"The Obama poster has spread Fairey's fame, but is the image good for the candidate? Like the photograph-turned-icon of Che Guevara -- which graces the T-shirts of countless hipsters who barely know who the guy is -- Fairey's Obama poster is rooted in the graphic style of agitprop. There's an unequivocal sense of idol worship about the image, a half-artsy, half-creepy genuflection that suggests the subject is (a) a Third World dictator whose rule is enmeshed in a seductive cult of personality; (b) a controversial American figure who's been assassinated; or (c) one of those people from a Warhol silk-screen that you don't recognize but assume to be important in an abstruse way.

This cannot be the Obama campaign's idea of good public relations, I find myself thinking as I stare at one of the ubiquitous Fairey posters while waiting for my soy chai latte. It's just too bohemian and too vulnerable to misinterpretation, too much the visual equivalent of your parents smelling incense and thinking it must be pot."

“We’re going to continue to keep making this case with initiatives to make it clear that his support for Israel could not be more unequivocal,” Mr. Wexler said.

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I'm not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that's the safest ground politically.

"I still hear some dogs barking,' Carville said, according to The State newspaper. 'I'm for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee."

"As soon as I determine when that is, I'll send him a check,' he added."

Pushing back against political punditry, more than six in 10 Democrats say there's no rush for Hillary Clinton to leave the presidential race – even as Barack Obama consolidates his support for the nomination and scores solidly in general-election tests.

Numbers like these (reported here today in the New York Post) have to be worrying the Obama team:

[A] new poll says 64 percent of Democrats nationwide, want [Hillary] to stay in the race.

Even 42 percent of Obama's supporters in the ABC News/ Washington Post  poll, said they don't want Clinton to throw in the towel. . . . . 

Separate polls released yesterday show Clinton beating Obama in West Virginia, 60 percent to 24 percent, and in Kentucky, 58 percent to 31 percent.

If I were on the Obama campaign, I'd want to know why so many Democrats want Hillary to stay in.  It's one thing if they're just enjoying the excitement and coverage the race is generating -- quite another, however, if they want to keep their options open and not be locked in yet with Barack as their nominee.

As a more general matter, it's worrisome that Hillary Clinton is beating Barack so soundly in West Virginia and Kentucky.  Usually, when it becomes clear that one person is pretty certain to be the eventual winner, that person picks up support and electoral momentum because of a "bandwagon effect" -- most people want to go with a winner.  That's why so few campaigns or candidates are ever willing to admit that anything is less than great . . . they know such an admission can begin (or accelerate) a downard spiral for them.

Given all this, it's hard not to wonder:  Where's Barack's bandwagon, and what does it mean that he doesn't seem to have one?

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)