Obama the Sell-Out

By Rick Moran

Reaction continues to pour in to Barack Obama's announcement that he would not take federal financing for the presidential election.

From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, political analyst Mark Shields - a Democrat no less - had this to say:

It was a flip-flop of epic proportions. It was one that he could not rationalize or justify. His video was unconvincing. He looked like someone who was being kept as a hostage somewhere he was so absolutely unconvincing in it. It could not have passed a polygraph test.

I mean, coming up with this bogus argument the Republicans have so much more money - the Republicans don't have so much more money. He's raised three times as much as John McCain has.

Ken Vogel at Politico talks about a potential turning point in the kind of coverage Obama has been getting for the press:

But Obama's announcement Thursday that he would become the first candidate to opt out of the public financing program for the general election was a big deal for some of the nation's most influential newspaper editorial boards, which have long been ardent champions of campaign finance reform and which had thought they'd found a kindred spirit on the issue.

Friday morning, scathing editorials in many top broadsheets characterized Obama's move as a self-interested flip-flop, dismissed his efforts to cast it as a principled stand and charged that Obama wasn't living up to the reformer image around which he has crafted his political identity.

The scolding could mark a turning point in what has been, on balance, fawning treatment of Obama, an Illinois Senator and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on editorial pages.

While the influence of editorial boards has diminished as the media has fragmented, they still carry weight with opinion leaders and undecided voters.

One angle that seems to be emerging in the press coverage is that for the very first time perhaps, Obama is being portrayed as a politician who says one thing and does another. The Reverend Wright controversy was mostly papered over by the press and drowned in a sea of praise for Obama's big speech in April and the speed with which he dumped Wright in May. And the Rezko trial has been ignored - as has Obama's radical associations with the Marxist New Party and his terrorist friend Bill Ayers.

But revealing Obama as someone who is basically just another Chicago pol who talks out of both sides of his mouth may set the stage for some introspection on the part of the press when it comes to their coverage of Obama. This would be a fundamental change in the dynamic of the campaign if even just a few influential press organs became more critical.

One thing is for sure - Obama really stepped in it by refusing federal financing.

Hat Tip: Ed lasky