Mickey Kaus thinks Barack Obama’s employ of Washington pol extraordinaire Jim Johnson to head his VP search committee is the final straw in the phony debate about whether Barack Obama represents New Politics. But really, it is one small bit of a larger picture. Obama is against villifying opponents? But he accuses McCain of not wanting to be generous to veterans. Obama doesn’t like “cut and paste” politics and playing gotcha with out of context phrases? But he perpetuated the 100 years debate for weeks. He swears age shouldn’t be an issue ? Yet the DNC attack dog Howard Dean dwells on it at every turn. And while Obama doffs his cap to McCain’s years of service, a parade of military-bashing surrogates steps forward to ding McCain.

At some point even the media will notice the disconnect and begin to question the New Politics mantra, right? Well perhaps the public will figure it out on their own.