Ich Bin Ein Obama

Some journalists defend the coverage as a matter of marketing: Obama is hot, McCain is not.

"The Obama phenomenon is so much the better story -- an obscure African American senator from Illinois, little known to most Americans two years ago, emerges as very probably the next president," says Terence Smith, a former correspondent for CBS and PBS. "That is a fantastic story. Of course it's going to get two or three times the space and attention and airtime of John McCain, who, while he may be a very appealing semi-maverick on his bus, is a much more conventional candidate."

By that standard, though, journalists can continue to lavish more coverage on Obama simply by declaring him a more fascinating guy.

Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday," says no one has to apologize for covering the "extraordinary" trip. And, he says, "there is no question in my mind there is more interest in Obama. It's the news business; you want to sell magazines. Some of it is flavor of the month. And there is some bias."

But overall, says Wallace, "I don't know that that's a good excuse. One would hope there would be rough parity in the coverage."

The power of stirring images was on display again yesterday in Berlin. Moments after finishing his speech at the Victory Column, as 200,000 Germans cheered, Obama strolled off with Brian Williams, camera crew in tow, to talk about what had just transpired.

Furthermore . . .

Hmm . . . check this out. Should we start a Hubris Watch after this Marc Ambinder post?

"With less than six months to go before he would be sworn in as the nation's 44th president, Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning for the transition.

" 'Barack is well aware of the complexity and the organizational challenge involved in the transition process and he has tasked s small group to begin thinking through the process,' a senior campaign adviser said. 'Barack has made his expectations clear about what he wants from such a process, how he wants it to move forward, and the establishment and execution of his timeline is proceeding apace.' "

Yes, it's good to be prepared. It's also July.

I've expressed a similar view myself, so I think Tom Bevan is onto something with this Real Clear Politics observation:

"The presidential race is in large part all about Obama and whether the country will accept-- his experience, his past associations, his policy prescriptions, and to a certain degree his race--or not.