Barack Doesn't Send Flowers Any More

Last year, John McCain felt the fury of media scorn, and now it's Barack Obama's turn for the hurt feelings of journalists as passions cool after their first encounters.

The Times' David Brooks, who was deeply in love late in 2006, is sharing his pain today after suffering from what he previously described as "Obama Comedown Syndrome":

"All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades."

Earlier in the year, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurta complained, "The Illinois senator remains a remote figure to those covering him," a complaint echoed by Newsweek correspondent Richard Wolffe, "There is no charm offensive from the candidate toward the press corps."

For other MSM infatuees, the letdown started this month with a rueful letter to the campaign about Obama's sneaking out on reporters for a rendezvous with Hillary Clinton while they waited on a plane to Chicago the weekend before her concession:

"The decision to mislead reporters is a troubling one. We hope this does not presage a relationship with the Obama campaign that is not based on a mutual respect for the truth."

The rest of us may be forgiven for taking all this as the natural course of adolescent crushes, remembering how enthralled they all were with the "straight talk" of John McCain and the "guy you'd like to have a beer with" charm of George W. Bush when they were all younger and more naïve eight years ago.

If Obama isn't spending too much time making MSM pulses race these days, the rest of us can sympathize with their hurt feelings and, with a little tough love from older and possibly wiser heads, tell them to get over it.

Obama's Dose of Media Payback

David Brooks' New York Times column with its cutesy concept of "Obama Comedown Syndrome" is a sure sign that the familiar process has begun: media payback, wherein the over-hypers of MSM start a new cycle of anti-gush to meet their quotas of knowingness.

In filling his space today, Brooks describes Obama enthusiasts as victims of "intense surges of hope-amine, the brain chemical that fuels euphoric sensations of historic change and personal salvation" and goes on to criticize the candidate as "the most predictable liberal vote in the Senate" with a tendency to vacillate on issues.

Yet, in October 2006, Brooks was one of the first commentators in either party to enthuse over Obama. In a column titled "Run Barack Run," he encouraged him to do just that, noting that “a president who brings a deliberative style to the White House will multiply his knowledge, not divide it.”

But Brooks is only doing what comes naturally to columnists, trying to stay ahead of the public opinion curve to preserve his punditry credentials.

When he declared his candidacy last spring, John McCain complained of rough media treatment, failing to understand it as the predictable backlash to all the "Straight Talk" hype about his previous campaign.

In Obama's case, there may be some legitimate "buyer's remorse" out there as voters begin to see him as a possible president rather than a symbol of hope, but in the coming weeks, the media can be trusted to amplify those doubts ad nauseam.

Welcome to the big ring, Senator.