Over in the Corner, Jonah is tearing apart the pre-spin, the prexplanations, the pre-vasions and the prescuses.

I’d just note that if Obama had not gone to Massachusetts on Sunday, the White House would have a much, much easier time arguing that a Brown victory stemmed mostly from Coakley’s weakness as a candidate. As it is now, the White House is left insisting that this really doesn’t reflect any national mood or trend, or broad-based backlash against the president:

“Massachusetts is completely unique, because the health reform law passed a few years ago,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said. “It makes it an imperfect example and impossible to extrapolate.”

How many consecutive “completely unique imperfect examples” make a national trend?

You should have stayed home, Mr. President. You could have said you were too busy with Haiti response; too focused on being a president and commander-in-chief and leader of an international aid effort to get into partisan politics and campaigning. We see 80 percent approve of his response to Haiti.