judgement and experience

they're trying to make this the issue. every sunday show is talking about it. obama and reverend wright. "the man baptized obama's children, married obama and his wife." the question "what do you think this says about barack obama's judgement" is being asked over and over and over again.

all of it is cloaked in the warmth and sweetness of "how can you not like obama? he's charming, he's a different kind of politician." those words are said just before "but we don't really know him, do we?"

the more this country is fed that line, the more the question of his judgement is asked, the more obama will be dragged down. (for the record, i'm not asking it here.)

but this is the where the question of experience comes in, for me. it's not just a question of who's ready to answer that phone at 3 a.m. it's about who is ready to take on these kinds of attacks. will obama's handling of this issue be enough? and in time?

UPDATE 10:58 p.m. -- clinton supporter rep. nita lowey (D-NY), this morning on meet the press:

"i think we should just accept what
barack obama has said and move on."

granted, clinton doesn't need to be taking advantage of this story. the old rule of politics is when your opponent's campaign is self-imploding, stand back and watch. but one could easily imagine the clinton campaign (like many of her online supporters) seeing the reverend wright controversy and thinking, "carpe' diem!"

UPDATE 3/17/08 -- okay, maybe i nodded off during the first part of the program.