Obama Heard Wrong? Obama Spoke Wrong? (JM)

So here is a link to a Weekly Standard post about Obama's claim about a rifle platoon during the debate last night. Essentially he got quite a few facts wrong about the scenario. Right wing bloggers are using this as an excuse to pan Obama for a lack of understanding and accusing him of making up the scenario altogether. Lefty bloggers are coming out in defense of the overall point and saying that these were minor points.

All I will say is this, Obama making even small mistakes on matters military is a big big deal. People on the left shouldn't be playing dismissive, but rather calling on Obama to tread very carefully when it comes to this sort of issue. This is his Achilles' Heel and stubborn denial is simply not going to be effective in this regard. Should Obama get the nomination he should avoid specifics in areas where he is not particularly comfortable and avoid getting nailed down on details unless he has them cold.

People keep forgetting, what works amongst the liberal base will not work in the general. Obama has won many more states than Hillary, but he won liberals in tons of states they the Democrats are totally unlikely to win in the general. This is going to be a very close election, for voters of a very different demographic. He's going to have to change his game a bit to beat McCain, the war is going to be the central issue, and if there is any way Obama can be painted as unready to be Commander-in-Chief, that's the ballgame.

EDIT: I my haste, I overlooked an excellent article by Jack Tapper of ABC legitimizing Obama's story. It's hard to be sure which side is correct on this, of course this being a central problem fighting a GOP machine that will spew inaccuracy as truth without a second's thought. Regardless, the concerns I have above still hold true for the general election.