Barack Obama may be smart, but he still hasn't figured out the rules of the league in which he is now playing. Mike Boyer, writing in Passport, a blog of the editors of Foreign Policy magazine, describes with a certain amount of disdain Obama's latest demonstration of his lack of understanding:

Two days after Barak Obama's latest foreign-policy gaffe-allowing reporters to see him reading a memo from his campaign advisors on how to spin the war in Iraq-there's a new round whispering among Washington's foreign-policy watchers as to whether the Illinois senator and presidential wannabe can really be taken seriously on these subjects. Similar chatter could be heard this summer after Obama's previous blunders on Pakistan and Israel-Palestine.

This most recent episode occurred during Tuesday's Senate testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker. To be reading a memo about how to politicize the war during their testimony showed incredibly bad taste. Regardless of what you think about their policies, Petraeus and Crocker are risking their lives every day in Iraq. While I'm not naive enough to think politics doesn't play a role in the conflict, a man who wants to be the next commander in chief should have shown more respect. As the Telegraph's Toby Harndon has noted, the screwup is enough to bring into question just how sincere Obama is about changing the culture in Washington.