Thrown Off the Bus

On Thursday in Wisconsin, the reporters were itching to ask about the campaign's accusation that Obama was "playing the race card" by suggesting that McCain was trying to marginalize him as someone who didn't look like other presidents on dollar bills. When CNN's John King was interviewing the senator for a profile to run before the Republican convention -- and raised the race-card flap at the end -- aides tried to cut him off. McCain gave a 10-second answer and ended the interview with a quick handshake as King tried to follow up. The aides later chastised King for raising a subject that was not part of the agreed-upon agenda.

On the bus ride to the airport, four Milwaukee journalists were invited on the Straight Talk, in keeping with the new policy of generally reserving such trips for local reporters. This time, Fouhy asked the local AP scribe on that bus to question McCain about the race charge, and made sure the senator's defense of the charge hit the national wire.

During the subsequent flight to Orlando, McCain remained in the front cabin, which was cordoned off by a curtain. The only journalist ushered into his presence was a writer for Marie Claire magazine. In the old days, reporters would have had hours to chew over the latest controversy, and plenty of other subjects, with McCain. But for a campaign struggling to regain control of its message, the old days are definitely gone.

Furthermore . . .

Here are two diametrically opposite views of the battle to define Obama, the first from National Review's Rich Lowry:

"Responding to a McCain ad knocking him as a world celebrity, Barack Obama essentially accused the McCain campaign of race-baiting. It was a hair-trigger resort to the charge of racism of the sort that [Jesse] Jackson built a career on, making himself radioactive and anathema to the political center . . .

"The McCain ad had a serious point, one the Obama campaign obviously felt it couldn't ignore. Obama can be as arrogant, gassy and remote as other members of the country's aristocracy of fame. If this celebrity framework is successfully imposed on Obama, the entire repertoire of Obamania -- the mass rallies, the soaring eloquence, the picturesque cool of the candidate himself -- risks becoming a liability . . .

"Obama hopes to use the racism card to inhibit all criticism of him, with the presumed cooperation of the press. But there's a much larger downside. Obama's race is a political advantage so long as it is sold in a post-racial context. If his background is a symbol of how we can get beyond the poisoned atmosphere of both racism and the hyperactive, opportunistic charges of racism, it's a boon to his change-and-unity candidacy . . . Now, Obama could throw it away in a fit of self-destructiveness worthy of . . . dare we say it, Britney Spears?"

But HuffPost's Bob Cesca sees a plain old smear campaign:

"Pat Buchanan on Hardball Monday night wondered out loud about Senator Obama: 'Is he one of us?'

"If by 'one of us' he means a cranky, elitist, white, corporate media, man-shaped bunion who fashioned his career by demonizing brown people, the answer is a certain 'no'. But we know what Buchanan meant by this. Is Senator Obama with 'us' or is he with the uppity blacks? Is he a real American like Senator McCain or is he a Muslim terrorist like those e-mails suggest? Is he too European (GAY!)? Is he like us: white, wealthy, conservative, elite?

"During this dark ride of the Bush years, it's no longer surprising or shocking to hear such a bottomless cup of awfulness. This line of questioning has become the dominant theme in the corporate media's political narrative. 'Us' has become a baseline which liberals -- regardless of race or gender -- will never achieve because the experiment is stacked against anyone who isn't centrist, moderate, right of center or conservative . . .

"The corporate media accepts their terms, their rules and their frames as a given and the Democrats are expected to jump and dash and explain themselves based upon those givens, irrespective of how ludicrous they happen to be . . . Prove to us, Senator Obama, that you're not a tabloid pop star. Prove to us that you're not a bleached blonde heiress or a slack-jawed ex-Mouseketeer."

You may not be shocked to learn that The Washington Post has run more pictures of Obama than McCain since the primaries ended--122 to 78. More stories, too.

McCain was once beloved by the pundits, but now he has lost Joe Klein:

"A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong. I used to think, as David Ignatius does, that McCain's true voice was humble and moderate, but now I'm beginning to think his Senate colleagues may be right about his temperament . . .

"Courage is grace under pressure. McCain showed it when he was a prisoner of war, and on many issues--yes, even on his stubborn insistence that the surge would work--but he is not showing it now. He is showing flop sweat. It is not a quality usually associated with successful leadership."

Obama has been accused of many things, and now the WSJ has the inside skinny on a new problem:

"Speaking to donors at a San Diego fund-raiser last month, Barack Obama reassured the crowd that he wouldn't give in to Republican tactics to throw his candidacy off track.

" 'Listen, I'm skinny but I'm tough,' Sen. Obama said.

"But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them . . .

" 'He's too new . . . and he needs to put some meat on his bones,' says Diana Koenig, 42, a housewife in Corpus Christi, Texas, who says she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

" 'I won't vote for any beanpole guy,' another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board."

Puh-leaze! Does it take a beer gut to get elected in this country?

Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."