Speaking of CHANGE...

Tank over at National Review has linked to a web site called Versionista which tracks the changes in politicians' web sites.

Specifically, Tank has posted about a few changes to the web site of Mr. Hopey Changey himself.

The way Versionista works, they store page images and then do a comparison, with additions and deletions highlighted between the two. A lot of the changes are minor editing, fixing spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so forth, but Mr. Obama seems to be having trouble defining himself...

Obama on ending the Iraq War:

In Clinton, Iowa, September 2007

At a Glance
* Judgment You Can Trust
* Bring Our Troops Home
* Press Iraq’s leaders to reconcile
* Regional Diplomacy
* Humanitarian Initiative
Speak your mind and help set the policies that will guide this campaign and change the country.
* Present your ideas

And in Fayetteville, NC, March of 2008:

At a Glance
* Judgment You Can Trust
* A Responsible, Phased Withdrawal
* Encourage Political Accommodation
* Surging Diplomacy
* Preventing Humanitarian Crisis
* The Status of Forces Agreement

To be honest, (fair, even) I wonder how much of the change was Obama playing to the audience; Fayetteville, AKA Fayette Nam, is home, after all, to the XVIIIth Airborne Corps, 82nd Airborne Division, Special Operations Command, and Pope Air Force Base. However, since it wound up as ch-ch-ch-changes to his official web site, I'm not sure it matters.

These two versions, by the way, were "fetched" on June 11 and July 14, respectively.

There are more details below that; so far as I can tell, the reason he thinks we can trust his judgment is that he was against the war back when he was an Illinois State Senator, running for the US Senate, in 2002.

The later version of his website completely deleted this paragraph:

Obama has a plan to immediately begin withdrawing our troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year. He would call for a new constitutional convention in Iraq, convened with the United Nations, which would not adjourn until Iraq's leaders reach a new accord on reconciliation. He would use presidential leadership to surge our diplomacy with all of the nations of the region on behalf of a new regional security compact. And he would take immediate steps to confront the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Iraq.

The common assumption is that, since The Surge worked, he decided to pretend he never said that.

Meanwhile, Obama's website has deleted references to Campaign Finance Reform under the Ethics header. Change: The following paragraph was DELETED:

# Support Campaign Finance Reform: Obama supports public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests. Obama introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and is the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold's (D-WI) tough bill to reform the presidential public financing system.

(Again, the two versions were fetched on June 11, 2008, and July 17, 2008, respectively.)

Several issues here.
While a lot of us are opposed to McCain-Feingold (officially the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002) because of First Amendment issues, the specter of someone simply buying the presidency is, well, scary. McCain-Feingold was supposed to fix that.
A lot of folks talk up Mr. Hopey Changey's change of mind re: Public Financing because "He's not taking public money for his campaign", well, NOW he can get George "Billionaire Socialist" Soros to fund his campaign.
Because he went back on his word.
But, hey, we can trust his judgment...

And I'd like to know which "tough" Feingold bill it is that he's talking about having been the only candidate to have sponsored, 'cause the one that became law has the other candidate's NAME on it, for cryin' out loud!

But maybe that's why he changed his website.