For all of Barack Obama's laudatory qualities, he has recently made a huge blunder that I believe is going to cost him a chance at the Democratic nomination in '08. And that blunder is that Obama has said publically that he is considering running.

And so now supporters of other Democratic candidates have started sharpening their knives to kill an Obama candidacy before it can even get out of infancy. Pundits and the blogosphere are on fire with critiques of Obama.

• Yesterday Atrios said "Obama's triangulation is more rhetorical than real. One can triangulate by picking a Third Way position, or one can triangulate by picking a position and calling it the Third Way and that's what Obama tends to do. See Tomasky's review of his book in the NYRB. It may be dishonest or he may genuinely mean it, and I don't much care. Dishonesty has an honorable place in politics. My problem with triangulation has nothing to do with dishonesty or personal affront - I don't expect politicians to cater to me in their speeches. My problem with triangulation is that it's a way for a man to win an election, but not a way to build a party's brand. It's a short term strategy to benefit an individual, not a long term strategy to increase the size of the tribe."
• Michael Barone: "Obama has the ability to be a strong candidate. But it's not clear, perhaps not even to himself, whether he has the capacity to be a strong and effective president."
• John Heilemann in New York Magazine: "For all his promise, Obama is basically an empty vessel, with vulnerabilities that have been obscured by his blinding, meteoric ascent. And though it’s not impossible for him to win the Democratic nomination, the road to that destination will be rougher than his adherents admit—or, quite possibly, than Obama himself imagines."
• John Fund in the Wall Street Journal: "Only for so long will Mr. Obama's sparkling personality help him avoid troubling questions about his ideological record. The fact that he originally opposed the war in Iraq would help him with primary voters, but it's unclear how many Democrats want to plump for someone who, according to National Journal, has a more liberal voting record than Hillary Clinton. Last year Mr. Obama had a perfect 100% voting record from both the Americans for Democratic Action and the AFL-CIO."

I believe that this is just the beginning of attacks on Obama and highlights his inexperience as a politician.