'Wise guys and gals'

Joe Gandelman at the Moderate Voice has a nice roundup of reaction to the emergent anti-Obama trend, including this from MSNBC's blog:

Nevertheless, there is no longer this widespread belief among the wise guys and gals of both parties that we're all just sitting around waiting for this race to break in Obama's direction.

By "wise guys and gals" the MSNBC crew actually means "all our sources and press-corps buddies." This is exactly the point in today's article about "the conventional wisdom among the political press that Obama is a sure thing to win in November."

Team Obama has worked very hard to create the impression among political reporters that their guy is unbeatable. This spin was easy to sell to reporters who spent a year covering the Democratic primary, where Hope triumphed so spectacularly over Hillary. A general election is not a primary, however, and as I explained last month, the rookie is up against big-league pitching now.

Now, Team Obama has another problem of their own making: Liberal reporters who've felt they'd climbed aboard a winning bandwagon will now feel that they've been misled, and produce a steady stream of "what went wrong" stories.

(Cross-posted at AmSpecBlog.)