Taking the Press for Granted?

There are signs that the President -- whom the elite press did so much to boost in 2008 -- has begun to annoy his erstwhile admirers.

Here, a dispatch from Jake Tapper (one of the fairest members of the press) highlights the fact that, after eight weeks without a press conference, the President has instead turned to People magazine and Entertainment Tonight. And Politico's Dylan Byers describes Obama's softball interview with a flirty FM disc jockey as a "thumb in the eye of the White House press corps."

Now, there's not much the President could ever do that would result in an even press playing field between him and Romney. We've seen that with theridiculous moral equivalence emanating from the likes of Dana Milbank -- where Obama's folks race-bait and call Romney a murderer, Romney criticizes Obama's welfare waivers and suddenly everybody's supposedly rolling in the gutter.

But what does it say about the Leader of the Free World when he's either (a) too afraid of having to defend his campaign and/or his record to face the press; or else (b) so peevish about the little bits of negative coverage he's encountered that he's petulantly refusing to talk with reporters?

Here's hoping Obama keeps it up. It's at least one way the press can be persuaded to provide some coverage at all critical of him.