I've gotten a million media requests lately to talk about Obama's "move to the center". Exhibit A for that conventional wisdom is Obama's capitulation on FISA.
As I've made clear to those reporters, there's nothing "centrist" about the FISA vote. There's nothing liberal or conservative about protecting the constitution. And given libertarians and liberals are both for keeping the Constitution out of the shredder, it's hard to pretend the issue sits on the simplistic left-right axis.
Bottom line is that Obama wants to cave on FISA not because of "moving to the center" concerns, but because they are afraid of television ads claiming Obama is inviting terrorists over for BBQ. It's the same crappy-style ads that failed miserably in the IL-14 special election (and Foster went on to vote against the FISA capitulation) and have gotten little traction this year. But the Obama campaign thinks that by capitulating, it'll "take the issue off the table", as if Republicans need any excuse to accuse Democrats of being weak on terror.
"Taking the issue off the table" led Democrats to vote for Bush's disastrous tax cuts, and most still lost that year (like Jean Carnahan and Max Cleland). It led them to vote for Bush's disastrous war, yet that didn't stop Republicans from morphing Cleland into Osama Bin Laden. And of course, no matter how they vote on FISA, Republicans will still accuse Democrats of being weak on terror. It's pretty much the only thing they've got left in their toolbox, no matter how ineffective it has become.
But in any case, Obama's FISA capitulation has nothing to do with "moving to the center", and everything with being afraid of the ads Republicans will run.
But don't expect the media to care. Their media narrative has been set. It ain't going anywhere.