I was stunned today to read an article by a columnist at the reliably left-of-center Newsweek that actually—gasp!--called out the mainstream media for its fawning coverage of Obama. That columnist is Robert Samuelson. I haven't been a regular reader of Newsweek since it took a decidedly left turn politically several years ago, so I was shocked to see that the magazine allowed someone to deviate from the liberal schema in its pages (or virtual pages). The column is an excellent and fair-minded critique of the dangers posed when the media loses its objectivity:

WASHINGTON — The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment; but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America.

Our political system works best when a president faces checks on his power. But the main checks on Obama are modest. They come from congressional Democrats, who largely share his goals if not always his means. The leaderless and confused Republicans don't provide effective opposition. And the press — on domestic, if not foreign, policy — has so far largely abdicated its role as skeptical observer.

Obama has inspired a collective fawning. What started in the campaign (the chief victim was Hillary Clinton, not John McCain) has continued, as a study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows. It concludes: "President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush during their first months in the White House."

...The infatuation matters because Obama's ambitions are so grand. He wants to expand health care subsidies, tightly control energy use and overhaul immigration. He envisions the greatest growth of government since Lyndon Johnson. The Congressional Budget Office estimates federal spending in 2019 at nearly 25 percent of the economy (gross domestic product). That's well up from the 21 percent in 2008, and far above the post-World War II average; it would also occur before many baby boomers retire....

Read the rest.

Turns out he's published some other pieces that view the new presidential administration's big government spending proposals with a rightfully skeptical eye, such as Obama's Dangerous Debt
At least someone in the media is still doing his job. More journalists should learn from his example.