p.s. he talked about education

Today, Obama prefaced a talk about education with an attack on the McCain campaign for trying to distract the American people by raising phony issues in Rovian attacks.

No complaints about CNN's coverage of this call-out. Here's the lede:

Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday accused Sen. John McCain's campaign of engaging in "lies" and "swift boat politics" in regard to his comment about "lipstick on a pig."

"Spare me the phony outrage. Spare me the phony talk about change," Obama said at the start of an education event in Norfolk, Virginia.

However, my funny bone was struck when deep in the article I came to this:

Meanwhile, after Obama made his remarks criticizing Republicans, he moved on to discussing his plan for the education system. At the Virginia event, Obama repeated proposals he laid out Tuesday, which included doubling funding for charter schools and investing in early-childhood education. Read more about Obama's plan for public education

That paragraph began, approximately, at Word # 600.

Before then, it was all stroke-counterstroke about the lip-schtick and other charges and countercharges (McCain's "Palin truth squad" vs. Obama's "Alaska mythbusters"). And CNN was right to lead with Obama's denunciation. McCain's decision over the summer to go nuclear with smears, lies and insults deserves to be called out, spotlighted, debunked, denounced.

But we're left with Obama's dilemma. After 600 words about the mud-wrestling, who's inclined to read more about Obama's plan for public education? Breaking through the noise is like jumping off your shadow.