Dana Milbank writes that Obama has become “the presumptuous nominee” adding that his biggest opponent “may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris.” To support this assertion, Milbank the part of a quote where Obama says “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions,” leaving out the part where Obama says “the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America.” Milbank also cites the fact that Obama seems to be talking like he’s already won the election, except for when he isn’t. Which by the way, is completely distinct from that time McCain fired up the DeLorean and took us all to “2013” . Also, apparently, the fact that the Obama campaign has a team that has already started transitional planning is further proof of Obama’s overconfidence, except that previous candidates like George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan both started transitional planning in the Spring before the election. The 1992 Clinton campaign’s planning started after mid-July, which Paul Light describes in the LA Times “as late and messy.” It’s practically August, which means that the Obama campaign is not actually early but kinda late. The criticism from the McCain campaign suggest they haven’t even thought about it, possibly because they expect to be greeted as liberators.
Milbank also writes that Obama’s “hostility to reporters” is starting to anger them, which is funny considering that the Republican Party has been running against the media since before I was born. As Eric Boehlert points out, McCain has been doing the same thing, but that’s not a big deal because after all, the media is his “base”. (Nothing arrogant about that.)
The most serious and relevant objection Milbank has is the Obama campaign kicking New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza off the campaign plane. But the rest of the piece characterizes Obama as “arrogant” for doing normal things that candidates do, which is a pretty irritating trend. Not to mention that the entire conversation about “arrogance,” when propped up by actions that are genuinely not arrogant takes on an ugly racial subtext, is merely a fingernail away from that favored topic of pundits everywhere, whether or not a candidate is “likeable enough”.
–A.Serwer
