I've written a couple of pieces on my own site about Obama's whining. It is really getting to be annoying. The candidate takes any criticism levelled against him as unfair or dirty politics.
This will be a common occurrence in the general election. Democrats have it in their heads that one reason their presidential candidates lose to Republicans is because they don't respond to GOP "lies and swiftboating" vigorously enough. Pretending that Democrats don't give as good as they receive in any campaign is ludicrous, of course. But to their rabid base of netnuts, Democrats need to hit back harder in answering GOP campaign charges.
Hence, Obama jumped to the fore last week when President Bush mentioned appeasement of evil by some politicians and castigated the president for dealing a political low blow. Some were surprised at the aggressiveness of Obama's move since the President didn't mention him by name but it was indicative of what Obama considers "fighting back" against GOP "lies."
But instead of coming off as angry, he sounds like an whining child - as he did this morning after an appearance on Good Morning America where he defended his wife from criticism by the Kentucky GOP who created a video of all the things Kentuckians are proud of about America (in contrast to Michelle Obama's comment that this was the first time she had been proud of America in her lifetime).
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air nails it:
If Obama doesn't want his wife to receive criticism, then he shouldn't use her as a surrogate on the campaign trail. Whatever she says on the stump at campaign events is fair game for criticism, just as it has been with Bill Clinton. Obama's camp has unloaded on the former President for statements he made about Hillary's loss in South Carolina and several other incidents in which they believe Bill played the race card to explain Obama's success. Bill's not running for anything this year, but he has made himself a public figure in this primary race, and his statements are also legitimate targets for attack.
The whininess factor has become a real problem for Obama. Presumably, we'd like a President who doesn't play a perpetual victim on the national stage. What happens when he has to tangle with Congress over policy, or more to the point, when he has to represent America on the world stage? If he can't deal with legitimate political criticism now, what will we get for a response when Obama runs the federal government?
Toughen up, buttercup, and stop whining about criticism of speeches at political events. If you can't handle that much, you have no business running for re-election to your current job, let alone for the presidency.
As Ed mentions, the Obama campaign felt absolutely no reluctance going after Bill Clinton nor have they shown much hesitation in attacking Cindy McCain for being rich.
But we better get used to this kind of whining from Obama. If he's not playing the race card every chance he gets he will be crying "foul" when the GOP says anything negative about at all.
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