Just a few short weeks ago it seemed that Barack Obama's time had come. Appealing especially to young, hip, well-educated progressives, he was compared to Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy. Obama was the only candidate in either party who could legitimately lay-claim to this year's greatest political yearning: Change! "Change you can believe in" may lack substance, but nonetheless connected with voters fed up with the war in Iraq and fearful of an economic downturn. Barack Obama promised to unite the country and solve its problems. Echoes of Camelot were in the air.

     The mainstream media got on board the Barack express, touting his refreshingly different approach to politics. Former Clinton flacks like Maureen Dowd penned a stream of op-eds amplifying the virtues of Obama: his clean break from the past, his innovative ideas, his easy manner amidst the swirl of campaign confusion. After Hillary's defeat in Wisconsin, National Review ran a cover story under the caption, "The Fall of the House of Clinton." The fat lady was singing.

     A surprising number of prominent Democrats broke with the Clintons to endorse Obama: Bill Richardson, Robert Reich, Caroline "a candidate like my father" Kennedy, and her uncle Teddy, to name a few.

     Joe Biden rejoiced in Barack Obama's run for the White House. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," gushed Xerox Joe. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were not amused, but the country seemed to agree. America was ready for a black President. Order the caviar and chill the champagne, a new man with a new vision for America was marching to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

     With dizzying speed, the march has turned into a disorderly retreat. Obama hasn't won a primary since March 6th, looks drawn and tired next to a re-energized Hillary, and now is engaged in a ugly family feud with not one but two prominent black leaders, the Reverends Wright and Jackson. Acknowledging the startling turnaround, even Clinton-bashing Maureen Dowd offered that "Hillary grows more and more glowing as Obama grows more and more wan," according to the New York Times News Service. That's as deep an analysis as Ms. Dowd has offered in months. What's going on?

     Besides the fact that Obama has revealed himself to be elite and aloof, now he's just plain tired, "often fatigued and unable to disguise being fed up with the slog," as Maureen Dowd had it. Though this is among the least of Barack's current problems, stamina is a factor to consider in selecting a commander-in-chief. Those 3:00 am phone calls can drain a person.

     Slightly more important on Obama's crisis management chart is the flare-up with Al Sharpton. Reverend Al threatened to "shut down this city [New York]" to protest the "not guilty" verdicts handed down last Friday in the case of Sean Bell. Mr. Bell, black and unarmed, was gunned down in a 50-bullet barrage delivered by three NYC cops. Family and friends of Mr. Bell were outraged by the verdict, prompting Rev. Sharpton to issue his threat. A somewhat naive Obama had the audacity to suggest "resorting to violence to express displeasure" was "completely unacceptable and counter-productive," as reported by the New York Post. In a fit of righteous indignation, Sharpton hit back hard. Pointing out that not a rock had yet been thrown, Rev. Al accused Obama of trying to "grandstand in front of white people." Ouch. "How does the candidate of change ask people to accept a verdict that is unjust," thundered Sharpton to the Associated Press. A phone conversation between Sharpton and Obama was described as "heated," not the sort of press a candidate claiming to be a "unifier" wants.

     The Obama/Sharpton dust-up pales in comparison to the potential damage to Obama's campaign caused by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's re-emergence into the national spotlight. Speaking his mind over the last few days, Obama's former pastor left no doubt about his views of America, reiterating the charge that the American government deliberately infected black people with the AIDS virus and proclaiming a moral equivalence exists between Al Qaeda and America. Obama's categorical rejection of Wright's outbursts may not be enough to repair the damage done to both men's image. Here's why.

     First, critics are pointing to the fact that Wright's statements during the last 72 hours are in line with his preaching over several decades, something even Obama supporters acknowledge. Why then was Obama's rebuke of Rev. Wright so tepid just one month ago in his "A More Perfect Union" speech? Sitting in church for twenty years, one assumes, would provide ample opportunity to hear the now-fully-revealed Rev. Wright. All the questions about Obama's decades-long association with such a man are back on the table.

     Second, both Obama and Wright defended Wright's earlier statements as "taken out of context," thirty seconds of misunderstood family talk unfairly cherry-picked out of thousands of hours of sermons. That argument has now been laid to rest, killed by the over-heated rhetoric of Reverend Wright himself. Obama's earlier defense of his pastor has punched a large hole in his own credibility.

