It is not much of a secret that the media has been completely won over by Obama and are making no secret of the schoolgirl crush they have on the candidate. Where in the past they were equally biased, but made an effort to hide it, the press is now openly covering Obama as if they assume he is already the president and often answer questions about his opponent with the response "John who? Oh, the angry old guy Obama will beat?"

I wrote before about how this press love ill-served both Obama and the Democrat party, as well as voters, so I won't cover that again here. But I also think, in more recent times, the love affair is proving a dysfunctional one, and like most such relationships, it is serving to destroy both.

First, let us look at Obama. When he recently went on his world tour, pretending he was already president of the world, the press provided what amounted to twenty four hour coverage, making sure that not one minute was missed by the public. It sounds like a candidate's dream, all that  free coverage, but I think Obama will soon learn, if he hasn't already, that it is far from desirable.

Why not? Two reason. One that applies to all candidates, and one specific to Obama.

For any candidate, the pressure of twenty four hour coverage for over a week would be crushing. Yes, Obama reads prepared speeches well and he is great at smiling and waving, but can he make it through twenty four hours without one mistake? Can anyone? That is the pitfall of nonstop coverage, it gives you a huge platform, but it also deprives you of any private time to prepare or relax. Every little mistake will inevitably be caught on camera, every mistake, ever flub, they will all be recorded as the cameras are never off. Unless you are certain you will never make a mistake, a claim Obama cannot make, the risk at least balances out the benefit.

The second problem is specific to Obama, and that is the problem that he really only has about two hours worth of speech. He is still basically running on the content-free rhetoric that swept him to the nomination, and it works, so long as no one notices that it is content free rhetoric. All that "change" and "hope" sounds good the first time, but after the tenth or twentieth iteration, people want some specifics, and Obama is not providing them. Nor is he a particularly good speaker when improvising, so he generally sticks to his prepared speech. Which means if the public sees ten hours of him, they see at least five loops of his campaign speech. It tends to make voters change their perspective. Where the first time his speech may be rousing and might win over those less than happy with the current state of affairs, hearing the same rhetoric over and over without specifics tend to make voter begin to see him as a huckster trying to avoid being tied down, who is trying to sell them with pretty words while avoiding telling any details. So, by covering him so thoroughly, the press may actually be depriving him of the chance to win over independents he so desperately needs. And the poll numbers support this.

And the press is no better served. In the past they may have pulled for a candidate, even tried to hide some of his weaknesses or downplayed a scandal, they may have been quite biased, but they still put on a fig leaf of objectivity, tried to hide in some way their bias. Now, they have given up all pretense of objectivity.

Don't they worry about how this will effect them in the future?

Let us suppose the get their wish and Obama is elected. Won't the people be unlikely to turn to an openly pro-Obama press for objective news about his administration? After having blown any claims of objectivity, how can people rely upon them to adopt the necessary adversarial role toward Obama?

And if Obama loses, not only will the new administration be unlikely to work with them due to their open opposition, but, again, will the public trust their reporting on the new administration? How much, they will wonder, is true and how much exaggeration or fabrication driven by sour grapes over Obama's loss?

The press used to recognize that the appearance of objectivity was their greatest asset, they appear to no longer know its value. But the public does, and as the press has clearly surrendered any claim to objectivity, it won't be long before they will reap the consequences of having abandoned their previous unbiased position. No matter how dishonest their claims of objectivity were in the past, they were still enough to let the public know the press would not completely overlook a story just because of political beliefs. The press can no longer make such a claim, and they will suffer because of that.

So, while the press and Obama engage in a great big group hug and congratulate themselves on their sacred alliance to make the world better, while they pat each other on the back for doing the work of the angels, they should take a moment to realize this may be the last hurrah for both of them. Rather than sweeping him into office, the press may have snatched any chance from him, at the same time  they were committing professional suicide. It may not be obvious now, but it soon will be.