the spotlight moves on

The Spitzer Stunner has, as expected, dominated cable “news” since the juicy scandal broke yesterday afternoon at around 2 p.m. As I write, CNN features the unfolding details of the story (alongside old video of Spitzer the Punisher of Crime and Immorality) at the top of every hour.

This sensation has knocked Campaign ‘08 off the number-one spot on the Mediathon (Frank Rich’s brilliant characterization of the Entertainment Nation^TM we’ve become.

The cable shows started their stories of the night with Spitzer. The could hardly wait, however, to get to The Barak and Clinton Show. Last night’s episode was told from the point of view of our scrappy hero Barack, who, after several days of insults from the Evil Clintons, finally came back with a great retort. But was it too little too late? That was the gist of things. Talking heads fretted and advised. Some applauded the Clintons’ brilliant but evil genius in throwing Obama off his message (by my count he’s been off his message for two weeks, starting with their final debate). Others (like Karl Rove, on Fox) scolded him for a tactical error. Obama should have been the one to deliver the harsh message, he said; that should have been left up to his surrogates or advocates. Dick Morris, also on Fox, disagreed. He thought Obama did great. On CNN, Gloria Borger talked about the “dangerous” implication (for Obama, should he become the nominee of the party) of Hillary’s 3 a.m. ad, and how Democrats were nervous about it. Lanny Davis tried to point out that prior to the ad, the polls had shown Obama to be weak in this area. Anderson Cooper brushed him off, saying polls don’t matter now that Obama has votes (more than Hillary).

All I could think about was how the pro-Obama camp is deluding itself. Polls do matter, somewhat—particularly polls about people’s general attitudes rather than specific party-related issues. They indicate a larger trend (or a larger picture) than the concrete vote count in Democratic primaries that have been hyped by media hysteria.

I think—and I have written—that Clinton aired the 3 a.m. ad after reading a certain Pew poll that indicated Obama’s obvious weakness in the area of national security. The Evil Clintons, being smart and evil, see past the primaries. They see that Obama will be a very, very weak candidate for the Democrats. As I have said repeatedly: I’m not a politico. But I am not blind to politics, or to reality.

What I wanted to say in this post, however, is that Obamamania has indeed been punctured. He has lost not only his momentum but also his place in the Mediathon—which is what propelled him to the top. He was able to hijack the spotlight for many weeks. It’s now over. The media has had to move on.

Not only that, but, contrary to those who think the Spitzer story will hurt Hillary Clinton, I think it’s most likely to hurt Barack Obama. It’s a sobering reminder that politicians—no matter how good they make themselves look and how good we would like them to be—are mostly lying, cheating, scheming scum.