Here Come the Media Attacks on Obama

With Sen. Barack Obama now emerging as the Democratic front-runner, clear signs suggest that his press treatment will soon change and that the media will fall back into their routine of viewing -- and critiquing -- leading Democrats through the eyes of Republican spin.

Just last week, we saw how a single line from a Michelle Obama speech was seized upon by conservative partisans, led by Fox News, to suggest she is not patriotic, and how that attack was given a wider airing in the mainstream press. (CNN casually raised questions about Barack Obama's patriotism, as well.) We've also seen the media-manufactured narrative take root that Obama is the leader of a cultish following (more on that below), which dovetails with the creeping media meme that Obama is a phony.

Meanwhile, in Sunday's New York Times, Obama was twice described as being overly effeminate: He's an "elusive starlet" who prefers "playing the tease," while espousing a "feminine management style." Compare that to the media's portrayal of Republican Sen. John McCain as sort of a man's man, and it's obvious where those competing narratives are headed.

Writing at Slate.com,

John Dickerson announced he's had enough of the Obama euphoria: "Isn't there a natural limit to our enthusiasm for to this kind of sweeping phenomenon?" By "our," I suppose Dickerson meant voters, but my hunch is he was likely referring to journalists and how they had reached their "natural limit." I'm not sure this foreshadows a full-fledged media backlash against Obama, but it certainly suggests a fundamental shift is on the horizon. The pendulum is swinging.

Specifically, look at the about-face being done by partisan conservative columnists who, rather unbelievably, had expressed their deep admiration for Obama, a liberal Democrat, during the primary season when he opposed Clinton.

"He is the brilliant young black man as American dream," wrote Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, whose hatred of Hillary Clinton is limitless. But with the Clinton campaign now wounded and Obama grabbing the inside track on the nomination, Noonan quickly flip-flopped. In her February 22 column, she suggested the Obamas are self-centered "snobs" who can't relate to "normal Americans." (Bill Kristol is now hitting that nasty theme as well.)

New York Times Republican columnist David Brooks performed a similar pivot. Last year, he praised Obama effusively while urging him to take on Clinton for the Democratic nomination: "Whether you're liberal or conservative, you should hope Barack Obama runs for president."

More recently, in January, Brooks wrote of how Obama "offer[s] a politics that is grand and inspiring" and noted Obama's rhetoric about "the high road versus the low road; inspiration versus calculation; future versus the past; and service versus selfishness."

Then last week, the columnist showed his true partisan colors, the same colors he and an army of others will be waving for months to come. New narrative: Obama is an overhyped, waffling phony, and his followers are delusional suckers. To accentuate the mocking tone, Brooks in his column referred to Obama as "the Hope Pope," "His Hopeness," "The Chosen One," "The Presence," "The Changemaker," and the "High Deacon of Unity."

Why are predictable partisan jabs noteworthy? Because previous media patterns suggest those types of derogatory right-wing talking points about Democratic front-runners will almost certainly be absorbed by the larger mainstream press.

Still, some media observers suggest it's unlikely that Obama's press coverage will change dramatically, in part because the press has already examined Obama's record and couldn't find much dirt on him. "The assumption that every politician who reaches a point of power must have a dead prostitute or a shady land deal in his past just waiting to be discovered seems a cynical view, born out of a particularly journalist-centric view of the world," wrote Gal Beckerman for the Columbia Journalism Review.