Have there been any others? Has there ever been one where he came down on the right side and didn’t backpedal?

(Also, thanks to Aishlin for explaining. At least for me, it’s too easy to forget some of the other viewpoints. Remember: you were insistently and skillfully lied to. I’d say it speaks well for *your* honesty that you expected honesty. There’s a reason why many of the people who didn’t support him were older.)

But I still say, the air waves here are SO anti Moslem and anti First Amendment generally, I see why the odd rational statement on these matters stands out.

Being moderate and unconfrontational is who Obama. For more perspective on this, read the Judis article, if you have a spare 15 minutes today.

In many ways, the low bar explains the rise and triumph of Obama in the first place. Being the not-Bush with no record of problematic votes he had to cast while gaining actual experience in Washington were his major credentials. Not having major experience either in Washington or in any executive office clearly has hurt his presidency. I almost never link to The New Republic (unless it’s to mock something published there), but I found this analysis of the problems with Obama’s governing strategy as well as his specific tactics is extremely acute: John Judis, “The Unnecessary Fall: A Counter-History of the Obama Presidency.” (Regular readers will have seen most of the opinions therein expressed in various different ways here over the past 18 months.)

We need a bold leader willing to take the heat, not the post-partisan unity schtick. Readers are free to disagree, but I don’t think that giving Obama cookies for endorsing the First Amendment is anything but silly. I don’t see why that’s at all “intellectually sincere.” So “disappointed,” please show me the posts in which I have claimed otherwise, or have praised people inordinately for being able to read and comprehend the First Amendment.

Just because some folks on the left find Obama’s statement laudable doesn’t mean they are “settling for crumbs.” No one on the left, including the writer quoted, is actually saying that, because Obama has made this statement, his entire presidency is therefore an unqualified success and he is absolved of responsibility to do anything else. *Certainly* no one is saying that because Obama has spoken for the first-amendment rights of Muslims, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell suddenly doesn’t need to be addressed. Maybe I misread what you mean be “settling for crumbs”; I think a reasonable gloss of that phrase would be, ‘accept something meager as a substitute for something more substantial and appropriate.’ But who ever said this statement was a substitute for something else? It’s just a thing in itself, which observers are free to evaluate on its merits. And though it certainly isn’t earth-shattering, or anything more than what a president should say in this circumstance, it is, on its own (albeit small) merits, laudable. Evaluating it as a substitute for other things that no actual person is comparing it to is intellectually insincere.

This whole turn of events is disturbing on a number of levels – not only that an affirmation of basic 1st amendment rights is seen as courageous, but also that in the current (noxious) atmosphere, it is yet another illustration of the tin ear of the White House political operation. Ugh.

I keep thinking O. is moderating so as not to hurt the chances of Democratic candidates like Charlie Melancon, who might be able to replace David Vitter in the US Senate but will need Republican votes to do this. I can really see wisdom in that strategy if it is one.

At the same time Obama/Clinton are both Patriot Act fans so far as I can tell, and supporters of events such as the Honduran coup in addition to various other things, so I should stop feeling sorry for these Democrats and making excuses for them.

Concern trolls are commenters who come to a blog (usually in a hit-and-run) and express “concern” about the “tone” of a post, and pretend to be quite wounded by it all, usually while condescending to the blogger and/or other commenters and explaining that they *would* be in agreement with the ideas expressed if it weren’t for all that unseemly anger or aggression.