The Pastor Returns

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 25, 2008 9:32 AM

Barack Obama needed this like he needed a root canal.

Just when the Jeremiah Wright furor seemed to be dying down, the ex-pastor is back and suddenly inescapable. On the tube with Bill Moyers. Speaking to the NAACP. Showing up Monday at the National Press Club.

There it was yesterday, that endless loop of Wright shouting "God damn America" over and over. Yet another opportunity to talk about how he thinks the US of KKK-A created the AIDS virus to kill blacks.

This is rather amazing. At great political risk to himself, Obama refused to disavow Wright even as he tried to distance himself from the reverend's more inflammatory rhetoric. Wright might have repaid the favor to the man whose wedding he handled by laying low, at least until November.

Instead, Wright is mounting a media blitz that he has to know--has to know--is going to damage the most famous member of his former church. No matter how reasonable he sounds, he just reignites the controversy and throws his friend under the bus. This issue will be around until November if Obama gets the nomination, no question about it. Charlie Gibson led with it on "World News."

Moyers wasn't exactly channeling Mike Wallace here:

MOYERS: What did you think when you began to see those very brief sound bites circulating as they did?

WRIGHT:I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons . . .

MOYERS: Did you ever imagine that you would come to personify the black anger that so many whites fear?

WRIGHT: No. I did not.

Jeremiah aside, here's where the post-Pennsylvania media analysis stands:

Hillary Clinton refuses to die.

Obama is weaker than we thought and can't win the kind of people who go bowling.

John McCain is competitive in the polls.

Therefore . . . McCain might actually win!

Of course, there was always a possibility that McCain might win. Whatever his drawbacks, he's the Republican candidate with the strongest appeal to independent voters. But the environment is so hospitable to Democrats this year that the prevailing feeling among liberal pundits is that once we get through this primary messiness, we can get about the business of routing McCain.

Now, for the first time in awhile, they're sounding nervous.

Or at least trying to reassure themselves that it's still a Democratic year.

(A brief digression about the campaign coverage: If I were Clinton or Obama, I might try to talk about something--anything--other than demographic groups and superdelegates. Make the narrative about something other than campaign strategy. Yes, I know Hillary talked about nuking Iran the other day and no one cared, but still.)

Of course, McCain is in a sweet spot right now. He's not under any kind of sustained attack, beyond an occasional jab from his Democratic friends. He is largely getting to define himself while the media's attention is trained on the Hillary-Barack slugfest. So his numbers may well drop when it's a one-one battle.

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum sees McCain's popularity as a temporary phenomenon:

"McCain simply isn't as strong a candidate as people seem to think he is. Factors working against him include Bush fatigue, a declining economy, his age, his need to pander heavily to the Christian right, his hawkishness in a year when the public isn't feeling very hawkish, his history of flip flopping for transparently political reasons, and a portfolio of extremely unpopular positions (like privatizing Social Security) that Democrats can make a lot of hay with in the fall.

"What's more -- and go ahead, call me an optimist -- I suspect that at some point there's going to be a press backlash against McCain. His media image is a bubble, sustained by a sort of childlike faith, and once that faith starts to wobble -- something that may already have started -- the bubble is likely to pop. Before long, I suspect that a lot of reporters are going to start recognizing his faux openness as more faux than open.

"Of course, this all assumes that Hillary Clinton decides not to be completely suicidal and take down the party in a huge ball of flames. But I don't think she will. Even the Clintons have to bow to reality eventually."

It always comes back to her, doesn't it?

TPM's Josh Marshall is also troubled by the differing narratives:

"Right now McCain is enjoying his post-nomination-clinching honeymoon. He's also got the field completely clear. No one's out there whacking him everyday, which means the press has no McCain-whacking stories to churn through.

"On the other hand, the Democrats are beating each other senseless. They daily hit on each others' weaknesses, which not only airs their dirty laundry, and gets the press to talk about it. It also breeds resentment between the supporters of the Democratic candidates, thus pushing up the number Democrats saying they're unwilling to vote for the possible nominee. Put that all together and John McCain is enjoying the most favorable environment he's going to get right now and the Democrat (whoever is the nominee) is probably suffering the worst. And with all that, the race appears to be essentially tied.

"I don't want to be Polyannish. With all the terrible news Republicans are getting these days and with an incumbent Republican president who is now more unpopular than any president in modern history, the fact that the Republicans have a nominee who is very much in the race is little short of astounding and very disheartening for any Democrat."

McCain got some good television footage from NOLA yesterday:

"Senator John McCain took direct aim at the Bush administration on Thursday as he stood in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and declared that 'never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled.' . . .

"Asked at an outdoor news conference if he traced the failure of leadership straight to the top," the New York Times reports, "Mr. McCain, who has vowed to campaign with President Bush, said, emphatically, 'yes.' "

Maybe he should call it the Bush-distancing tour.

Wondering how the GOP will go after Obama? You don't have to wait to find out:

"As they promote their candidates and try to pave the way for GOP victories this year," says the L.A. Times, "Republicans have begun making their case to voters in advertisements featuring a new star: Barack Obama.

"In North Carolina, a TV ad shows Obama's former pastor making racially charged comments. An Internet ad attacks a Pennsylvania congressman for endorsing Obama's presidential bid. A New Mexico radio ad says Obama disrespects 'the American way of life.'

"In Louisiana, a TV ad attacking Obama's healthcare agenda as 'radical' proved so threatening that the House candidate it targeted, Democrat Don Cazayoux, distanced himself from Obama on Thursday, issuing a stern statement saying that he 'has not endorsed any national politician.' . . .

