It’s been a rough week for Sen. Barack Obama, and an even rougher week for his supporters. He took his eye off the ball for a minute to attack Sen. John McCain – and Sen. Hillary Clinton pounced, throwing the kitchen sink at him. Meanwhile, the thin-skinned media, falling prey to her campaign’s whining about how much ‘tougher’ they’ve been on her than on him, allowed her to set the tone for the entire news cycle during the last week before the elections in Ohio and Texas. (You can fill my in-box all you want, Clinton fans, but the media has been sweeter to Clinton than you know. There’s been scant mention of Monica, Whitewater, Marc Rich, cattle futures … oh, did I just say all that?) Those of us who admire the senator, meanwhile, are feeling wrung out and exhausted. Obama’s got to bounce back. I think that he will – but he’ll have to do it smartly, because for him, the race has entered its most precarious phase. If he attacks the Clintons using gutter politics, he’ll lose – those are the tactics that they excel at, and he can’t beat them at their own game. More […]