The Obama backlash builds

Paul Harris:

Back in 1995 it would have seemed like meeting just another group of left-wing academics in liberal Chicago. Barack Obama, then about to be an Illinois state senator, was taken to an activists' gathering at the house of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

So far, so innocuous. Except now Obama is running for president and Ayers and Dohrn - both Illinois professors - were once members of the Weather Underground, a radical Sixties group that planted bombs across America.

Thus the long-forgotten meeting resurfaced late last week in a detailed news story on the respected politics website Politico under the blaring headline: 'Obama once visited 60s terrorists.'

For a candidate long used to an overwhelmingly positive press, it was a jarring headline. But with Obama's new status as the Democrats' clear frontrunner, a media backlash is now showing clear signs of gathering pace.

The Politico story was not alone last week. In the New York Times, two influential columnists weighed in with brutal attacks against Obama. David Brooks called him a 'trophy messiah' and Paul Krugman claimed Obama's campaign was '...dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality'. Meanwhile, in the Boston Globe, Obama supporter Margery Eagan expressed her own doubts about her pick. 'I'm nervous because John McCain says Obama is an "eloquent but empty call for change" and in the wee, wee hours a nagging voice whispers: "Suppose McCain's right,' Eagan wrote.

Nor was it confined to print. On television, ABC's respected Nightline show ran a segment on Obama's often wildly enthusiastic supporters and compared 'Obama-mania' to the Beatlemania of the Sixties. Anchor Terry Moran asked: 'Is this a political movement or a personality cult?' On cable channel MSNBC, a hapless Obama backer, Texan state senator Kirk Watson, was harangued by host Chris Matthews to 'name any' of Obama's legislative achievements. When Watson failed, the clip became a huge Youtube hit.

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That scrutiny will lead to more stories like that of Obama's meeting with the former Weather Underground militants. It will also lead to a willingness to pounce on any perceived mistakes from the Obama camp. Thus last week Obama's wife, Michelle, faced criticism after she appeared less than patriotic at a campaign rally in Wisconsin. 'For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country,' she said. The remark was seized on as anti-American by many commentators, forcing the campaign to stare down a rare surge of criticism and clarify the remarks.

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All over America, reporting teams are now investigating Obama's record, matching the long-term efforts of Clinton 'opposition research' workers. 'Right now, there are people digging all over. I have no doubt about it,' Lule said.

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The real challenge will be finding any accomplishments in his back ground. What executive experience has he ever had? What does he know about military history and strategy? did he get his ideas on Iraq from anyone who knows anything about insurgency warfare? If so, what did they contribute to the new counterinsurgency strategy?

But, looking for this would not be a backlash. It would be the kind of vetting they should have been doing all along instead of being carried away by his soaring rhetoric.