Squaring the Culture

Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central yesterday posted the results of an interview with George Stephanopolous, in which he defends the direction he and co-host Charles Gibson took at the Democratic primary debate in Philadelphia Wednesday night. Stephanopolous defended himself ably, noting that electability is the central issue on the table these days, and that every question in the first 40 minutes of the debate addressed an issue that had not been discussed in any of the previous debates.

TPM reader Gary Cohen notes that somehow Stephanopolous, while gathering up the most recent election hot buttons to press, managed to leave out Hillary Clinton’s duplicity on the Columbian Free Trade talks. The fact that Stephanopolous worked for the Clintons had nothing to do with this omission, of course. I think. Maybe. I guess we’ll never know. To be fair, Steph fired some high, hard ones in Ms. Clinton’s direction, too. She just handled them more ably than Obama handled his.

I never thought I’d say anything remotely like this, but if we had to put up with one of those two dangerous fools in the White House for four years, I’d rather it be Mrs. Clinton; she’s the more competent of the two. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m praying and working to make sure that never happens, as either one of them means the death of the Republic.)

Obama, meanwhile, is doing his usual spin dance, decrying the sort of politics that produces such questions, and trying to appear above it. Says Obama, this is “precisely why I’m running for president — to change that kind of politics.”

Of course, as Ed Morrissey points out, Obama proceeded neatly to contradict himself in the process of refusing another debate:

“I’ll be honest with you, we’ve now had 21,” he said. “It’s not as if we don’t know how to do these things. I could deliver Sen. Clinton’s lines; she could, I’m sure, deliver mine.”

Precisely, which puts the lie in one efficient line to his disciples’ endless disingenuous whining about all the supposed hardcore policy talk we missed out on last night.

Ouch. And touché. By the way, you should follow the link in that quote to read an insightful rant from Allahpundit about how the NutRoots are defending their Messiah from facing anything tough — and follow his link (or mine) to Ace of Spaces HQ’s collection of LeftLoon squawking about the unfairness of the debate.

I’ve said for quite some time, in my angrier moments, that most Democrats would not last a week if they had to face the sort of hostile and disingenuous press and public criticism Republicans have faced constantly for the last 60 years. Obama knows how to spin it after the fact, but he looked awfully shallow while trying to play down the large chinks that have appeared in his faux front and are letting The Real Obama peep through. And I think I’ve made it clear: I believe questions concerning Obama’s associations with the Wrights, Ayers, and Gamaliel Foundations of the world are the central questions we need to be asking about him, as they uncover the radical roots that he’s trying so hard to hide.

Welcome to the Bigs, Mr. Obama. And thank you, Mr. Stephanopolous.