Just think about how the media has played the Clinton-Obama contest, and imagine that it will treat McCain like it has treated Obama, and it will treat the Dem as it has treated Clinton.  On all the many things McCain could be vulnerable on, the media will happily provide either justification for, or ignore, while turning up the power on the microscope and the volume on the microphone, where the Democratic nominee is concerned - especially if it looks like McCain is the underdog.

McCain and the GOP have already begun work on BHO (I don't think it was Clinton who supplied Drudge with the Somalia photo),  and while McCain made himself look like a saint renouncing his boy Cunningham, they STILL managed to get the smear out while garnering big media coverage. That's how the pros do it. Smear the other guy with a proxy while you profess disgust and the press scoops it all up like a half-priced suit.

I always thought that the media darling status of Obama will last only as long as his opponent is Hillary. Once it is McCain, Obama will be savaged (which we are beginning to see). I don't think Obama can withstand eight months of negative coverage. Hillary has withstood at least six months of savage coverage in the media and she is still standing essentially tied with Obama in delegates and tied or leading in Ohio and Texas. With all this rock-star coverage, Obama still hasn't been able to run away with this nomination.

Since you support him, albeit tepidly, because of that status, what I want to understand is why and how YOU think he can keep it when almost none of 'the rest of us' have any such confidence.

Do you think they will not turn on him?  Or do you think that even if they do, it can be overcome?  Or...what?

And

I don't think Obama will lose his media darling status.

From what I see, it's starting to disappear already, like the air from a slowly leaking tire.  (Look at the debate coverage; the costume story; the Farrakhan story; the Wright story.  Nothing terrible, but nothing wonderful, like the good old days.)

Assuming that Obama wins the nomination, the press will be confronted with two candidates:

(1) Charismatic young novice--with no military service--opposed to the war.  Liberal Democrat.

(2) Straight-talking mature veteran--and POW torture-victim--ready to battle on for American honor.  Maverick Republican.

Nine out of 10 (if not 19 out of 20) big-time political reporters (or pundits) are middle aged white men--think Matthews, or Fineman, or Olberman, or King, or Blitzer, or Cooper, or Alter, or Buchanan, or Shuster, or Bernstein, or Cohen, or Kline, or Russert, or Williams, etcetera & etcetera.  (The women, with barely an excepetion, are nothing but camp-followers.)  

Do you believe that this group--never mind the hyenas at Fox--would rather do a story on McCain's intricate (and thus hard-to-grasp) history with lobbyists than a story on Obama's supposed connection to the Nation of Islam?  

Do you believe these men--none of whom served in the military and who now keep telling us the surge is working--would be more eager to brutally question the most famous guest of the Hanoi Hilton than the Chicago street organizer who wears funny (i.e., Muslim) clothes when he goes abroad?

It's barely March.  Reporters have plenty of time to pivot so that Obama will (however slowly) replace Clinton in their free-fire zone.  I'd guess that unless McCain does something so over-the-top stupid not even Chris Matthews can ignore it, or suffers a medical moment inextricably associated with his age, the Hero will get a free ride.

The real question, it seems to me, is not whether Obama can take the mud-slinging--he's neither soft nor stupid--but whether his supporters, so many of whom are new to politics and seem to think it should be patty-cake for grown-ups, will stick around when the going gets really ugly.  

Although it appeared there was no knock out punch from the last debate.  Since then, there have been a number of news stories about BO being too busy campaigning to hold meetings of his committee--as HRC pointed out (finally!), as well as stories agreeing with her that the media had been biased against her.  

So apparently, Obamamania is actually David Letterman!

Here's a listing of pretty much all of the political jokes in latenight.

Link