The old switcheroo

So AP's David Espo offers what at first seems to be a reasonably harsh critique of the McCain campaign, but then at the end of the article...he takes back everything he just said:

And in truth, no candidate can expect to make it through a grueling presidential campaign without suffering one or two self-inflicted wounds -- the most grievous of which are far worse than anything that has happened to McCain.

For example, writes Espo, let's talk about "bitter-cling":

Obama himself spent days in the Democratic primary race trying to explain away remarks he made at a closed-door fundraiser that small-town Americans who were bitter over their economic plight turned to religion.

Republicans took notice of that one, and Obama can expect to hear more about that moment in the fall.

Espo is not telling the truth here -- Obama was explaining political behavior, not religious behavior -- but that doesn't stop him from saying that compared to Obama's "bitter-cling" moment, John McCain is gaffe-free:

Arguably, McCain has yet to make that kind of gaffe despite enduring a candidacy of remarkable adversity in which he went from front-runner to the campaign cellar and back again.

Well, to the extent that Espo is right, the reason isn't that McCain hasn't tried -- it's that the media has given grandpa a free ride.

The rude awakening that these reporters will face in this election is that their power has faded: they are no longer the gatekeepers. The internet is changing all that, and we're not going to put up with their bull any longer.

Update: Over at Daily Kos, DanK is Back noticed the same thing. Update 2: debrazza also noticed the same thing here as well, way earlier in the day.