Underneath his otherwise empty campaign, at least Obama has managed to sell an image of honesty. And we didn't really mind when he was a touch hypocritical in his post-racial but somehow still racialized message of healing - because good for him for being able to walk that rhetorical line. But his campaign has gotten particularly annoying in their resort to insultingly bad arguments. These are the arguments that - no matter what side of the political spectrum you embrace - are just bad. Like when he was accused of stacking his campaign's shadow State Department with seething anti-Israel hacks and he responded by saying that (a) he hadn't done that and (b) he had pro-Israel people to balance out any anti-Semiticish advisers. And then his first answer and his second answer both turned out to be false.

He didn't write his speech. His campaign isn't modest. And now it seems like he's not even trying to stay in the ballpark of reality:

Not so much lies as a sort of slippery sleight-of-mouth. I'm starting to really dislike Obama. "Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation... came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land." Segregation was not "the law of the land" in the 1950s. It was the law in a minority of states. "For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger … occasionally … finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews." If, as Obama seems to be claiming, those are the sentiments only of Wright's generation, how come those whooping and clapping their approval in those sermon clips include lots of young people?

Brzezinski gets them in trouble on Israel? He's not an adviser - except he is.

Goolsbee gets them in trouble on NAFTA? He wasn't speaking for the campaign - except he was.

A pastor who preached to him for 20 years, baptized his children, married him to his wife, and provided the inspiration for his career making book is an anti-Semitic American-hating conspiracy monger? Just some crazy uncle who's really angry at Jews. For some reason that can't be discussed - because that would be divisive.

Bad arguments.

Not that this is stopping our Obama-adoring academic friends from hailing yesterday as the single greatest political speech of their lifetimes. These are people who were adults during the Challenger speech. So obviously all the snark about Obama's cult of personality is misplaced.

Not that Obama has a monopoly on staggeringly bad arguments. One might say that they're becoming endemic to Democratic Party advocacy. The delegate fight should be a welcome correction to that trend. Whatever the opposite of "correction" is.

References:
* Obama Defenders: What Brzezinski Guy? (Plus: That's Not Even Their Worst Argument) [MR]
* Obama's "Pro-Israel Advisers" Don't Actually Exist. As Such. [MR]
* The Politics of Hope Spin [NRO The Corner]
* Obama and "Making History" [NRO The Corner]
* Obama's Lies [NRO The Corner]
* Obama’s NAFTA Dance: Goolsbee “misquoted” [Hot Air]
* Chickenhawk v2.0: Gloria Steinem, Wes Clark shrug at McCain’s military service [Hot Air]

Previously:
* Obama Now Actively Channeling Rabid Anti-Israel Academics, Adopting Their Dumbest Anti-Israel Euphemisms
* Lebanon - Another Country Where Obama Can Make Things Much Worse
* Obama Really Getting The Hang Of Anti-Israel Diplomatic Code Words