“I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability,” stated Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama recently in Fargo, North Dakota. “That assessment has not changed. And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”

That is just another in a long and growing list of ‘nuanced’, as Democrats like to say during elections, positions on issues by the Democrat hopeful early in this election season.

If, say, Senator Hillary Clinton had made that statement then one could reasonably agree with it’s premise, but Barack Obama on the other hand was shooting for the high bar of vocabulactic mendacity set only by the mendacity maestro Bill Clinton.

This egregious stretch of the truth was so far-reaching even the New York Times had to take a deep breath before trying to attack Republican nominee Senator John McCain on the subject.

Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny wrote in a recent Times column, “Mr. Obama’s positioning on this issue has been a critical component of his candidacy from the beginning. He, almost alone among the major candidates, opposed the Iraq war from the start, and that helped him beat a crowded Democratic field to win the nomination. And while he has long said that he would consult the commanders in the field when withdrawing troops, the caveat may have been lost on many Democratic primary voters who supported his call to end the war.”

Pretty good for liberal reporters, they hit the nail right on the head. For Obama to assert that he has “always said” something would mean there could be no doubt about his position, but for these reporters to point out “the caveat may have been lost on many Democrat voters” clearly indicates that he in fact has NOT always said he would get more information before making a decision on withdrawal.

As a matter of fact he attacked his once political rival for the Democrat nomination for her position on withdrawal that was basically the position he is now claiming he has always had and has “always said”.

Not only that, it seems from the early going that Obama may become the King of vocabulactic mendacity. Adding another caveat concerning his withdrawal position of yore as he heads for an upcoming trip to Iraq he clearly stated, “when I go to Iraq ... I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”

He will refine his policies!

In October of 2007, Obama said, “So I'm not sure if any of us knows exactly where she's standing on this issue. But I can tell you this—when I am president of the United States, the American people and the world will always know where I stand."

To date, apparently nobody, including Obama by his own admission, knows what his position is on just about any issue.

Anyone remember Samantha Power? She was one of Barack's top foreign advisors who called Hillary a ‘monster’, but before she was fired went on the BBC and clarified Obama’s withdrawal caveat pointing out that Obama didn’t have a real exit strategy for Iraq.

From the transcript of that interview, “POWER: You can’t make a commitment in whatever month we’re in now, in March of 2008 about what circumstances are gonna be like in Jan. 2009. We can’t even tell what Bush is up to in terms of troop pauses and so forth. He will of course not rely upon some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or as a US senator.

He will rely upon a plan, an operational plan that he pulls together, in consultation with people who are on the ground, to whom he doesn’t have daily access now as a result of not being the president.

So to think, I mean it would be the height of ideology, you know, to sort of say, well I said it therefore I’m going to impose it on whatever reality entreats me –

SACKUR: Ok, so the 16 months is negotiable?

POWER: It’s the best case scenario”

Clinton even responded at the time saying, "He has attacked me continuously for having no hard exit date and now we learn that he doesn't have one -– in fact he doesn't have a plan at all according to his top foreign policy adviser. He keeps telling people one thing while his campaign tells people abroad something else. I'm not sure what the American people should believe but I would refer you to the BBC interview in which the top foreign policy adviser is speaking about senator Obama and Iraq."

Let’s review, Obama just stated, “And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”

But back during the Democrat Primary debate in Pennsylvania covered by ABC he must have been eliciting the well-crafted caveat.

GIBSON: And, Senator Obama, your campaign manager, David Plouffe, said, “When he is” — this is talking about you — “When he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most. There should be no confusion about that.”

“So you’d give the same rock-hard pledge, that no matter what the military commanders said, you would give the order to bring them home?

OBAMA: Because the commander-in-chief sets the mission, Charlie.

That’s not the role of the generals. And one of the things that’s been interesting about the president’s approach lately has been to say, “Well, I’m just taking cues from General Petraeus. Well, the president sets the mission. The general and our troops carry out that mission.”

Obama also added during that performance of vocabulactic mendacity, “Now, I will always listen to our commanders on the ground with respect to tactics, once I’ve given them a new mission, that we are going to proceed deliberately, in an orderly fashion, out of Iraq, and we are going to have our combat troops out,” and he defiantly assured, “the buck stops with me as the commander-in-chief.”

Syndicated Columnist Charles Krauthammer stated it perfectly in a recent column, “In last week's column, I thought I had thoroughly chronicled Obama's brazen reversals of position and abandonment of principles -- on public financing of campaigns, on NAFTA, on telecom immunity for post-9/11 wiretaps, on unconditional talks with Ahmadinejad -- as he moved to the center for the general election campaign. I misjudged him. He was just getting started.”

Democrats may have missed the caveat, but they will soon learn that funny tasting stuff Obama’s been feeding them is not an expensive spread but really a rotten jam.