As Jennifer Rubin notes, Obama executed his first good pivot last night:

Obama is a fast learner. His speech last night included a heavy dose of heartfelt appreciation for America, reverence for the land of opportunity and lots of empathy for working class voters. Like a vacuum cleaner, he is sucking up the Clintonian message to blue collar voters and absorbing the rhetoric which has successfully lured a coalition of working class whites, seniors and women. Don’t expect any more Snobgate slip-ups.

Now things will start to get really interesting for Obama, as he tries to tack to the center.

While his candidate urges reconciliationBarack Obama’s number-one fan writes:

in the end, the Clintons were defeated not by Republicans, but by African-American Democrats. How wonderful. How poignant.

Really? Why?

Salon’s Joan Walsh wasn’t talking about the blogosphere’s Andrew Sullivan (quoted above) on Reliable Sources last Sunday when she lit into her “journalist” colleagues:

KURTZ: Joan Walsh, …Do you think that one of the reasons that Wright has become such a huge issue for the media is that we’re now in a period where journalists, for the first time really in this campaign, are being far more critical of Barack Obama because he’s in some political trouble?

WALSH: I think that is true. I think it’s just a natural dynamic of political coverage. And you and I both have seen it before.

But, you know, I was struck when I got to Iowa and New Hampshire in January by how our media colleagues were just swooning over Barack Obama. That is not too strong a word. They were swooning.

They — I was at a speech. I remember it — I’ll write about it some day — in Manchester. And every — the biggest names in our business were there.
And they were — they could repeat some of his speech lines to one another. It was like a Bruce Springsteen concert where the fans sing along.

And, you know, I respected it to some extent. He’s a towering political figure. Of our generation, he is probably the best politician. He’s inspiring. And reporters, white reporters, black reporters, reporters of every race, we want to get beyond racism in America.

So he was inspiring. I understood it. They’re human. They responded.

KURTZ: Well…

WALSH: The downside, though, is that they hate — hate Hillary Clinton, most of them. Hate is not too strong a word. And so there was such a double standard with anything she did.

KURTZ: Well, most of them — most of them, that may be unfair. And I agree with you that a lot of journalists just saw Obama as a vehicle to a post-racial society. But, of course, in a political campaign, we are supposed to be fair despite our personal feelings.

WALSH: Right.

The biggest names in journalism hate and despise Hillary Clinton so much that they have managed to insult half of all Democrats by labeling the Clintons as racist Republican-thug clones.

Interesting development.

I, for one, will never ever automatically vote for a Democrat again, as long as I live. I hope they’re proud of themselves.