The Hard Part Begins
The story goes through Obama's weaknesses and notes that "[o]fficials at the top of both parties calculate that Obama has risen too fast to sustain his popularity in the cauldron of a presidential campaign." Obama's inexperience, "anemic" policy record, liberalism, and past disclosures are his weak spots, Allen writes. (He wrote in one book: "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it.")
But The New Republic's Michael Crowley says "there's nothing terribly damning here --at least not beyond things we know." The problem isn't what's here, he warns, but what's not: "the really saucy stuff," he suspects, "will spill in more dramatic fashion" down the road.