More on Obama's shift to the right...

I've been playing a ton of poker lately, so no matter how much thought I put into this week's 'toon, it was always gonna be about poker. It just so happened to fit what Obama's been doing lately...

Articles n' things:

• As usual, Glenn Greenwald is spot-on:
  

  The central problem is that if Democrats embrace the GOP framework of National Security -- that "Strength" means what the GOP says it means -- then that framework gets enforced and perpetuated, and it's a framework within which Democrats can't possibly win, because Republicans will always "out-Strength" Democrats within that framework. It's only by challenging and disputing the underlying premises can Democrats change the way that "strength" and "weakness" are understood.
  ...
  Drawing a clear distinction with the deeply unpopular GOP is how Democrats look strong. The advice that they should "move to the center" and copy Republicans is guaranteed to make them look weak -- because it is weak. It's the definition of weakness.
  The most distinctive and potent -- one could even say exciting -- aspect of Obama's campaign had been his aggressive refusal to accept GOP pieties on National Security, his insistence that the GOP would lose -- and should lose -- debates over who is "stronger" and more "patriotic" and who will keep us more safe
  

  
  
• Makes you wonder if Obama's critics on the left are correct, that his public persona is masking the fact that he's not all that great on the issues after all. In contrast, Ralph Nader is often portrayed in a negative light, but the man is consistent... and he always makes a few good points:
  

  The corporations are pulling Obama every day, every day, twenty-four/seven, in their direction. If all these liberal groups with all their single issues are not pulling in the other direction, where do you think the Democratic Party and the nominee is going to go? Even if they’re elected, they won’t have any mandate.

  
  
• It's not just what Obama has been saying, but who he's saying it to.
  
  On late-term abortion:
  

  In an interview this week with "Relevant," a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain "a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother." Obama then added: "Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother..."
  

  On free trade:
  

  Obama's interview with Fortune magazine -- headlined "Obama: NAFTA Not So Bad After All" -- is the best news the McCain camp has received since Mike Huckabee folded his run for the Republican nomination.

  On faith-based initiatives:
  

  On June 10, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama convened a meeting in a law office in downtown Chicago with a wide array of about thirty evangelical leaders, in an unprecedented effort to win their support.

  How many "liberal" groups or publications has he pandered to lately? Aren't we supposed to be his base or something? And what the hell is up with the timing, here? Don't he and his advisers realize just how fast his base will leave him if he keeps acting like John Kerry?
  
  The most common reason given for overlooking these betrayals is: we can't afford to have another Republican-appointed member of the Supreme Court. But can we really trust Obama to pick a friendly Justice either? One thing's for sure: he better turn it around quick. His base is paying attention, and they'll desert him in a hurry if he stops representing them on the issues.