The Devil Made Him Do It

The agent of change ummm… changed his mind on public financing. He had to, mind you, because of John McCain and those dastardly Republican 527s that will be doing all of McCain’s dirty work. He becomes the first Presidential candidate since the current finance laws were written back in the 70s to opt out.

This whole public financing thing is an odd concept to us, anyway. We don’t begrudge Obama for opting out… it would seem to us that private funding is a general reflection of your appeal to voters so we applaud Senator Obama for not using our money to finance his campaign.

Unfortunately, though, for the Messiah, he painted himself into a corner by stating on numerous occasions in the recent past what a big fan he was of public campaign financing and how he would stay in the system. Now that he has the opportunity to privately raise so much more jack than he could garner through public financing, the “system is broken” and, you know, those Republicans are mean nasty people.

But in another disappointment to his hard Left followers, Obama has indicated that he will vote for the FISA wiretapping bill that passed muster in the House earlier this week and which will come up for a vote in Senate next week. This is more of what we like to call “maturing” or “growing in office” as Obama, though he missed the vote, was public in his opposition to the a previous version of the bill that was not substantially different.

We figure this has to be disappointing to those gauzy-eyed supporters of his (if they are indeed paying any attention) that the man who will wash this country’s political system clean of its sins is subject to the same political calculus as any other pol. As David Brooks points out, though, Obama is damn-near the ultimate political animal… a split personality whose only real principle is ambition.

H/T: Hot Air