"If he continues to move to the right, he's going to alienate his most enthusiastic supporters ... who were responsible for catapulting him this far," Palermo wrote.

But if the Obama campaign thinks the reaction to his sudden lurch to the center on guns, trade and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is hurting him, wait until the full weight of his political shift on the Iraq war comes crashing down.

Soon after my Monday column revealed that a top defense adviser was recommending that significant levels of U.S. military forces should stay in Iraq to ensure its stability, Obama was sending clear signals that he was indeed moving in that direction.

In an interview with the Military Times on Monday, Obama suggested he was indeed rethinking his plan for a complete military pullout. Instead, he said, any troop withdrawals would be done "in a deliberate fashion in consultation with the Iraqi government, at a pace that is determined in consultation with Gen. (David) Petraeus and the other commanders on the ground."

If Iraq's security was in any danger at that time, "then that's going to have to be taken into account," he said. In other words, conditions on the ground, Iraq's security needs and the American commander in Iraq will shape and influence his decision.

Obama campaign representative Robert Gibbs dropped deeper hints of a more gradual withdrawal strategy Monday, telling CNN, "Obviously, you have to give commanders on the ground flexibility. We'd be crazy not to."

In other words, Barack Obama has abandoned the core promise of his presidential candidacy that he would end the war by withdrawing all U.S. combat forces from Iraq within 16 months -- a preposterous position in the first place.

Obama's new position is that it may take longer than that -- a lot longer. He promised his supporters "change you can believe in," but now, how can they believe anything he says?