In a long piece dedicated to detailing how Obama's campaign isn't obsessed with managing the media, Howie Kurtz inadvertently demonstrates just how self-important members of our political media really are:
All traveling campaigns have a bubble-like quality, but Obama seems unusually insulated. One moment of absurdity came Tuesday, when reporters on the press bus were asked to dial into a conference call in which Obama announced a congressman's endorsement -- even though the candidate was nearby and just as easily could have delivered the news in person to the bus captives. Obama answered a few questions, but reporters are generally placed on mute after they speak so there can be no follow-up. (Clinton held a news conference the same morning.)
Cal me crazy, but maybe Obama was trying to reach a broader audience than just those journalists who were with him on the bus? No no, that would just be too... what's the word.... absurd?
More:
Obama often goes days without taking questions from national reporters, and when he does, the sessions can be slapdash affairs. In Nevada, for instance, correspondents were reduced to shouting queries at him during a photo op in the kitchen of the Mirage Hotel. (Yesterday, perhaps in a better mood, he did chat with journalists on his plane, now that his campaign has discontinued use of a second jet to save money.)
Some reporters say Obama seems disdainful toward journalists, having submitted to precisely one off-the-record chat over beer several months ago in Iowa. To them, the absence of a senior official traveling with the press is a sign of benign neglect.
What disdain! Only one off-the-record chat? Who does he think he his? And just what does he think he's doing? Doesn't he know that speaking with journalists at the back of the bus is far more important than getting out and talking to actual voters? What's wrong with this man?!?
After spending 3/4 of the column trashing Obama's press pool skills, Kurtz than makes a bizarre pivot:
In fact, some journalists say they have to guard against getting swept away by the excitement. NBC's Lee Cowan was candid about fighting such temptations, saying on the network's Web site: "I think from the reporter's point of view, it's almost hard to remain objective, because it's infectious energy." Politico Editor in Chief John Harris said on CNN that when he was a Washington Post editor a couple of years ago, "you would send a reporter out with Obama, and it was like they needed to go through detox when they came back -- 'Oh, he's so impressive, he's so charismatic,' and we're kind of like, 'Down, boy.' "
MSNBC's Chris Matthews told Jay Leno: "If you're actually in a room with Barack Obama and you don't cry when he gives one of those speeches, you're not an American. It's unbelievable."... How, then, has Obama been saddled with an image of being long on inspiration and short on details? The answer is that journalists are not accustomed to covering a candidate who moves crowds the way Obama does, who uses speech cadences and rhythm like Martin Luther King Jr. without making his talk explicitly about race. Sen. Clinton already owned the policy-wonk slot, so by default, Obama was cast as the poetic one.
Reporters watch him at four events a day, his energy level still high, his voice still booming, leading crowds in a chant of "Fired up, ready to go," and cannot help but be impressed.
Imagine that - reporters having to cover a political campaign from the perspective of average citizens. Rather than mediate, they have to report. The horror!
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