Newsweek CW Praises Obama, Clinton 'Unity' Rally, Ignores Obama Flip-flop on Gun Rights

Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom for its July 7 dead tree edition gives an approving up arrow for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), noting that he is "[s]urging in national polls" before adding the cautionary note to "beware looking like just another politician."

But the real CW in DC this past week, which saw the Supreme Court affirm the individual's right to keep and bear arms, is that Obama has flip-flopped on the Second Amendent, something the editors at Newsweek most certainly must know.

Obama's Matrix-like bullet dodging on gun rights pinged ABCNews.com's Political Radar. From that blog's June 26 post (emphasis mine):

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Alexa Ainsworth Report: With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.'s, gun ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful" statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional.

"That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position," Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.

The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate representation of the senator's views was made to the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007.

In a story entitled, "Court to Hear Gun Case," the Chicago Tribune's James Oliphant and Michael J. Higgins wrote ". . . the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he '...believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.'"

[...]

The Chicago Tribune clip from Nov. 20, 2007, is an inaccurate representation of Obama's views, according to Burton, because the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has refrained from developing a position on whether the D.C. gun law runs afoul of the Second Amendment.

When Obama has been asked on multiple occasions to weigh in on the D.C. gun case he has regularly maintained that the Second Amendment provides an individual right while at the same time saying that right is not absolute and that the Constitution does not prevent local governments from enacting what Obama calls "common sense laws."

Nah, that doesn't sound like a typical politician at all.

The CW also gave an approving up arrow to Hillary Clinton for her ballyhooed appearance at the "unity" rally in Unity, New Hampshire. Such a cheesy maneuver were it done by Republicans might evoke guffaws from the mainstream media, but Newsweek lauded Clinton for moving on and backing Obama:

Scores graciousness points at Unity rally. Seems like she's finally moving on.