US Elections:BARACK OBAMA has accused the media of exaggerating the significance of his statement last week that he will "continue to refine" his policy on Iraq after a visit there this summer, writes Denis Staunton.
The Democratic candidate, who has alarmed some supporters with a succession of policy shifts in recent weeks, said he was surprised at how the media has "finely calibrated" his remarks on Iraq. "I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement. I am absolutely committed to ending the war," he said.
Mr Obama insisted that his suggestion that events on the ground could slow his planned 16-month withdrawal of US troops from Iraq simply did not imply any change in policy. "The tactics of how we ensure our troops are safe as we pull out, how we execute the withdrawal - those are things that are all based on facts and conditions. I am not somebody - unlike George Bush - who is willing to ignore facts on the basis of my preconceived notions," he said.
John McCain's campaign has claimed that Mr Obama's refinement of his position on Iraq means that he has adopted the policy of his Republican presidential rival.
Since he secured the Democratic nomination last month, Mr Obama has expressed support for Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, suggested that the death penalty should be available for child rapists, backed a supreme court decision that lifted a gun ban in Washington, and proposed expanding Mr Bush's faith-based social programmes.
The Democratic candidate has also abandoned a promise to accept federal spending limits in the general election, and has reversed his position on a bill that protects from prosecution phone companies that helped implement Mr Bush's illegal eavesdropping on American citizens.
"Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mould of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush's abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution, and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics. Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings," the New York Times wrote yesterday. "We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr Obama's shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games."
Mr Obama defended his embrace of faith-based programmes at a national meeting of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a major black denomination, at the weekend, saying it was the government's duty to address "moral problems" such as war, poverty, joblessness, homelessness, violent streets and crumbling schools, and to employ the help of religious institutions.
"As long as we're not doing everything in our individual and collective power to solve the challenges we face, the conscience of our nation cannot rest," he said.