OBAMA, CENTRIST? - AT 7:18 A.M. ET:  The Associated Press, in a fair analysis, asks the question being asked more and more in Washington:  Is President Obama moving toward the center, even at the risk of infuriating his vocal leftist supporters?  We're cautious on this.  We haven't seen enough proof.  But the question is intriguing, with vast implications for next year's congressional elections:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- On both economic and national-security fronts, President Barack Obama is giving ground and crossing swords with political allies.

Caught in the worst economic downturn in generations, Obama has had to temper his stance on trade and lower his expectations for trimming charitable tax breaks for the wealthy and for taxing greenhouse-gas polluters.

He's not the first president to be pulled toward the political center after being elected. But the recession and two wars abroad put him in a particularly tough spot -- with smaller margins for error.

With the deficit mushrooming, lawmakers in both parties are worrying more and more about rivers of government red ink. Yet, Obama's efforts to try to modestly pare back funds for some pet Democratic projects in the name of fiscal discipline have drawn sharp criticism from some of his otherwise staunch liberal allies.

COMMENT:  This may well turn out to be the political story of the year.  Who really is Barack Obama?  Are these "centrist" moves a change of thinking, or cynical political maneuvers reflecting public rejection of Obama's policies? 

But before we scream "centrist" too loudly, recall that this is the man who's expanding the government at the greatest rate in recent memory, and who began his foreign policy by insulting the prime minister of our closest ally, Great Britain.

In early June the president will speak to the Muslim world from Egypt.  I prefer to wait for that speech to see if he departs from his early groveling and apologizing, and speaks strongly and forthrightly as an American president.  If he does, we might begin to think that there's some hope.  No earlier.

May 19, 2009