This Ben Smith post about Obama’s media criticisms at Cronkite’s funeral is just flat-out bizarre:
But aside from the fact that he’s clearly been reading POLITICO, home of the (OK, slightly self-caricaturing) “Who won the day” feature, I always find this line of criticism somewhat odd. Obama won the Democratic primary in no small part by feeding and riding a media freakshow — driven in large part by the conservative media he now deplores — that devoured his main rival, Hillary Clinton. Drudge and the rest eventually turned against Obama, but he was a major ally in the primary, as Jonathan and I wrote at the time.
My memory of things is a touch different- I remember the right-wing media cheerleading for Hillary. She was far more acceptable to them than Obama (who can forget the very publicized and nauseating public tongue-kissing between her and John McCain). Additionally, the Clinton campaign got skewered a bit in the media because they made dozens and dozens of horrible mistakes, but it was the media who kept her campaign alive for several months after it was clear it was all over.
Am I misinterpreting this? It seemed to me Ben was claiming it was the media who made Obama. That just isn’t the case.