THE REVIEW HELPS CLOSE DOOR ON OBAMA'S DRAFT

It seems Obama's transition team has gotten a bit ahead of itself. On Friday we reported that Obama, according to a statement on the transition team's web site, "will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year."

As we noted, this plan is in sync with programs proposed by Obama's new chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, and by others close to the president-elect.

The item was reported by the Review and the conservative site Newsbusters but hardly any place else.

By Sunday, going to the page brought up this: "The page you requested is not available right now."

Yet, curiously, on another url one found the original proposal and layout, but substantively changed. National service is not longer a requirement, but only a goal:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.

It appears that Obama has backed off the backdoor draft, setting some sort of record for politician mind-changing.

But is this change permanent? We have no idea but will stay on the case.