Barack Obama's very, very, very bad week didn't get any better last night and other debate postmortem

The media have been treating the Democratic presidential race as a two-person game for practically the last six months. Granted, a fight to the [political] death between a serious woman candidate and a serious black candidate, particularly when played against a sea of Gray White Saber-Rattlers on the Republican side, makes a more compelling story than do the white guys in the Democratic race. But as Barack Obama's peculiar flavor of "Can't We All Just Get Along" politics has been shown to involve throwing Teh Gays under the bus and a refusal to take a strong stand against just about anything, we ought to start seeing some movement in the race.

The Hillary is Inevitable storyline has increasingly dominated the media with every poll that comes out showing her with a commanding lead -- despite the fact that no one seems to know anyone who's planning to vote for her. But after last night's debate, we're at least starting to see some acknowledgement that there are others in this race, particularly John Edwards, who has trounced the competition in the last two debates.

Today, from two of the most loathsome so-called "journalists" covering the political beat from the New York Times, Adam Nagourney and Elisabeth Bumiller, comes mention, however fleeting, of this reality:

But for all the attention Mr. Obama drew to himself coming into the debate, he was frequently overshadowed by former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who — speaking more intensely — repeatedly challenged Mrs. Clinton’s credentials and credibility, and frequently seemed to make the case against Mrs. Clinton that Mr. Obama had promised to make.

If I were conspiracy-minded (Moi? conspiracy-minded? Quelle horreur!), I'd almost think that Obama, whom we know is capable of rousing a crowd, has been told to take a dive by some giant BushClinton conspiracy to run things in this country in perpetuity in return for keeping some peccadillo secret or for a plum job in a Clinton administration. But it's difficult to take Hillary's anti-Bush rhetoric seriously when she keeps voting for Bush's insane military adventures and later claiming she was voting for diplomacy. John Edwards is absolutely right: How many times does it take to learn a lesson?

I can't even express how much I wish Hillary were someone I could support. Given the kind of mess that the so-called "manly men" currently running the country have made of things, it would be wonderful to have a woman to enthusiastically support. But when I see Hillary's sense of entitlement, her continuation of the famed Clinton Triangulation that made her husband a very good moderate Republican president but not a progressive one, and the spectre of another four to eight years of Clinton Derangement Syndrome in the press and on talk radio, I just want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

John Edwards right now is the one candidate who has outlined a serious progressive agenda and is both able and willing to articulate what his agenda looks like. And yet he's been virtually ignored by a media that wrote him off over a haircut and a house. It's wonderful that Chris Dodd has in this race found a voice as the silver-haired lion of the Constitution, and indeed I've sent his campaign some money as well. Joe Biden has an unfortunate tendency to be a blowhard and make himself the story, but he did have the best line of the night about Rudy Giuliani (and whoever is the eventual nominee should memorize it) when he said of the self-appointed saint of 9/11: “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.” Even Dennis Kucinich, whose continued talk of a Department of Peace often makes him sound like Congressman Moonbeam, makes a more compelling case for his nomination than does Hillary.

I would hope that this notion that we are just waiting to crown Hillary as the nominee before a single vote is even cast falls by the wayside as we head into the few months before the first primary. And I hope the people of the states of Iowa and New Hampshire realize that they have a voice and need not do the media's bidding in this coronation.