A LOVE AFFAIR THAT MUST END - AT 12:14 P.M. ET:  Economics writer Robert Samuelson, who writes for the Washington Post, says what should be said more often and more loudly - that the media's love affair with President Obama is damaging to the country and the press.  How far do you think he'll get with this?

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment; but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America...

...Obama has inspired a collective fawning. What started in the campaign (the chief victim was Hillary Clinton, not John McCain) has continued, as a study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows.

And...

The infatuation matters because Obama's ambitions are so grand. He wants to expand health care subsidies, tightly control energy use and overhaul immigration.

He envisions the greatest growth of government since Lyndon Johnson...

...The press should not be hostile, but it ought to be skeptical.

Mostly, it isn't. The idea of a "critical" Obama story is a tactical conflict with congressional Democrats or criticism from an important constituency. Larger issues are minimized, despite ample grounds for skepticism.

Finally...

The press has become Obama's silent ally and seems in a state of denial. But the story goes untold: Unsurprisingly, the study of all the favorable coverage received little coverage.

COMMENT:  Samuelson is right, of course, but there's little chance the situation will change in the near future.  Obama's narrative is the one taught to most journalists in college.  They accept it as an accurate portrayal of reality.

As far as the story of the favorable coverage going untold, that is not surprising.  The press doesn't cover the press very well.  It's too close to home, and friends are involved.  Journalists have the same sensibilities as everyone else, although they don't like to admit it.

May 30, 2009