Another wisp amid the fog of war ...

President Barack Obama got a huge boost from Democratic primary voters who knew that he, alone among 2008 contenders, had spoken against the Iraq invasion.

Five years later, another Democratic presidential aspirant is edging toward a position questioning a Syria war that is out of sync with his party's leader. The Baltimore Sun reports:

Gov. Martin O'Malley on Wednesday questioned U.S. military intervention in Syria, saying that although he has closely followed the discussion in Washington this week, it is still unclear to him exactly what the strike would accomplish.

O'Malley, who is considering a bid for president in 2016, said he has discussed the possibility of a strike with Maryland Democratic Congressmen Elijah E. Cummings and John P. Sarbanes, who appeared alongside the governor at an unrelated event in Baltimore.

"I think all of us need a clear understanding of what it is exactly this mission would hope to accomplish - and why should we believe that the sort of strike being advocated would accomplish it," O'Malley said. "That's what I'm, along with other Americans, hoping to better understand in the course of this congressional debate."

I know almost nothing about O'Malley except that his state ended the death penalty on his watch. For all I know, he's one of those pols who look a lot better the farther you are located away from them.

But it is important that somebody who is plausibly in the Dem field for 2016 thinks it is worth staking out a position away from the Prez against yet another war. That's democracy -- small "d" -- at work.