Over the weekend, bloggers discussed a few more of Obama's problems. And as these bloggers note, you have to rely on the blogs to hear about these issues, since the mainstream media just loves him too much.
First, Obama had to get rid of yet another friend. Obama fired Robert Malley, his Middle East policy adviser, because "he had held meetings" and "had been in regular contact with Hamas." (Well, at least Malley isn't a terrorist himself, like other Obama friends, right?) Power Line's Paul Mirengoff notes that Malley, "like several other of his advisers, oozes hostility towards Israel and sympathy for its enemies." And at the Corner, Mark Hemingway has more on Malley. At Contentions, Jennifer Rubin asks, "what did Malley communicate to Hamas and did Malley's contacts with Hamas have anything to do with the endorsement of Obama by Hamas' Ahmed Yousef?" And Ace asks, "How do all these terrorist-sympathizing radicals keep mistakenly thinking that Obama is one of them?"
Then, Obama had a bit of a geography problem. You may recall Obama's interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer last Thursday, during which Obama said, "I've said [Hamas] a terrorist organization and we should not negotiate with them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and unless they are willing to abide by previous accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis. So for him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination."
This was unfortunate timing since Obama was the one who lost his bearings late Friday, when he said he had visited 57 states. Marc Ambinder says that Obama was tired, but adds that "if John McCain did this--if he mistakenly said he'd visited 57 states--the media would be all up in his grill, accusing him of a senior moment." As Newsbusters notes, the media is definitely not "up in his grill." Power Line's John Hinderaker says this gaffe will "be worth keeping in mind in the fall, when every time John McCain misspeaks, the Democrats' whispering campaign will suggest that he's getting senile."
But where exactly are those extra states? At The Corner, Mark Steyn asks, "Is Hillary tossing in new states just to prolong the nomination process? Or is Obama having McCainesque senior moments?" Some bloggers have other ideas. While I'm sure this is just an ill-timed and funny gaffe, I have to agree with a Flopping Aces commenter, who wrote, "Maybe if here weren't so averse to wearing a flag pin, he's know how many stars were on it [sic]."
