I’ll admit, I don’t quite understand which particular acts of wrongdoing drive the mainstream media batty, and which ones are dismissed.
I thought Obama got off pretty easily on the implausible excuse that he knew Jeremiah Wright for twenty years but didn’t know what kind of a man he was and what kind of things he said from the pulpit.
I don’t think Obama can (yet) be held accountable for volunteers shooing away women in headscarves or demanding more white people to get just the right blend of faces behind him during speeches. And I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that Obama is snubbing Muslim voters as he denies being a member of their faith. (For the millionth time, Obama is not a Muslim. For twenty years, he was a member of the craziest Christian liberation theology church you could find, where the flock eagerly applauded the most vicious and inane statements from Jeremiah Wright and guest speakers like Michael Pfleger.)
And then there’s opting out of public financing, which is apparently the media’s cardinal sin. Obama is still getting raked over the coals for it, and Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post is furious:
When in the course of political events it becomes advantageous for a presidential candidate to dissolve a campaign promise, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that the candidate at least refrain from wrapping himself in the Declaration of Independence.
Not Barack Obama…
What’s galling is Obama’s effort to portray himself through this entire episode as somehow different from, and purer than, the ordinary politician. Different might have been coupling the announcement with a self-imposed limit on the size of donations. Different might have been — it could still be — taking the big checks but acknowledging that, since bundlers will be bringing in even bigger hauls, disclosure should be adjusted accordingly, to reveal not only who raised $200,000 but also who brought in $500,000, who $1 million.
Obama’s not the first politician to break a promise. He may be the first to do so in the guise of John Hancock, exuberantly signing the Declaration.
She’s referring to this web page on Obama’s site, urging donors to “Donate to Declare your Independence.”