I’ve been saying it for months now: The more people learn about Obama the less they like him.

Even as Barack Obama gave his soaring speech Thursday night, his campaign was playing hardball with its critics.

Team Obama has launched an offensive against WGN, the Chicago Tribune’s radio station, for interviewing Stanley Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is a conservative writer who this week forced the University of Illinois to finally open its records on Sen. Obama’s association with William Ayers, the unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist.

An Obama campaign email to supporters called Mr. Kurtz a “slimy character assassin” whose “divisive, destructive ranting” should be confronted. WGN producer Zack Christenson says the outpouring of negative calls and emails is “unprecedented.” He also notes that it is curious—because “we wanted the Obama campaign’s take” on Mr. Kurtz’s findings, but the campaign declined to put anyone on air.

Separately, Mr. Obama’s lawyers have also demanded that the Justice Department prosecute an organization called the American Issues Project for running an ad about ties between their candidate and Mr. Ayers. . . .

Obama aides believe John Kerry lost in 2004 because he failed to respond to the “Swift Boat” ads attacking him, and they are lashing out. Sometimes the Obama objections have merit, as when they exposed errors in Jerome Corsi’s sensationalized Obama biography. But sometimes they are designed to shut down legitimate questions. “They’re terrified of people poking around Obama’s life,” one reporter told Gabriel Sherman at the New Republic. “The whole Obama narrative is built around the narrative that Obama and [campaign strategist] David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it’s not entirely true.” The stakes are high. If the full story of Mr. Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright had been revealed before the Iowa caucus, he wouldn’t have won.

Obama has gone through a great deal of effort to paint an image of himself and his campaign that isn’t true.  He’s poured millions into a “50 state strategy” to increase his appeal in reliably “red” states.  He’s recruited faux “Republicans” to campaign for him.  He’s made soaring-but-vague rhetoric the cornerstone of his campaign so that he can wow audiences with his oratory gifts without revealing any specifics about his agenda.

But none of that is the real Barack Obama. 

The real Barack Obama is the one who sat in his friend and mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church for twenty years while he damned America and railed against “the white man’s greed.” The real Barack Obama is the man who launched his political career at the home of bomb-setting Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers.  The real Barack Obama is the half-term Senator who has already amassed the most liberal voting record in the US Senate.

That’s the real Barack Obama his campaign doesn’t want you to meet.