. Obama is about as liberal as you can get"on the question of gun ownership.

It's a good bet that whenever the media paints a pol as the next George Washington, he's more likely to be the next Jimmy Carter.
 
Clarice Feldman   10 25 06