Obama On the Defensive

Barack Obama has found himself at the receiving end of all sorts of criticisms, and not just from John McCain. In addition to suggestions that he is an empty celebrity with no more substance than Paris Hilton or Britney Spears, or that he somehow refused to visit wounded service personnel in Germany because he couldn't bring a camera crew, he's been accused of not doing enough for black people. The McCain campaign even tried to use race against Obama when he said the Republicans were trying to scare people into voting against someone who doesn't look like the U.S. Presidents on our (worthless) currency. Obama was playing the race card? That's a new one.

Obama has deflected these attacks quite skillfully, but it won't be enough to win the Presidency. Some time - and some time soon - he has to make voters, especially a good chunk of the 12 percent who remain undecided, feel comfortable with him at a time of economic, political, and social uncertainty. Ronald Reagan, also accused of being an empty suit (which he was, actually: the clothes had no emperor!) made people comfortable by cheerfully getting through his only debate with President Carter in 1980 and reassuring people that he was not a war-monger ready to nuke Moscow. (Carter did himself no favors by refusing to debate John Anderson, the Illinois liberal Republican running as an independent that year, and insisting that his most trusted advisor on issues of war and peace was his daughter Amy.) Obama has to do something similar - before the Republicans do to him what they did to John Kerry four years ago.