The Note: Caveat Victor?

May 16, 2008 -- The political initiation of Barack Obama, in five acts:

I. Wherein the current president welcomes him (sort of) as a possible successor to the throne.

II. Wherein robed men and women in the Golden State remind him how difficult his race will be.

III. Wherein the protagonist finds a symbol that shows either political maturation, downright pandering, or nothing much at all.

IV. Wherein his probable opponent unsheathes a sword that warns him of what a dangerous race it will be.

V. Wherein bands of supporters of an aged dynasty remind him that nothing in this realm comes without a price.

John Edwards and NARAL and the steelworkers and the superdelegates -- that's all well and good. But perhaps we can thank 43 for handing this potential 44 the keys to the kingdom of the general election.

The most intriguing part of the political fallout of President Bush's speech to the Knesset Thursday: He didn't even have to mention Sen. Barack Obama's name to spark a firestorm back home.

The second most intriguing part: The way the Democratic establishment rallied to his defense, even though his name wasn't mentioned -- kind of felt like a general election.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," President Bush said in Jerusalem.

Then the corker: "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' "

No. He. Didn't.

"The episode placed Mr. Bush squarely in one of the most divisive debates of the campaign to succeed him, as Republicans try to portray Mr. Obama as weak in the fight against terrorism," Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jim Rutenberg write in The New York Times. "It also underscored what the White House has said will be an aggressive effort by Mr. Bush to use his presidential platform to influence the presidential election."

This is another way to describe the same speech: "President Bush to Barack Obama: You're a fool," per the New York Daily News write-up.

Don't forget Obama's problems with Jewish voters -- but this is a debate Obama doesn't mind, not at this stage of this campaign. "Obama has called for talks with the leaders of Iran and Syria but has staunchly opposed any such meetings with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and which the U.S. and Israel label a terrorist organization," Mark Silva writes in the Chicago Tribune.

Obama: "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

For the defense: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ("beneath the dignity"), Rep. Rahm Emanuel ("partisan politics stops at the water's edge"), and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joe Biden ("get a life").

"Democrats angrily called the comment a veiled shot at Obama, who has advocated dialogue with Iran and Syria, but not the Palestinian group Hamas," Michael Abramowitz reports in The Washington Post.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was ready to play: "It does bring up an issue I will be discussing with the American people, and that is: Why does Barack Obama, Senator Obama want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism?" he told reporters Thursday, per ABC's Bret Hovell and Jennifer Parker.

How does this impact it? James P. Rubin uses a Washington Post op-ed to relate this Q&A with McCain, from two years ago: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?" McCain: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another."

Who's happier with this fight? "It's hard to know who needs whom more," Massimo Calabresi writes for Time. "Bush is struggling to keep his presidency relevant, and injecting himself into the presidential campaign is a sure way to do that. At the same time, Obama is happy for any opportunity to tie Bush to Republican nominee-to-be John McCain's side."

California Court Ruling

The gay-marriage battle is joined anew, this time because of judges in California, who join their brethren in Massachusetts as conservative fundraising icons. The ruling overturning a state ban on gay marriage will resonate all through the fall, when a state constitutional amendment enshrining the ban will be on the state ballot.

None of the three major presidential candidates support gay marriage, and all oppose a constitutional amendment banning it.

And if you think that fact will take the issue off the fall's political table, you are not old enough to remember 2004. For beleaguered Republicans, looking for a message, there's nothing like a bunch of activist judges to get juices (and money) flowing.

The ruling "could help Republicans by serving up a red-meat issue to rally conservative voters," Zachary Coile writes in the San Francisco Chronicle. "The issue is not one Illinois Sen. Barack Obama or New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would prefer to see front and center -- polls show the public trusts the Democrats more on key issues like health care and the economy."

But who's really happy with this fight? "The court's Thursday ruling was not necessarily good news for the presidential candidates, on whom it could exert problematic pressure," Phil Willon and Patrick McGreevy write in the Los Angeles Times.

"Republican John McCain's success depends on melding a fractious coalition of GOP conservatives -- who are among those pressing for a ban on same-sex marriage -- with independents and conservative Democrats who tend to recoil from candidates campaigning on social issues," they write. "The decision could encourage Democratic interest groups to press [Democratic] candidates to extend their support for civil unions to same-sex marriage itself."

"It should offer a test of whether the issue is resonant in American politics or whether it has fallen to the side of the road, as many Democrats and some Republicans say," Adam Nagourney writes in The New York Times.

Yet: "There is considerable debate whether the marriage issue helped Republican candidates in 2004. And it seems questionable if voters are going to find it compelling this year, at a time when the country is facing a prolonged war, an ailing economy and skyrocketing gasoline prices, the issues that Mr. McCain and the two Democratic candidates are confronting on the campaign trail every day."

McCain isn't wont to talk about it -- ABC's George Stephanopoulos predicts a campaign "conspiracy of silence" on the issue -- but gay marriage looms with huge potential for the GOP.