For Obama, a Most Congenial Spot

Journalists responded with a flurry of excited prophecies after Caroline Kennedy's strong endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama. (By Evan Vucci -- Associated Press)

Its members matched wits with the young president during the first news conferences televised from the White House. Columnists such as Joseph Alsop and Charles Bartlett gave Kennedy private advice (and hosted him at dinner parties) in ways that would be considered fatally compromising today. Kennedy himself leaked stories to favored scribes. He once grabbed Ben Bradlee, then with Newsweek, at a White House dance to tell him of a prisoner exchange with the Soviets, and briefed New York Times columnist James Reston immediately after a summit meeting with Nikita Khrushchev.

"He liked journalists a lot, and some of his best friends were journalists," says Bradlee, now a Washington Post Co. vice president. "We saw in him so much hope and promise. A lot of journalists did identify with him because of that. They knew he liked newspaper people." These days, he says, "you get the feeling with most of these guys that they hate the press."

Bradlee says only a couple of paragraphs in any given Newsweek story came directly from Kennedy, but that he and Time's Hugh Sidey would grouse if the president gave the other exclusive tidbits.

Obama, by contrast, has never cultivated close relationships with journalists, but some began likening him to JFK even before he formally entered the 2008 campaign.

While the glittering Oprah Winfrey endorsement was a huge media windfall for Obama, it was the 75-year-old Massachusetts senator -- and Caroline Kennedy, likening Obama to her father in a New York Times op-ed -- who provided a living link to the martyred president. The carefully leaked subplot -- that Ted Kennedy had warned Bill Clinton he was unhappy with his tactics, derided by critics as racially tinged -- added to the melodramatic plotline.

In case anyone snoozed through the coverage, Obama launched a television ad that began with black-and-white footage of Kennedy and closed with Caroline Kennedy's warm words.

"A lot of journalists have shining memories of JFK and Bobby, and always hoped someone would recapture it," says National Review Editor Rich Lowry. " 'Passing the torch' -- that gets all the high-end pundits really excited. With average voters, I can't believe that makes much of a difference."

At the same time, says Lowry, "the press hates Hillary. There's real glee over the prospect of being done with the Clintons."

Whether personal feelings are a factor or not, journalists surely love a good narrative, particularly during the 22-state blur that culminates with tomorrow's Super Tuesday voting. One factor hurting Mitt Romney, a clean-living governor's son and former CEO, is that he lacks a stirring personal tale. John McCain, by contrast, is the war hero who survived not just torture but all those premature political obituaries last summer. Clinton is the former first lady who overcame a husband's humiliation and would break the ultimate glass ceiling.

But Obama, born of a Kenyan father and Kansan mother, would shatter a racial barrier after 220 years of white presidents. His life story, at least as depicted in the media, makes every other candidate seem conventional. He may have been born seven months into Kennedy's presidency, but journalists have conferred the legacy on him anyway. That may be unfair to the other candidates, but as JFK famously said, "Life is unfair."

Fox Face-Off

Advisers to Hillary Clinton and John McCain felt misled yesterday when "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace prodded the candidates into talking to each other after they had agreed to be interviewed separately.