For months, Barack Obama got the kind of glowing media coverage that most candidates could only fantasize about.
But now that he’s a full-fledged presidential candidate, he’s starting to get nicked a bit. This was utterly predictable, and is part of the process. You don’t get to be a party’s nominee without an intensive media audit, especially if you haven’t been a national figure who has been vetted in the past.
As he notes, however, some lefty bloggers are squealing, though rather unpersuasively. I like Obama (and I remember a delightful email exchange with his campaign manager back when he was running against Alan Keyes) but his record is pretty thin, and you can expect people to look at him as closely as they can — in part because of all the hype. And that’s good. If he has any big problems, they’re sure to come out before the election. Better for the Democrats if they come out now, rather than in October of 2008.