Alter on Carville: 'Only Slightly More Popular Than McCain'

Jonathan Alter delivers the dish:

John McCain is the least popular person at the Democratic convention. But if bad-mouthing by Obama forces is a way to keep score, James Carville, the ragin' Cajun, is a close second.

Carville has been all over CNN and ABC News trashing the Democrats for lacking a message and not choosing Hillary Clinton as VP. Even Terry McAuliffe--once the most impassioned of Cinton backers, but now a force for party unity--told me he thought Carville was out of line.

Carville said on TV that he was "neither impressed nor pleased" with the first night of the convention because it lacked a theme beyond the Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama speeches, adding that Obama's "got to show some respect and graciousness toward the Clintons. " As for her supporters? "I don't know if they're going to get behind the ticket."

No one should expect Carville to be an Obama cheerleader. That wouldn't be good TV anyway. But Carville was totally misreading the mood of the convention, as the overwhelmingly pro-Obama roll call showed. And the question is why.

The Obama campaign is already furious at Carville's wife, Mary Matalin, for editing and pushing "The Obama Nation," Jerome Corsi's bestselling hatchet job. (Matalin has her own conservative publishing imprint.) Obama supporters don't want to be quoted on the subject, but they believe that Carville and Matalin are looking at the demise of their long-running, lucrative road show if Obama wins. In effect, this takes their strange cross-party act to a new level--one that is angering a lot of convention-goers. It's one thing for Mary to work for President George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney; it's another for his wife to participate in the Swift-Boating of the Democratic nominee (Corsi co-wrote the book, "Unfit for Command," that sunk John Kerry with a fusilade of falsehoods in 2004).

I've always liked James, but the contradictions of his life have finally caught up with him.