Well, you better get used to the heat, because Obama is now the front runner, and the gloves are off. That's the way the game is played, and Obama claiming to be above "politics as usual" won't change that one iota.

Here is what I can't figure out. Why are Democrats and their surrogates so fucking gullible and intentionally ignorant?

Why do they keep pretending that the system and the process isn't corrupt?

You see, that is the disconnect I have.

As was pointed out in the Washington Post this morning by political pundit Howard Kurtz:

"It is hardly unusual for debate moderators to draw partisan criticism, as NBC's Tim Russert did in October, when liberal commentators accused him of harassing Clinton over driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and other issues. But it is rare for ostensibly neutral media writers and television columnists to pile on with such fervor...

Much of the reaction broke along ideological lines. From the right, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that ABC's performance was "excellent," adding: "The journalist's job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities."

The liberal advocacy arm of MoveOn.org, which has endorsed Obama, said it will run an ad against ABC if 100,000 people sign a petition accusing the moderators of abusing "the public trust" by asking "trivial questions . . . that only political insiders care about."

But the sentiments I agreed most closely with in the article about the "debate about the debate" actually came from ABC. Howard Kurtz quotes Jake Tapper:

"They were tougher on Obama, yes. He's the front-runner. By any empirical standard, many members of the media don't seem to want to ask Senator Obama tough questions, and Senator Obama doesn't seem to want to answer them. This is the 21st debate. It is the only one where people have complained that the moderators were tougher on Barack Obama than on Hillary Clinton or any other candidate. How on Earth is that possible?"

Indeed.

The article goes on to mention that NBC's Olbermann, the liberal Sean Hannity IMO, led the charge against ABC (what a surprise).

Now, I have a very close friend who is obsessed with electoral presidential politics, and has been since we were in college. She LOVES Olbermann. I find him to be offensive in the very same way I find Hannity, O'Reilly, et al to be offensive.

The partisan Dem blogosphere immediately sent it's minions over to the ABC forums after the debate, to flood it with pro-Obama spinners.

There was nothing unfair about the debate I watched in it's entirety. If Obama is such a delicate flower he can't handle the hothouse, he needs to get out of the race. Because the scrutiny only intensifies on him from here on out. He did not perform well in the debate. When under tough questioning about the issues of character in the first 40 minutes, he dodged, evaded, and outright lied, and you could tell it in his body language as well as his demeanor. He constantly looked like he was ready to lose his temper, which didn't come off well at all.

He also wasn't at all articulate in his answers. The fact that he faltered so badly upon having the character questions asked (ie, the Wright controversy, the comments about PA voters, etc) doesn't bode well for him in the general election, but we'll see.

It is clear that his people should have prepped him far better for the character questions. Because nothing will sink a candidate faster than character issues. The fact that he was on such shaky ground in that regard should give people pause, instead of causing them to behave like attack dogs, which is what the rabid Obamamaniacs and their MSM and partisan blogosphere surrogates did before the debate was even finished.