This sounds like a bad joke: things are so bad for Barack Obama that the New York Times doesn’t like him any more. But it’s true:

Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush’s abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics. . . Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election. His team explained that, saying he had a grass-roots-based model and that while he was forgoing public money, he also was eschewing gold-plated fund-raisers. These days he’s on a high-roller hunt. We were equally distressed by Mr. Obama’s criticism of the Supreme Court’s barring the death penalty for crimes that do not involve murder. We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games. There are still vital differences between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain on issues like the war in Iraq, taxes, health care and Supreme Court nominations. We don’t want any “redefining” on these big questions. This country needs change it can believe in.

Well some conservatives might surmise that the Times‘ ire can help you capture votes in middle America, but for a Democrat it’s different. And it’s never helpful to have the trend-setter for the MSM eviscerate the core of your candidacy: the pretense to be the leader of the era of New Politics. The problem with being a transparent flip-flopper is, of course, that you please neither of the sides on substance and you convince everyone you are a fraud. Poor Hillary Clinton — if only the primary race had gone on a month longer.

And if the liberal punditocracy follows suit Obama will spend the next month trying to convince the Left he really hasn’t changed at all. And then the Left, the centrists and the disgusted punditocracy may really have had enough.