Very interesting discussion between Salon’s Glenn Greenwald and uber-blogger Matt Yglesias on the press’s coverage of the campaign.

But one of the most important points comes out toward the end where Greenwald and Yglesias both agree that the Obama campaign has, disappointingly, shifted gears since the primary, where Obama seemed to welcome a debate with the GOP on foreign policy first principles. Now the Dems are blurring the differences, as highlighted by the Russia/Georgia situation. Sarah Palin, being relatively untutored, stated in her ABC interview the plain implication of admitting Georgia and other nations from Russia’s “near abroad” into NATO: that we would be committing to going to war with Russia to defend those countries. This is plainly crazy and horrific, but Obama/Biden has essentially the same view. The difference is that they, being professional Washington pols, don’t come right out and say that this is the implication of admitting Georgia, et al. to NATO membership.

Greenwald further makes the important point that, in a supposed democracy, this kind of stuff should be laid out clearly so people can see the implications of the policies their leaders are proposing. As always, I fear that in trying to be a pale imitation of GOP bellicosity rather than staking out a genuinely different position, the Dems will get rolled.