The media coverage is catching up with reality, at least on John McCain’s acceptance by the conservative base. Gone are the “James Dobson is not pleased” and “Conservatives aren’t happy” stories. Now, grudging “Conservatives respect McCain but they aren’t enthusiastic” reporting dominates the scene.

Conservative support (as reflected in polling) hasn’t changed much. The coverage has. Why? Partially because conservatives may be willing to speak up on McCain’s behalf in the wake of the negative coverage of Barack Obama. Partially because of a fear that Obama will bring a grab-bag of 1960’s counterculture characters to the White House. Certainly conservative talk show hosts have a plethora of targets (e.g. Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers) far juicier than McCain’s past violations of conservative orthodoxy. (Even Rick Santorum offers McCain grudging support because, after all, “He’s not Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.”) At some point, also, it becomes silly to trot out more “conservatives aren’t happy” tale. The real story in base defection and fragmentation is, of course, on the Democratic side, where more and more incidents reflect the looming challenge in healing the wounds left by an increasingly vitriolic primary race. Even commentators on the left have begun to recognize this.