“…changed himself into an Israel hard-liner”

I'm about to do something low, sordid, and shameful.  Something so odious that no amount of lye will purge the stain from my soul.  If you want to look away, this is your last chance.

I'm about to approvingly quote Dana Milbank:

Now, here's a change we can believe in.

A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday — and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner.

He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force has "rightly been labeled a terrorist organization." He used terms such as "false prophets of extremism" and "corrupt" while discussing Palestinians. And he promised that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

Vowing to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon, the newly minted nominee apparent added: "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused."

How could they be confused? As a pandering performance, it was the full Monty by a candidate who, during the primary, had positioned himself to Hillary Clinton's left on matters such as Iran. Yesterday, Obama, who has generally declined to wear an American-flag lapel pin, wore a joint U.S.-Israeli pin, and even tried a Hebrew phrase on the crowd.

Obama even outdid President Bush in his pro-Israel sentiments. On the very day that Obama vowed to protect Jerusalem as Israel's capital — drawing a furious denunciation from the Palestinian Authority — Bush announced that he was suspending a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

God, I feel so dirty.

Next up: I break out a scanning electron microscope in an attempt to locate that "hope" and "change" I keep hearing about.

(If you think I should feel more ashamed of splitting an infinitive, you need to fully accept that that's a dead prescriptive rule based on the unitary nature of Latin infinitives and doesn't apply to English's two-part infinitives.  No, really, you do.)