The media commentary on Obama's campaign has taken on a distinctly more chilly tone of late, after many months during which the dominant narrative in campaign coverage seemed to have been based on some ancient tale of a good prince sent to save the kingdom from a wicked witch (which may have been what Bill Clinton was on about). Kurt Andersen, a self-confessed Obamaphile writing wittily about The Crush, suggests that part of the reason journalists fell for Obama was that he made them feel, for the first time, like they belonged...bless 'em.
Back in February, when the new prince was gliding thrillingly up and up toward nomination, a part of the thrill for the media was their happy astonishment that they were no longer cosmopolitan outliers but finally (unlike in 1984 with Gary Hart) in sync with America: Regular folks, white people in Iowa and Virginia and Wisconsin, were actually voting for Obama!
That was then. With the ten-point loss in Pennsylvania, the latest Reverend Wright eruption, and the shrinkage of Obama’s leads in the polls, the media are feeling lousy, and not just because their guy is taking a beating. If Obama is deemed to be an effete, out-of-touch yuppie, then the effete-yuppie media Establishment that’s embraced him must be equally oblivious and/or indifferent to the sentiments of the common folk.
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