OBAMA’S AGENDA….Hilzoy, noting that Barack Obama plans to meet with his military advisors on Wednesday to discuss Iraq, says this is hardly unexpected:
On This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked David Axelrod whether, in this meeting, Obama would ask those officers to come up with a plan to withdraw US combat forces in Iraq within sixteen months. Axelrod said, simply: “Yes.”
This should not be surprising in view of the fact that Obama has consistently promised to do exactly this.
I’m not surprised either. In fact, so far Obama has given every sign — both for good and ill — of taking campaign trail promises unusually seriously. I know it’s premature to say that with any authority, but on taxes and stimulus and DADT and Iraq and a slew of other issues, I’ve been impressed with how seldom he’s given any indication of either backing down from promises or adding in lots of stuff he once said he was against.
Obviously Congress will force plenty of changes on him in the future, and so will events on the ground. But so far, despite the endless rounds of ungrounded rumors and speculation from the punditocracy, the betting man’s line on Obama ought to be pretty simple: just take a look at what he said he was going to do during the campaign. More than likely, that’s what he’s going to do when the rubber meets the road in the Oval Office.
