The Good and the Bad for Obama

Like his candidacy, itself a Rorschach test for anything Democrats want or fear from Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the six-month mark of his campaign has brought the candidate a mixed bag of reviews — some to want more of and much to fear.

Clearly Obama tried to bounce back from the debate squabble with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-Ill.) over engaging with leaders of rogue nations by insisting the United States must strike at al Qaeda in Pakistan if its leadership won’t, but after trying to get to the right of President Bush he let it slip that he wouldn’t use nuclear weapons there. Looking weak on national security? Not good for Obama.

Then there is the New York Times story about the tension between Clinton and Obama that reveals she turned icy and stopped speaking to him the day he announced an exploratory committee. She looks deeply threatened. Good for Obama.

The YearlyKos conference gave Obama (and John Edwards) an opportunity to bash lobbyists, and Clinton fell into the trap of defending them. Plus the liberal bloggers want much Clinton-era law repealed, including NAFTA, the Defense of Marriage Act, the Telecommunications Act and welfare reform. Good for Obama.

However, Obama’s proud Clean on Lobbyists record has received a closer look from The Los Angeles Times, which found he has taken money from people whom associates lobby. Not good for Obama.

David Brooks wrote last week that he would choose Obama’s anti-poverty policy over Edwards’s, and Paul Krugman just knocked Sen. Clinton for failing to deliver a healthcare plan, writing, “[I]t worries me that Mrs. Clinton is showing an almost Republican aversion to talking about substance.” Good for Obama.

Mitt Romney made Obama his Democratic Enemy No. 1 at the Iowa debate, mocking his foreign policy pronouncements by saying Obama had gone from being Jane Fonda to Dr.
Strangelove in one week. Good or bad for Obama?

Obama can see what he wants to see. And so can we.

***

ASK A.B. — Please join me for my weekly Q & A video posts by sending useful, interesting and entertaining questions to askab@digital-release.thehill.com. We want to talk politics and have a few laughs. Spare us the offensive, unGoogleable, unthinkable or otherwise useless. I look forward to hearing from all of you, often.