In reading the discussion around here, one thing strikes me most of all: The Obama campaign is given absolutely no credit for having tried to work with this Joe Anthony character in the first place. They didn't have to. If they had been the sort of Machiavellian bastards people are claiming they are, they wouldn't have screwed around with Mr. Anthony at all. They would've taken the site up front, as was their right, and it would've been over quick and clean just like that.
The only reason this story is even being discussed is that the campaign had worked with Anthony for a time, creating the erroneous appearance that he might be entitled to compensation on that count. If they had not, there would be no occasion for anyone to talk about such nonsense as retroactive compensation for non-contracted "services" in the first place, certainly not in the spectacularly absurd amounts being thrown around.
I think this is perfectly obvious and any lawyer, I have to think, would agree that the campaign jeopardized their legal position and took a considerable risk politically (as this whole episode proves) by engaging with this guy and allowing him to maintain control over something he clearly had no legal (or even ethical) right to in the first place -- he was, after all, publishing under Obama's name with absolutely no prior authorization and indeed that was the sole source of the popularity of his enterprise. They did not have to. This is not "politics as usual" as the cynics and partisans of various other candidates so gleefully allege.
And yet in spite of this most obvious fact, you have people trying to score points on Obama for this. On one hand you have people claiming the campaign should've just paid the guy what he asked -- of course, these people are clearly idiots and don't require any refutation. On the other, you have people claiming this as evidence of Obama's inexperience. Really? If these people are serious, they cannot be of the "gee, why not just give him what he wants" variety, but rather those who realize as I have and the staffers at the Obama camp clearly must have as well that there was risk involved in not just carefully and tactfully taking the URL and being done with it up front. I have to wonder about these people: How jaded do you have to be to look at someone at least trying to the right thing, though finding it difficult in a world of hucksterism and charlatans, and say "Well, this just goes to show how inexperienced and unfit for office you are"?
And where do these people get off, by the way, making these sorts of attacks on fellow Democrats? They must know that someday when he's the nominee (and let's face it, his numbers are twice Edwards' -- who just isn't gonna happen -- and now ahead of Hillary, with an endorsement from Oprah in tow) these attacks are going to come back from the other side, i.e. the Republicans. What will you say then? That you were full of shit a year ago? That you just didn't fully appreciate how great Obama was back then, but have now seen the light? Maybe you'll say that a year of campaigning in the primary has given him the experience you felt he lacked back then? -- This last, at least, would have the virtue of being funny.
It's one thing to complain about Obama's stances on the issues (though it's not at all clear to me what the complaints that prompt these constant hit pieces around here are) or that he just isn't quite as good as some other candidate, the argument constantly being made about other candidates by Obama's supporters. (Notice how you don't hear a lot of bullshit smear jobs against Edwards from the Obama contingent -- it's not because they couldn't cook some up, you know.) But when your approach is to undermine his claims to running an honorable campaign or to attack his character or experience, you're not helping your guy (who probably doesn't have a chance anyway) or certainly the party. You're helping the opposition when the general comes around. (Though you could perhaps fairly argue they won't have a chance either...)
Anyway, I just wanted to register my opinion on the "heads I win, tails you lose" approach this place takes on Obama by and large. The kind of cheap crap people fling at him is only possible because he is trying to run a different kind of campaign. The fact that the opposition is unscrupulous and will use anything they can against you is exactly what makes politics the way it is these days, which is why I find it particularly admirable the way their new media guy can be so gracious about this while I, a relatively uninvolved bystander by my own admission, have a bit of difficulty mustering the same spirit of good will.