Athens, Tenn.: Is there, in your opinion, a media bias toward or against a particular candidate in general? It seems that during Sen. McCain's first run he was the media darling. That of course did not help him. Now many assume that Sen. Obama is the de facto media favorite.
Michael Kinsley: I guess I share the conventional wisdom on both of these points. McCain has always been a media darling. At a magazine editors convention a few years ago, he started a speech by saying he was happy to be there addressing "my base." He gets and deserves points for jokes like that.
And the SNL take on Obama is also correct. He is a media darling now. Hillary is rightly bitter. I am puzzled—something happened about six weeks ago that was like a light switch turning off, or on: All of a sudden, she became "the Clintons," and every resentment of her and her husband came to the surface among the media, liberals, everybody.
That said, I am not the best person to explain the media Obama swoon, since I have been a swooner myself.
No doubt we'll all turn on him at some point, faithless bastards that we are.
I'd like to add that Kinsley's complaints about the incivility in political debate sound especially hollow coming from him considering he was the co-host of CNN's "Crossfire" for a number of years.
