My concolences, and this does not bode well for the Obama campaign.

For the past few weeks, Hillary Clinton and the her campaign have been bitch slapping Barack Obama and his campaign, and this is just another step.

For the past 25+ years, the Republicans have used what Josh Marshall calls, the Bitch Slap Theory of Politics, and Hillary and her folks know it, and get it, and are using it on Obama.

The theory is as follows:

One way — perhaps the best way — to demonstrate someone’s lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves — thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.

–snipped Kerry comment–

Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person’s supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who’s receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted.

This is certainly what Bush’s father did to Michael Dukakis and, sadly, it is what Bush himself did, to a great degree, to Al Gore.

And what Bush did to Kerry, and what Clinton is doing to Obama.

If he can’t answer this against Clinton, Obama cannot win the general.