She's Not Dead Yet

I'm with Drum. It's not just that all post-Adlai Dems who ran a second time didn't win: Humphrey, McGovern, Hart, Gore, Gephardt, Biden, Edwards and on and on.

Did Obama being on the defensive over NAFTA and Antoin "Tony" Rezko have an impact? Is he likely to face more of the kind of tough questioning he got on Monday, which was led by Chicago reporters?

"Hmm," says Ed Morrissey, who has moved his blog to Hot Air. "It appears that the local press has managed to do what the national media could not -- treat Obama as a politician and not a secular messiah. They asked tough questions about Obama's political connections to a fixer and his campaign's outright false answers on an Obama adviser's contacts with Canadian diplomats regarding Obama's rhetoric on NAFTA . . .

"Compare this to the press conference John McCain held after the New York Times smeared him by accusing him of having a sexual affair with a lobbyist. Not only did McCain -- whose temper has its own zip code, according to some Capitol Hill staffers -- give a lengthy and reserved statement, but then stood at the podium until the reporters ran out of questions. In fact, at the end, McCain had to ask twice whether anyone had anything else to ask him before leaving the podium.

"By my count, McCain answered 36 questions in this press conference. How many did Obama take before walking off in a huff?"

A similar reaction from across the spectrum, by Jeralyn Merritt of Talk Left:

"What a disgrace that it took the media so long. If Hillary should end up out of the race by next week, which I doubt, they'll be jumping on Obama and propping up McCain. I'll be having none of it."

Or, as Hotline described Obama's challenge, invoking the dogged Chicago Sun-Times reporter who was at the news conference: "If He Can't Face Lynn Sweet, How Can He Face Al-Qaeda?"

From a damage-control perspective, it's pretty clear that the Obama camp mishandled the NAFTA flap and made their guy look like . . . just another politician. National Review's Byron York examines the chronology:

"With the evidence we have so far, Obama appears to be in a difficult position. At first, his campaign denied that there was any contact with the Canadian government. Then, when it was forced to concede that there had been contact, it insisted that it had nothing to do with softening Obama's position on NAFTA. And then, when the newly-released memo suggested that it had been about just that, Team Obama simply stuck with its story . . .

"So it's not likely that the story will go away, given the Obama campaign's inaccurate and misleading statements about it and the Clinton campaign's interest in keeping the controversy alive. The only question is whether it will do Obama any significant damage and Clinton any significant benefit."

OpinionJournal's John Fund sees Obama as largely immune to scrutiny until now:

"John McCain's dealings with lobbyists have properly come under a microscope; why not Mr. Obama's? Partly, says Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, because the national media establishment has decided that Chicago's grubby politics interferes with the story line of hope they've set out for Mr. Obama. Former Washington Post reporter Tom Edsall, who now teaches journalism at Columbia University, told Canada's Globe & Mail that 'reporters have sometimes allowed themselves to get too much caught up in [Obama] excitement.' Then there are Chicago Republicans, loath to encourage the national party to pounce because some of their own leaders are caught in the Rezko mess."

After McCain held a media barbecue at his cabin near Sedona, Columbia Journalism Review seems to have developed indigestion, especially since it was on the record but political questions were discouraged:

"Such ground rules must go down easier with a tour of the grounds and a plateful of McCain-made ribs. (While, apparently, 'objectivity prohibits a good reporter' like Reuters' Jeff Mason from telling readers how tasty McCain's ribs were, CBS's Dante Higgins 'is confident in reporting they were succulent and flavorful').

"In return for dropping 'political talk,' reporters got their candidate-cooked meal. And a tire swing. And Frank Sinatra tunes on the deck.

"And McCain, in return, got press coverage depicting a relaxed, confident, regular-like-you-and-me-but-also-very-much-in-charge guy holding court at what could well be, as so many reporters noted, the future Western White House. (Could rib-grilling be the new brush-clearing? Just as manly -- and sticks to reporters' ribs!)"

There might be a morsel of a complaint here if journalists didn't get much chance to ask McCain serious questions. But he's the most accessible presidential candidate in modern history. Hillary had one dinner with her press corps, but it was off the record. And my sources say she didn't cook.

It's true: Media coverage of the campaign has gone into the toilet.

Finally, Judith Regan may have settled her suit against Rupert Murdoch's company, but now her own lawyers are suing her.