     Third, Barack Obama has campaigned as a unifier who will end divisive politics, an attempt to distinguish himself from the very divisive Clintons. Heck, Obama can't even unite his own church or party, mocking his promise to be "a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents, and Republicans together to get things done," as the New York Times News Service reported last March 25th. Obama is in the rare and unenviable position of having a campaign promise discredited before he has even secured his party's nomination.

     Fourth, Obama's previous mischaracterization of Reverend Wright reignites the question of just how often Obama actually attended Trinity United Church of Christ. Critics charge that his "conversion" and affiliation with that very political body was nothing more than a campaign tactic employed by someone running for local office on Chicago's south side. Fair or not, Obama has left himself wide open to such speculation.

      Some have said that if Pastor Wright was deliberately trying to kill Obama's chance to be President, he couldn't have done a better job of it. I think that, purposefully of not, Wright has succeeded in finishing Obama's chances in 2008. I don't care how many delegates he has or what happens in the remaining contests. The Democratic super-delegates hold the cards and will determine the outcome of this primary contest. They now know that Obama is unelectable in November. Barack's guilt-by-association problems are only beginning. Just wait until the Rezko and Ayers baggage hits the news full-force. The power brokers in the Democratic Party are not stupid and will, between now and the convention, force Obama out. You read it here first.

     Back on March 5th I warned you people that Hillary, the conservatives' greatest enemy, would not quit. Go here She's Back! for a refresher course on Clintonian tenacity. Well, she's back in spades now because Obama's run for the presidency is over, although it may take a few months before it's official. I said then "Our best hope for stopping Hillary was, and remains, Barack Hussein Obama. Senator McCain, though I’ll support him at full strength, will probably lose in November. The Republicans have earned that. So, the next time — if there is a next time — the dagger is poised over the Clinton’s political heart, we should not be so foolish as to toy with her again. She will not toy with us."

     Rush Limbaugh's strategic gem -- Operation Chaos -- may have worked too well. Hillary has earned grudging respect for her steadfast refusal to fold. With Obama out of the way, she'll make mincemeat of John McCain. 

     With the furor surrounding Pastor Jeremiah Wright ebbing and flowing, Barack Obama on Sunday tried, again, to diffuse the brouhaha. Assuring viewers on "Fox News Sunday" the presidential election would not be determined by race, the junior Senator from Illinois zeroed in on what he believes is the core campaign issue. "I'm absolutely confident that the American people -- what they're looking for is somebody who can solve their problems." I am an American, but I sure as heck am not looking for anyone to solve my problems. Is it just me, or has something gone terribly wrong in America?

     Almost as shocking as Obama's degrading assumption was the lack of any reaction to it. Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, not only didn't challenge Obama's indictment of the American people, but added his own dig for good measure. Earlier in the interview Wallace offered that "the lunch bucket crowd really wants to know what you are going to do for them." If a conservative like Chris Wallace accepts the premise that average Americans want political leaders to improve their lives, we may have crossed the point of no return.

     Wrongheaded social policies have ruined large segments of the American population, but has the pathology of dependence also completely overwhelmed the American mainstream? Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) has nearly eradicated fathers from many inner city neighborhoods, but have the rest of us also lost our sense of independence and self-reliance? Have we been reduced to such a beggarly state that politicians are viewed as benefactors rather than guardians of American self-determination? I dare say, fifty years ago no politician, liberal or otherwise, would have dared presume to malign Americans by demeaning their ability and desire to care for themselves, solve their own problems, and work to improve their own lives. We've come a long way, baby.

     A witch’s brew of government hand-outs, under-funded entitlements, and promises of more! more! has found willing acceptance across broad swathes of the American populace. The elderly are dependent on Social Security and Medicare, the young must have school lunches and college loans, and those in the middle just couldn't survive without day care, food stamps, housing subsidies, and the ever-reliable AFDC. Social engineering on a massive scale has created weak, subservient, sniveling wards of the state. And the conservative Mike Wallace, for goodness sakes, says we want more.   

     Just over 47 years ago, President John F. Kennedy called on Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Most adults living in 1961 had flourished under the twin challenges of the Great Depression and World War II. Enormous individual effort in the cause of a greater good was routine for what is now known as "The Greatest Generation." The author of a book by that title, Tom Brokaw, has noted that those intrepid people are leaving us now at the rate of 1,000 a day. Gone too is the gritty self-reliance that once was an American core value. A proud, resourceful people are being replaced by whiners, cadgers, and loafers intent on obtaining crumbs falling from the government's ubiquitous hand. For too many Americans, Uncle Sam has become Father Sam, the beneficent problem solver.

     Shame on us.