The American Spectator

Earlier this week, Barack Obama had his wife and kids sit down for an interview with “Access Hollywood,” and received glowing coverage along these lines:

However, Obama is trying to prove he’s a new kind of politician, and so he quickly changed his tune:

It is simply risible for a man who has been running for president for a year and a half to pretend he was “surprised by the attention” that the first interview with the Obama kids received. Clearly, the Obama campaign wanted the video of him and his family to be broadcast as widely as possible. That was the whole point of doing the interview. By saying he regretted it only after the fact, the video gets even more airtime, but he also gets favorable coverage as somebody who wants to keep his kids out of the spotlight and who is averse to exploiting them for political gain.

I note this because it is part of a larger overall pattern with Obama of doing the politically opportunistic thing, and then acting as if he’s taking the moral high road. He calls for a civil campaign, dispatches a number of surrogates to attack John McCain’s military background, and then haltingly criticizes the surrogates after the fact. He promises to take public financing, breaks his promise to gain a political advantage, and then portrays his action as a courageous stand against the system.