Barack Obama, on the campaign trail today in Flint, Michigan:
Well, how about Gov. Palin? She's you know, an up and comer from Alaska. She - they're starting to run an ad now saying she opposed the bridge to nowhere. Well now, let's get the facts clear here. When she was mayor, she hired a Washington lobbyist to get earmarks - pork barrel spending - all the things that John McCain says is bad, she lobbied to get! And got a whole lot of it. When it came to the bridge to nowhere, she was for it until everybody started raising a fuss about it and she started running for governor and then suddenly she was against it! You remember that? For it before you were against it? I mean you can't just make stuff up. You can't just recreate yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself. The American people aren't stupid.
As Dean Barnett noted earlier, it was a bit ungracious of Sen. Obama to make fun of John Kerry ("For it before you were against it?"), for the sake of enlivening his lame assault on Gov. Palin. But why follow that up with a swipe at his own running mate, Joe Biden ("I mean you can't just make stuff up. You can't just recreate yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself.")? It was of course Joe Biden who, in 1987, famously tried to make up a past and to recreate and reinvent himself as a version of British Labourite Neil Kinnock. This attempted recreation and reinvention, when revealed, forced Biden from the presidential race. Rich material for amateur psychoanalysis here, on Obama's subconscious resentment toward Kerry (whose losing 2004 campaign Obama must now fear he's re-enacting), and Biden (whose selection as his running mate Obama undoubtedly regrets).