Normally, the press stands apart from mass adulation. Not so with Mr. Obama. A recent report in The Washington Post read like a mash note from a teenager. The article had a picture of the Lightworker, shirtless, and commented: “… he was photographed looking like the paradigm of a new kind of presidential fitness, one geared less toward preventing heart attacks than winning swimsuit competitions.” I beg to differ. Pass the defibrillator, now.
The reporter/disciple was, however, just warming up. Next he galloped off into territory left unexplored even in chicklit: “The sun glinted off chiselled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.”
If this guy gives up the politics beat, there are a hundred massage parlours out there thirsty for this kind of copy. This is The Washington Post, remember. Has the financial crisis tipped the collective media mind into entertainment reporting mode?
I'm hate making predictions, but I will venture that the level of Obama-mania in the United States media will subside in the next 12 months, if it doesn't turn into a full backlash.
Obama seems to be a remarkably skilled (even gifted) politician, but he's still a human being. After Jan. 20, he will have to start implementing decisions, and he will have to decide who to betray and what promises to break (hey, that's politics).
As soon as the media decides that the Lightworker is a fallible human politician after all, the hyperbole will start working against Obama, just as it is working for him now.
Addendum
So I just went back to the original W-P story published Dec. 24: As duties weigh Obama down, his faith in fitness only increases, by Eli Saslow.
It was essentially a soft feature about how important staying in shape is to Obama. Yes, the prose was a little purple off the top (that's the snippet Murphy chose), but overall, it's a pretty good yarn.