The Barack Backlash

Hot Air man Ed Morrissey skewers the media coverage, including a New York Times editorial:

"Both Obama and the NYT want this to look like it became an issue only because Wright spoke this week and rehashed what he's been saying from the Trinity pulpit for years. Why? If they can set the bar that low, it gets both Obama and the NYT editors off the hook for not acknowledging what the rest of the nation had figured out from Wright's long history of demagoguery."

Still, the first words of the Times editorial are "It took more time than it should have."

Morrissey also goes after a Washington Post editorial, which he says "pretends that Jeremiah Wright suddenly popped out of the ground this week, offering lunatic conspiracy theories and insane racial genetics with no track record of it at all in the past. Unlike the Gray Lady, the WaPo editorial at least acknowledges that Barack Obama's long ties to Wright calls into question the judgment he claims as superior to that of Hillary Clinton and John McCain. It then repeats Obama's assertion that his entire career goes against everything Wright said without -- like Obama -- offering any evidence to support it . . .

"If the episode 'raises legitimate questions' about Obama's judgment, why would it be out of bounds for political ads?"

That's a little selective; what the Post editorial opposed was "political ads built on racial fears." Anyone in favor of that?

Americablog's John Aravosis is sympathetic:

"I appreciate the position Obama is in. It's difficult to see someone you once respected turn into a crazy man."

At Open Left, Chris Bowers sees a "strategic shift" by the Obama camp. "First by ending a longstanding boycott of Fox News, and now by denouncing Jeremiah Wright after eloquently defending him just six weeks ago in a speech that was read around the world. The campaign now appears to be caving to right-wing attacks it once parried and refused to back down against. Really, it is kind of sad, since Obama's previous willingness to not throw his allies under the bus in public and to not appear on right-wing propaganda outlets was, in my opinion, a much better example of bringing people together than the new tactics we are witnessing."

At Right Wing News, John Hawkins sees two possible conclusions:

"#1) Obama is so dim-witted and such a terrible judge of character that he actually meant what he said and just didn't understand how bad Wright was. If that's true, then he really just doesn't have the people skills to be the President of the United States.

"#2) Obama has known what Wright was all about for the last 20 years, at worst agreed with it and at best wasn't bothered by it, and simply lied because he knew the American people wouldn't support an unpatriotic, racialist candidate who despises white people."