The cowboy in Cairo, 2.0

In last year's primary, Barack Obama showed an amusing (though somewhat worrisome) ability to run to the left of Hillary Clinton in the primary and to the right of John McCain in the general election. Now that he is president, he is continuing the good work. While running a domestic policy to the left of Lyndon Johnson's, he's Dubya reincarnated when it comes to the War on Terror. To be sure, he has rebranded everything in the evident hope that Antiwar.com won't notice that you couldn't insert the thin edge of a business card between the GWOT and the Overseas Contingency Operation, or that our withdrawal from Iraq is the one that George Bush negotiated last year.

And here he was in Cairo yesterday: 'Mr. Obama sharply criticized what he called the “disturbing tendency” among some Muslims, both Sunnis and Shiites, to “measure one’s own faith by the rejection of somebody else’s faith.”' in the words of the NYT, which at least in its online edition chooses not to give the rebuke in full. Can you imagine the sharp intake of breath among the Good People if Dubya had said anything so crass? Blue skies! -- Dan Ford