It’s pretty remarkable that Obama’s gotten as far as he has considering how tightly controlled his campaign has been. He’s kept the press at arm’s length and rarely taken questions from the audience at campaign rallies. Now it seems the lack of openness is catching up with him. He’s been responding to the criticism by being more available — and so far it isn’t going well.

Via Ann Althouse comes this video of Obama’s press conference yesterday. Basically, with questions emerging over his involvement with Tony Rezko, Obama tries to cut the conference off and reporters in the room explode, demanding he answer more questions. Obama’s response? “Come on now, I just answered, like, eight questions.” Whoa, campaigning is rough. As Geraghty pointed out, “When John McCain held his press conference on the New York Times’ shoddy he-was-in-bed-with-a-lobbyist story, he took thirty-six.”

Now compare that to, say, John McCain, who spends all day, every day on the back of his bus with 8-10 reporters at a time answering questions. It’s entirely possible (though I’m not betting on it) we could see circumstances where the press turn on Obama enough to change the dynamic of the election. In 2000, the press corps seemed to go after Gore quite a bit, back when George W. was still something of an unknown quantity and as a candidate he made a point of being chummy with the press. In this case, we already know the press seem to like McCain.

That said, it’s still amazing to me that the most effective attack on Obama thus far seems to stem from a Saturday Night Live sketch — and not something Hillary’s campaign has come up with.