Barack Who?

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What kind of impact has the Palin pick had on MSM coverage? We've gone from wall-to-wall adoration of last night's speech, to—literally within hours—Andrea Mitchell having to remind viewers of some guy named Barack Obama.  Mitchell was kibitzing the choice of Palin with Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson and Time editor Rick Stengel. Not merely did the liberal [see here and here] Stengel praise Palin, he even compared her favorably with . . . Hillary Clinton. And Mitchell closed the segment by acknowledging that Obama had been "overshadowed."

RICK STENGEL: She has a very, very appealing story, and one of the things that is very winning about it is that it's like the Founders' view of democracy. I mean, she is a citizen legislator. She started as a hockey mom, as someone who was going to PTA meetings. It's a very compelling story.  It's very unlike, by the way, Senator Clinton's story, who was married to a President of the United States. She's married to a commercial fisherman.

ANDREA MITCHELL: And all this breaking news about the Republican ticket.  Barack Obama—remember Barack Obama?—after his successful kick-off and his acceptance speech last night, he's now kicking off his general election campaign. Obama and his running mate Joe Biden, now about to land in Pittsburgh, where they will launch their bus tour, their bus tour of the Midwest. Pennsylvania only the first stop on the Democrats' "Road to Change" of battleground states, I should say. They're going to be in Ohio and Michigan over the weekend. Sunday in Michigan, then Detroit, also Michigan, on Monday.  All of this of course now, overshadowed by John McCain's surprise pick of Alaska's first female governor, Sarah Palin, as his female running mate. Republicans are matching the Democrats' history-making ticket with one of their own.

View video here.

We have no illusions: the MSM will train its sights on Palin.  Even in throwing it to Stengel, for example, Mitchell referred to McCain-Palin as a "fiercely anti-abortion" ticket.  When's the last time Andrea referred to Obama as "fiercely pro-abortion," I wonder?  Even so, there's no doubt that the Palin pick has altered the media equation.