For the second time in two weeks, advisers to Barack Obama's campaign have been caught making comments perceived to be contradictory to what their candidate professes publicly. The first instance was an Obama adviser's assurances to representatives of the Canadian government that candidate Obama was just badmouthing NAFTA in Ohio for political gain.

The Obama campaign arguably did more damage to itself by denying the meeting when there was proof that it had taken place than it did by allowing the meeting to take place in the first place. Most analysts agree this cost him Ohio, and may account partly for his slowing O-mentum.

This week's gaffe is of the same nature, which is worse for Obama than if it had been some other sort, as it's beginning to look like a pattern of, if not duplicity exactly, pragmatism bordering on the politics of cynicism on his part.

By now, everybody knows that unpaid Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power called Clinton a "monster" (and? your point is?) on TV. But she also made another much more shockingly realist observation on a press junket in the UK. When asked leadingly by Stephen Sackur of the BBC "So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out [of Iraq] within sixteen months, isn’t a commitment, [is it]?" Power replied:

You can’t make a commitment in whatever month we’re in now, in March of 2008 about what circumstances are gonna be like in Jan. 2009. We can’t even tell what Bush is up to in terms of troop pauses and so forth. He will of course not rely upon some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or as a US senator. He will rely upon a plan, an operational plan that he pulls together, in consultation with people who are on the ground, to whom he doesn’t have daily access now as a result of not being the president. So to think, I mean it would be the height of ideology, you know, to sort of say, well I said it therefore I’m going to impose it on whatever reality entreats me

Sackur went on to clarify: "Ok, so the 16 months is negotiable?" Power replied: "It’s the best case scenario." Sackur repeated: "It’s the best case scenario... and of course in Iraq we’ve never seen best case scenario." Power confirmed: "We have never seen best case scenario." Sackur concluded: "So we needn’t necessarily take it seriously at all."

(The sixteen-month estimate comes from Obama's website, by the way, which states he "will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.")

To be clear: none of what Power said in the interview was unreasonable (although her manner is unduly strident and she didn't seem to realize that the question was hostile), and none of it really contradicts what Obama has said over the course of his campaign. In debates with his rivals he rarely discusses his plans to get the US out of Iraq anyway, he is generally too busy pointing out that his opponents got us into it. Fair enough.

But the sixteen-month figure is the very definition of his "Politics of Hope," which makes a pragmatic assessment like the one Power gave the BBC sound much more cynical than it actually is. It does not prove Obama a liar, it merely proves him a politician. And if it forces his staunchest fans to acknowledge this, albeit defensively, and perhaps adjust their expectations accordingly, that can only be a good thing in my book.

Obama's response to increased scrutiny over the past couple of weeks has been similar to his brother-in-arms, Deval Patrick's. When asked more than eight questions, he can become tart and dismissive. By the twelve-question mark we're in tizzy territory. Still, he's cuter and cuddlier than the Hillary Monster. But then so is a saber tooth tiger.

Speaking of The Monster. Hillary is taking a brilliant tack, playing off of her opponent's popularity by repeatedly hinting that should she be the party's nominee, she would draft him as her second. Obama, on the other hand, has been tartly dismissive of Democrats' "dream ticket," which makes him come off as more of a potential divider than the uniter he claims to be.

In fact, in the day or two after Clinton's wins in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island, Obama vowed to get tougher, but he has actually hedged himself in with his message of hope and change. He is no more attractive when tart and petulant than his opponent is.

These latest developments remind me a little of the ending of the Matrix Trilogy, the epic battle between Neo and Mr. Smith, and if this brilliant twist is all that comes out of Madam Clinton's persistence in staying in the race, it will have been well worth it, for me at least.

Fear not. Come August we'll have Democrats: Reloaded.

But Revolutions might have to wait.