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Last Obama/messy Desk Post, I Promise

I'm not out in Nevada, but I see that Obama's taken to using the "greatest weakness" question from Tuesday's debate to needle his opponents there. Here's how the AP reported it this morning:

Obama began by recalling a moment in Tuesday night's debate when he and his rivals were asked to name their biggest weakness. Obama answered first, saying he has a messy desk and needs help managing paperwork - something his opponents have since used to suggest he's not up to managing the country. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said his biggest weakness is that he has a powerful response to seeing pain in others, and Clinton said she gets impatient to bring change to America.

"Because I'm an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, 'What's your biggest weakness?'" Obama said to laughter from a packed house at Rancho High School. "If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, 'Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. It's terrible.'"

For what it's worth, I think this could be one of those moments, like Hillary's angry response to John Edwards during the recent New Hampshire debate, that the media cynics proclaim a misstep but the folks at home find pretty winning. Say what you will about the wisdom of his response, Obama was the only one who wasn't transparently phony in that exchange.  

--Noam Scheiber