Monday, August 09, 2004

Updated August 9, 2004 at 12:50 am

Team Obama loses a bit of its "good guy," luster tonight thanks to the Senior Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, being a bit too aggressive or would you say being an attack dog?

Oddly, the NBC-5 news readers/anchors didn’t seem to notice their station’s juxtaposition of the Good Cop, Bad Cop routine of Team Obama.

Barack Obama [the Good Cop of Team Obama] released a statement tonight saying he welcomed Keyes to the Senate race and, “Illinoisans want a senate candidate who will ATTACK the problems they and their candidates face rather than spending time ATTACKING each other.” Very gracious of Barack to welcome his new opponent to the Senate race.

The above was reported by the 10:00 local NBC news affiliate—NBC 5. And then in the next breadth NBC news 5 reported some words from the Bad Cop of Team Obama, in the very next news story, with the NBC news reader saying, “Tonight, Illinois’ Democratic [Senior] Senator [Dick Durbin] is criticizing the state GOP for not choosing a candidate from Illinois and then NBC rolled tape of Senator Dick Durbin stating today, “What I would like people to remember when they think of [Republican Senate Candidate] Allan Keyes is the motel room keys which he is going to generate in 86 days. That will be the closest thing to an Illinois home for this GOP nominee before the election on November 2, 2004.” Cute. Very Cute, Senator Durbin.

Now, I ask you, Team Obama, is Senator Durbin attacking the problems that the people of Illinois face or is he attacking Senate Candidate Keyes. Isn’t that what Barack Obama said Illinoisans don’t want? Time to put your senior senator on a shorter leash?

We discuss, you decide.

Jeff Berkowitz, host and producer of “Public Affairs,” can be reached at JBCG@aol.com