Barack Obama is trying to tone down the criticism some of his over-eager supporters have been dishing out to the opposition lately. Just this week, he had to ask Senator (and fourth-generation oil millionaire) Jay “Homeboy” Rockefeller to apologize for saying John McCain is out of touch with ordinary people. Rockefeller proffered McCain an olive branch in the form of a magnum of Dom Perignon ’62.

It could be the Obama campaign needs to orchestrate the competitive comments of its allies a little better. A few other missteps:

• Last summer, shrewish hotelier Leona Helmsley reluctantly recanted her critique of Hillary Clinton’s people-management skills.
• Nonagenarian Senator Robert Byrd, on prompting from the Obama camp, said he regretted his use of the phrase “a little long in the tooth” in describing McCain. Senator Byrd said he thinks the Arizona Republican is “the bees’ knees.”
• Recently retired New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had to disavow the public dressing-down he gave McCain on the topic of marital infidelity.
• Bounced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was asked to backtrack on his criticism of Hillary Clinton for plagiarism in a recent speech. Blair had charged that the occasion of Clinton’s speech was “a date which will live in infamy,” adding, enigmatically, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
• Early this year, Vesuvian actor Russell Crowe sheepishly retracted his allegation that McCain has anger-management issues.
• Impulsive CNN founder Ted Turner acknowledged he made an inappropriate public comment in saying, in typically salty language, that McCain has made impulsive and inappropriate public comments.

But the campaign can’t keep all of the Obamaniacs under control. Despite pressure from the Obama team, celebrity philanthropist Heather Mills McCartney has refused to back off of her charge that “Hillary Clinton is just taking advantage of her famous husband.”