I’m sure glad Allahpundit did a post on this because I didn’t want to recount the whole thing. Rich Lowry nailed the left (and those not so left but still backing Obama) for their altering the narrative after Obama’s decision to break his promise of public financing. Lowry sufficiently sums up how many Obama supporters have shifted it:

Jonah, I thought the Brooks column was good too. But it’s interesting how the ground has shifted: He used to admire Obama because he represented something new and different in politics; now he admires him because he’s such an effective political fraud.

Indeed, they’ve went from raving about how he was a “new politics” guy that kept his promises, to raving about how he’s smart enough to abandon said promises when it suits him. Exhibit A:

I have to admit, I’m ambivalent watching all this. On the one hand, Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for a tiny political advantage. If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell out? On the other hand, global affairs ain’t beanbag. If we’re going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside.

All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.

Thrilling! So now the narrative isn’t that he’s a straight-shooting guy who’s bringing about new politics, but rather that he’s a smart guy for selling out that “new politics” when it suits him politically.

Andrew Sullivan, to no one’s surprise, responded in a similar manner.

Look, I’m not exactly an advocate for the public financing option. In fact, I support private funding of campaigns. However, you don’t fight for others to take the option and promise to take it yourself, only to turn it down when you start to see some serious coinage. Like Allah says:

I don’t begrudge him his reversal on public financing — I’d want McCain to do the same if he was banking $100 mil a month — and like Brooks I’m encouraged to see him showing the sort of useful ruthlessness that will come in handy on foreign policy, assuming it’s not a weapon he reserves for the left’s real enemies in the GOP. But can we please at least lay the “new brand of politics” crap to rest now? He lied, straight out, about ever pursuing a meeting with McCain to discuss the possibility of public financing; he lied, straight out, about being forced to raise huge sums privately to beat back the onslaught of Republican 527s since (a) there are no 527s attacking him right now and (b) given how decrepit the GOP’s message machine is these days, it’s unlikely that any 527s that do arise will do him much harm. He’ll say and do what he has to in order to get elected, just like every other politician in America. Nothing wrong with it in context, but nothing particularly Hopey or Changey about it, either.

There’s nothing wrong with accepting private funding when you’re bringing in that much dough. But then don’t A) promise to accept it, B) call yourself a new politics at the same time.