"Now, many Democratic leaders are trying to determine whether they are on the verge of nominating a candidate who, in addition to asking voters to accept him as the first African American president, could be vulnerable to being cast as too far out of the mainstream."

Now for the can't-close-the-deal debate. Lots of chatter about the New Republic likening Obama's chances against McCain to that of George McGovern more than three decades ago. The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias cries foul:

"One -- in a lot of ways 'McGovern!' is the 'Munich!' of campaign journalism, probably an analogy we should all just agree to do without. The circumstances of the 1972 campaign were very much circumstances of 1972 . . . and it's exceedingly unlikely that anything like that will happen again.

"Two -- it's important to remember that by far the biggest source of uncertainty about the November presidential election has to do not with the Democratic primary campaign, but with objective reality. I don't believe that the situation in Iraq or the economy will look radically better in November than they do today, but in principle either or both might. Something like that would make John McCain -- a popular and skilled politician who gets good press -- extremely hard to beat. But if the economy continues to be weak and Americans keep dying in a war that offers no light at the end of the tunnel, it's very hard for McCain to win."

Tom Bevan has thoughts at Real Clear Politics:

"The press' new fixation with the question of whether Obama can 'close the deal' or not is one of the most under appreciated byproducts of Clinton's win on Tuesday: it changed the narrative. Unless the Obama campaign can find a way to change it back, it's going to be an exceedingly long two weeks until Obama gets another chance (not to mention his last chance of the primary) to show he's a closer and end this thing by sweeping Clinton in North Carolina and Indiana."

In National Review, Michael Novak is surprised at the Hillary buzz:

"It always amazes me how swiftly the narrative can change. Seemingly in an instant, serious commentators reverse the direction of their analysis and change their tone of voice, while their excitement level shoots upwards. Monday, it was all: 'No matter what happens in Pennsylvania, Obama has the election all locked up.' Wednesday morning, it is 'What a great, gutsy victory it is for Hillary. Hillary is really a fighter. She won labor-union households, those over 40 years old, white men and white women, churchgoers, hunters--and most of these by high margins. She won Catholics by 70 percent. These are the groups a Democratic nominee must win against McCain in November.'

"Some are even now working out the arithmetic to show that it is possible for her to win the popular vote by the last primary, June 6. Possible, but not likely."

I dunno--every channel I watched said it was impossible or virtually impossible for HRC to catch up.

The right is refining its assault on Obama, such as in this WSJ piece by Karl Rove:

"What of the reborn Adlai Stevenson? Mr. Obama is befuddled and angry about the national reaction to what are clearly accepted, even commonplace truths in San Francisco and Hyde Park. How could anyone take offense at the observation that people in small-town and rural American are 'bitter' and therefore 'cling' to their guns and their faith, as well as their xenophobia? Why would anyone raise questions about a public figure who, for only 20 years, attended a church and developed a close personal relationship with its preacher who says AIDS was created by our government as a genocidal tool to be used against people of color, who declared America's chickens came home to roost on 9/11, and wants God to damn America? Mr. Obama has a weakness among blue-collar working class voters for a reason . . .

"Mr. Obama's call for postpartisanship looks unconvincing, when he is unable to point to a single important instance in his Senate career when he demonstrated bipartisanship."

Okay, here's a bit of substance: Michael Crowley challenging Obama's withdrawal vow in the New Republic:

"The truth is Obama has no secret plan for Iraq. Interviews with nearly two dozen foreign policy and military experts, as well as Obama's campaign advisers, and a close review of Obama's own statements on Iraq, suggest something more nuanced. What he is offering is a basic vision of withdrawal with muddy particulars, one his advisers are still formulating and one that, if he is elected, is destined to meet an even muddier reality on the ground. Obama has set a clear direction for U.S. policy in Iraq: He wants us out of Iraq; but he's not willing to do it at any cost--even if it means dashing the hopes of some of his more fervent and naïve supporters. And, when it comes to Iraq, whatever the merits of Obama's withdrawal plan may be, 'Yes, We Can' might ultimately yield to 'No, we can't.' . . .

"The fine print of his plan is filled with caveats, ambiguities, and wiggle room--leaving open the possibility of maintaining anything from a token troop contingent by late 2010 all the way to a major force numbering many tens of thousands of American soldiers.

"Obama carves out substantial wiggle room in the phrase 'combat brigades,' a term of art that describes frontline troops who enforce security and do regular battle with militias and insurgents. But there are many other things troops can do, and Obama concedes that he would leave so-called 'residual forces' in Iraq-- although his campaign won't provide an on-the-record estimate."

Arianna Huffington, former conservative, denounces the MSM for daring to hire . . . conservative commentators:

"Coming in the wake of Newsweek's hiring of Karl Rove, and the New York Times' hiring of Bill [Kristol], the mainstream media's embrace of these unabashed propagandists has revealed a self-loathing streak a mile wide.

"What is it with these media outlets? Have they been so cowed by the Right's relentless branding of them as 'liberal' that they feel compelled to show that they are not by sleeping with the enemy? And make no mistake, Rove, Kristol, and [Tony] Snow are the enemies - of honesty, truth, facts, reality, and the public's right to know. Anything."

Here's what Arianna isn't telling you. When Newsweek hired Rove, the magazine also hired Markos Moulitsas. Kristol's once-a-week column is balanced on the Times op-ed page by Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Frank Rich and Bob Herbert. And CNN almost never puts on conservative contributors without balancing them with libs; indeed, Snow appeared with Dee Dee Myers during his debut this week. So is Arianna saying the media shouldn't employ conservatives at all?