From the Washington Post

"...for McCain the energy issue has been a gift. There is perhaps no other topic in American politics today on which the public is angry, seeks action and agrees strongly with Republicans. McCain's approach is to do it all: drilling, nuclear, alternatives and conservation. Obama's approach has been reactive and irrelevant. What would his redistributed windfall profits tax do to produce energy or reduce the need for it? And Obama is hamstrung by a coalition that insists we will not drill our way out of this problem -- which is true but beside the point. No single approach will solve the problem in the short or medium term. And a nation in an energy crisis has every justification to extract its oil and natural gas while it pursues alternatives to oil and natural gas.

Second, Obama's tactics are undermining the unifying theory of his campaign. During the primaries, Obama presented himself as someone different, better and special. He would not only improve the economy and the health-care system, he would transcend old divisions and heal a broken land. Supporters embraced him as inspirational; detractors criticized him as messianic. Few doubt that he set the highest rhetorical goals since the New Frontier.

Since the primaries, Obama has made a tactical decision: He refuses to be painted as a liberal. America may be a discontented country, but it remains a center-right country. Democrats who understand this fact -- such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- become president. Democrats who don't lose elections.

But since Obama's short public career has been conventionally -- in some cases, extremely -- liberal, his tactical shift to the center has been startlingly obvious, on issues from guns to terror surveillance to Iraq, and now (reluctantly) to oil drilling. Says Peter Wehner of the Ethics and Public Policy Center: "Obama's political calculation may be correct, but it still involves a price. It has shattered his claim to be different. It calls into question his political character and leaves the impression he is consumed and defined by ambition."

At least temporarily, Obama's tactics have raised a damning political question: Who is this man? And the McCain campaign has begun to cleverly exploit these concerns, not with a frontal attack on his liberalism or his flip-flops but with a humorous attack on his "celebrity" -- really a proxy for shallowness. The argument is powerful: McCain has roots and convictions. Obama has fans and paparazzi. And Obama's European trip -- more Princess Diana than John Kennedy -- served only to confirm these impressions. "