Confronted with the media uproar of this week (so far), Wesley Clark's declaration about military service not automatically qualifying a politician for leadership, Obama today passed up a perfect (from an opportunistic point of view) opportunity to apply the guillotine to the back of the general's neck. Ben Smith at Politico posts this from Obama's press conference today, "responding to a reporter who asked the candidate why he hadn't called on Wesley Clark to apologize for his remarks yesterday":

"I guess my question is why, given all the vast numbers of things that we've got to work on, that that would be a top priority of mine?" Obama said. "I'm happy to have all sorts of conversations about how we deal with Iraq and what happens with Iran, but the fact that somebody on a cable show or on a news show like Gen. Clark said something that was inartful about Sen. McCain I don't think is probably the thing that is keeping Ohioans up at night."

A lot of progressives have been wincing, and some yelping, that Obama's positions on the Supremes' Second Amendment decision, the companies-wiretap bill, and the war appropriation manifest a grim and counterproductive march toward the middle. (Here's Arianna Huffington, for example.) It's going to be a long campaign and an even longer presidency. Stuff, and politics, happen. But isn't it evident that the rush to conclude that Obama's dashing toward "the middle" is overgeneralized and overwrought? The toughest he went was "inartful."

Deep breaths, everyone.