I have praised Daily Southtown columnist Kristen McQueary before for her against-the-grain commentary. Today, her column, “Media coddles Obama” is a gem.

She unflinchingly takes on the editors of her own news organization (Chicago Sun-Times) and the Chicago Tribune in a column that probably ends any chance the Trib would hire her in the future, if that interested her. But she did her readers a service by dissecting the strange flood of praise the papers gave Barack Obama for his long on style, short on substance appearances before their editorial boards last week.

There was an awful lot of “benefit” wafting through newspaper pages March 15, the day after Obama attempted damage control downtown - benefit both in the forgiving portrayal of his friendship with Rezko and in sheer space dedicated to his words and to sympathetic photographs of Obama looking “thoughtful.”

I am not sure whom to cast - Obama or the editors - in the role of Pepe Le Pew, the Warner Bros. skunk in a perpetual state of l’amour.

The editors seemed thrilled he visited their newspaper offices and finally answered questions he should have addressed months previously. They seemed quite satisfied with Obama’s answers, although a Chicago Tribune reporter later said on “Chicago Tonight”on WTTW-TV (Channel 11) he was struck by the number of times Obama could not or would not answer questions, including how many fundraisers Rezko hosted for him throughout the years.

Read the whole column. It’s excellent.

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2008 election, Barack Obama, Illinois, journalism, liberals