The Half-Wink President

Chris Cilizza writes about the anger engendered on the left by the President's (correct) decision to withold the Pentagon photos of detainee abuse.

Perhaps the rage is understandable -- by arguing that the photos reflect behavior that isn't representative of the military, Obama puts the lefty critics of President Bush in a corner, forced to choose whether their hero is, in fact, complicit in a "cover-up" or whether the detainee abuse was far less widespread than they had previously claimed.

But if Cilizza believes that the disenchantment will be permanent, he's wrong. President Obama is a master of the half-wink to the far-left -- signalling his agreement with them on matters like gay marriage while more publicly espousing only the farthest-left policy he believes the public will accept.