Another View of Barack

Imagine that the polls were reversed and Barack Obama was seen as a long shot to win next Tuesday.

While pillorying David Axelrod for his idiotic strategy, what would the press be saying were Obama's biggest mistakes? Let's stroll into this hypothetical land for a moment:

-- Going bitter. A turning point, we would say, was the San Francisco fundraiser remarks about bitter small-town residents clinging to guns and religion.

-- Wrong about Wright. While Obama's big race speech won kudos from the chattering classes, he screwed up by not disavowing Jeremiah Wright--which he had to do weeks later anyway.

-- Aimless on Ayers. Why didn't he come out and admit it had been a mistake to have fraternized with an unrepentant terrorist, rather than try to pass off the onetime bomber as a "guy in my neighborhood?

-- Hubris. Who, exactly, thought it was a good idea for Obama to give a presumptuous speech to a massive throng in Berlin? Or to give his convention speech at a football stadium, complete with Greek columns, cementing the impression that he was a mile higher than everyone else?

-- Bush derangement syndrome. Morphing McCain into Bush was always going to be a tough sell. Most voters were never going to buy that portrait of a Republican maverick.

-- The Biden blunder. What was Obama thinking? Joe Biden was a boring choice, and the only excitement he brought to the ticket was when he kept making gaffes such as declaring that his running mate would be challenged by a foreign policy crisis. If Obama had picked Hillary, he'd have this thing wrapped up.

-- Passing on Palin. Obama thought he was being so gentlemanly by never taking so much as a swipe at McCain's running mate. His oh-so-delicate approach never made her mistakes, or McCain's judgment in picking such a rookie, a central campaign issue.

-- Rope-a-dope. Obama missed a golden opportunity to hammer McCain at the debates, instead of projecting calm and even agreeing with his rival 11 times in their first faceoff. Americans want a fighter in the Oval Office.

-- Plumbergate. Obama botched his accidental encounter with Joe Werzelbacher, uttering the dreaded phrase "spread the wealth" that convinced swing voters he was a socialist.

My point isn't that these were all terrible mistakes, although some of them may have been. It's that these strategic moves would look very different if Obama was on the verge of losing, while McCain would be garnering praise for, say, throwing himself into the bailout negotiations and rolling the dice with Palin. When a candidate is winning, the media treat his tactical decisions as sheer brilliance. When a candidate is faltering, not so much.