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This is fairly simple, people.

Obama may have shifted his position on FISA "reform," but there's nothing "centrist" about his moves. And he is still promising to work with Sen. Dodd to strip the retroactive immunity provisions from the final bill.

Obama hasn't shifted his position on Iraq at all. The media has gotten this one all wrong. At bottom, his policy has always been that we "must be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in." He has promised a 16-month gradual timetable for removing troops from Iraq, but it has of course always been contingent on the situation in Iraq in 2009 and 2010. To expect otherwise would have meant setting next year's strategy based on last year's reality, a nonsensical approach to, well... anything.

Josh Marshall nails it:

The McCain camp seems to have a lot of reporters eating out of its hands since many journalists don't appear to grasp the basic distinction between strategy and tactics. I've even had normally sensible journalist colleagues forwarding me RNC press releases like they're passing on the revealed truth. McCain's campaign actually put out a statement claiming that Obama "has now adopted John McCain's position that we cannot risk the progress we have made in Iraq by beginning to withdraw our troops immediately without concern for conditions on the ground."

I've watched this campaign unfold pretty closely. And I've listened to Obama's position on Iraq. He's been very clear through this year and last on the distinction between strategy and tactics. Presidents set the strategy -- which in this context means the goal or the policy. And if the policy is a military one, a President will consult closely with his military advisors on the tactics used to execute the policy.

This is an elementary distinction the current occupant in the White House has continually tried to confuse by claiming that his policies are driven and constrained by the advice he's given by his commanders on the ground. There's nothing odd or contradictory about Obama saying that he'll change the policy to one of withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq with a specific timetable but that he will consult with his military advisors about how best to execute that policy.

For the McCain campaign to put out a memo to reporters claiming that Obama has adopted McCain's policy only shows that his advisors believe that a sizable percentage of the political press is made up of incorrigible morons. And it's hard to disagree with the judgment.

Fundamentally, there is only one thing that matters: Obama wants to leave Iraq and McCain wants to stay. Even the McCain campaign, in its own backwards way, seems ready to admit this.

All of this leads to a much broader and more fundamental point. All of this talk about "moving to the center" is based on a tired, out of date narrative being put mindlessly back into play by lazy reporters. Yes, over the past 20 years or so, we have often seen candidates spend the primary season courting their base and the general election season courting the "center." On a very basic level that made sense, since over the past 20 years or so we've had relative stability in our political narratives and coalitions. But go back a bit further to the age of Ronald Reagan - i.e. go back to the moment of the last realignment - and you see nothing of the sort.

In between realignments the center, so far as it exists, is relatively stable. But in those moments when realignments are driven, the center shifts. And that's because at bottom, realignments are about redefining what it means to be in the center.

Obama clearly believes that we are in a realignment moment. That's what all of the talk about "expanding the map" and the 50 State Strategy are about. That's why he spent in the 4th of July in Montana. And in that context, moving to "the center" makes no sense, because the entire campaign is premised on redefining where the center lies.

So please, stop with this "every election is the same: first you run to the base, then you run to the center" idiocy. Some elections work like that, others don't. Let's look at the evidence first, and then build the narrative. To simply assume today's evidence fits yesterday's narrative is as stupid as suggesting that next year's president should live by last year's strategic assessments when setting their policy on ending the war in Iraq.