Up until recently I think Obama has run an effective campaign. So why after a week of left-wing / liberal smearing of Palin, would he suddenly announce, “We’re not going to be bullied, we’re not going to be smeared, we’re not going to be lied about”–when everyone will immediately recognize that all those complaints fit precisely—and only—what has been done to Palin? The neutral voter may well think, ‘Why, yes, that is exactly what they are doing to Sarah, so why are you protesting when they’re not doing it to?”

And why, when the theme of the Democratic convention was the common man and Middle American working-class values, would Obama go off like that and thereby draw attention that he was at a $30,000-a-head dinner and private fund-raiser at the rock-star Bon Jovis’ elegant mansion?