Begala on Obama

Watching Paul Begala among the talking heads on CNN tonight and I'm reminded of another reason why Obama's "strategy session" with the NYT struck me the wrong way: you don't talk strategy that way with a paper. You might leak a particularly nasty story to the paper as a means of demonstrating your strategy. But you don't "leak" strategy ... you just "do" strategy.

That's the crux of Begala's point and it's one that I tend to agree with. But it also provides a second echo of a point that I initially grazed at in my critique of Obama's move. There's also this belief that media outlets - by no means unlike the supposedly liberal NYT itself - that they're there to help us. If only we have a little breakfast convo over partially eaten eggs, they'll accept our strategy as a storyline to harp on in a way favorable to us and at the expense of the opposition. Huge problem ... there's no truth to warrant that approach. Not in a primary, not in a general.

Begala also pointed out yet another point that I can't help but find some comic value in. By "leaking" his strategy to the NYT the way he did, it makes Obama look ... calculating. Hmmm, isn't that what he's presently running ads in Iowa accusing HRC of?