The post election Obama media

Howard Kurtz:

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Conservative commentator Amy Holmes, a former GOP Senate aide, says the press will be tempted to portray an "embittered, embattled Republican minority" as "thwarting the will of Barack Obama. Republicans will be going into a media environment of cheerleading for Obama that will characterize the opposition as nasty rather than reasonable."

Even if journalists chronicle Obama making occasional blunders, Holmes says, they will not question whether he is pushing "an agenda that is to the left of where the American people are." That assumes, of course, that he doesn't steer a more centrist course.

Obama may enjoy a respite after an inauguration that is all but certain to be covered as another watershed moment. Jim Warren, former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and a Huffington Post columnist, predicts that he will get something of a honeymoon.

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After eight years of President Bush, many people have forgotten the tense relations between the fourth estate and Bill Clinton, who spoke derisively of the "knee-jerk liberal press." The Arkansas native felt that Washington's media establishment viewed him condescendingly and was obsessed with scandal. Once major media outlets broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton railed against journalists who vacuumed up leaks from Ken Starr and his special prosecutor's office.

Obama, an obscure state senator until four years ago, has no such baggage, but neither has he tried to cultivate close relationships with journalists, even among liberal columnists who revere him. He limited his contact with traveling reporters, some of whom viewed him as aloof. And his tight-as-a-drum campaign almost never leaked or engaged in unattributed finger-pointing.

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Oh really? How would Kurtz know Obama has no such baggage? The biggest complaint against the Obama media is that they did not vet him or subject him to the media anal exam they gave Republicans like Sarah Palin. I don't expect that will change much after the election with many of them now feeling like their must justify their chosen one by making sure he is successful rather than reporting on events.

But events have a way of catching up with Presidents regardless of how many cheerleaders the have in what is left of the mainstream media. There will come a time when they can no longer ignore his gaffes and his bad policies. The time is quickly coming when Obama and the Democrats will have to take responsibility.