Athletes all across the globe are training for the Summer Olympics. The stories this year promise to be legendary. But most importantly Presidential candidate Barack Obama could see his Olympic dream of a gold medal realized. He has been training for months in gymnastics, excelling in the difficult-to-master acrobatic flip flop.

The flip-flop is often a misunderstood art where the acrobat must first state a position plainly but soon after directly contradict himself. The trick is to either have nobody notice or nobody care.

Some say it’s the most difficult sport in the world. But for Obama, it seems to come easy. Obama’s training regime has been intense to say the least.

Just recently, Obama warmed up by announcing he supports broader authority for the government’s eavesdropping program after loudly opposing a similar bill last year.

And then, after the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia’s gun ban, the handgun-banning proponent claimed he favors both an individual’s right to own a gun as well as government’s right to regulate ownership.

Political and gymnastic experts alike were astounded at the relative ease Obama claimed mutually exclusive ideals. Wow, was all they could say. Untethered by logic or reason, Obama swirled and twirled his oratorical brilliance far above the heads of the common man, hypnotizing them all.

But Obama was only getting started.

Obama became the first major-party candidate to reject public financing for the general election after earlier public promises to accept it. And just as it seemed that he wouldn’t be able to pull of this impossible maneuver without being found out as a political hack, Obama sent his spokesperson out to parse language to show that the candidate never “committed himself” on the matter.

Brilliant. And the media and the crowd loved it pouring their affection into the empty vessel of his candidacy.

Then Obama attempted a tricky feat by adopting a policy of an unpopular Republican President. Obama not only embraced but promised to expand President Bush’s program to give more anti-poverty grants to religious groups which put him at odds with his own party. And then the candidate landed gently into the dogma of his anti-religion party by putting so many restrictions on it as to make it impossible for any sane person to believe him.

BUT THEY DID!

On a roll, Obama then objected to the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the death penalty for child rapists, even though he has been long been anti-capital punishment.

Then, Obama clearly “in the zone” decided to pull a stunt which no politician on the left has dared, by saying “mental distress” should not count as a health exception that would permit a late-term abortion. This premise completely contradicted his promise to remove any and all restrictions on abortion in his first year in office.

But this last maneuver is the mother of all flip flops for many reasons. Firstly, a successful flip-flop typically takes weeks or months if not years to pull off. Obama has mastered it so much that he recently completed a full flip-flop in a record four hours. And this one wasn’t just a regular old flip-flop. Obama pulled off the amazing and dreaded flip-flop-flip which hasn’t ever been performed in public. Obama, who’s been saying for months he’d have the troops home within 16 months, said Thursday that his upcoming trip there might lead him to refine his promise to quickly remove U.S. troops from the war.

But so immediate — and outraged — was the reaction in the Democratic blogosphere that Obama felt the need to go back before reporters later the same afternoon and insist his Iraq pledge had not changed. “I intend to end this war,” he said. “I have seen no information that contradicts the notion that we can bring troops out safely at a pace of one to two brigades per month.”

This astounding display of “stunt politics” has dwarfed his previous efforts like his switch over the Cuba embargo, illegal immigration, and the legalization of marijuana.

We can only hope that this very young career is only a glimpse into the rhetorical gymnastics an Obama Presidency will bring us.