Nailed It

Mr. Millman succinctly wraps up just how poorly Barack Obama’s damage control has been thus far in the Reverend Wright Affair. Obama has had two separate chances to disavow Wright’s nonsense; he used one to tie himself closer to the nutjob (while cynically trying to portray attacks on Wright as attacks on the black community writ large), and the second to half-heartedly throw him under the bus. As Noah points out, he threw the Rev under the wrong bus.

This has to be killing Obama with moderates, since most of his campaign was based on little more than “hope,” “change,”* and “optimism.” He has since been revealed as little more than another cynical politician. For the record, I have no problem with cynical politicians–it comes with the territory. But he shouldn’t have pretended to be something he isn’t, and I must confess a small measure of joy that everyone else is finally seeing Barack Obama for what he really is.

*Just for kicks, here is Mr. Salam’s interpretation of the Obama campaign ca. March 7. Pretty much dead on as far as I can tell…I’d be interested to see how he’d interpret the campaigns right now…