Just like that, it's January 7 again. On that Monday night, reporters and pundits were gleefully predicting a humiliating defeat for Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary, after which the media momentum would gravely wound her campaign. Rumors flew about campaign shakeups, or even a withdrawal. But then something shocking happened--the voters of New Hampshire made up their own minds. Taking control of the primary process from the media, they gave Hillary Clinton one of the biggest upsets in recent primary history. Much to the media's chagrin, she lived to fight for another month.

Now Monday, February 4 is the new eve of reckoning. Once again, the media is writing the story of Hillary Clinton's imminent demise. Tomorrow, they say, the voters will go to the polls and deliver an ambiguous result. Barack Obama, having survived Clinton's best chance of finishing him, will ride a wave of momentum into the remaining contests and sew up the nomination. Once again, unless the voters take control of the primary process again, the media will crown its desired winner.

The extent of the media's cheerleading for Obama has been startling to watch. Even to someone who watched their demolition of Al Gore (wooden, lies, exaggerates, etc.) and their complicity in the swiftboating of John Kerry, their behavior this time is surprising.

In a previous diary (link here), I listed numerous instances in which independent media critics noticed that reporters simply hate the Clinton campaign. These included Craig Crawford saying that the media's bias against Hillary Clinton "borders on mental illness", quotes from Time's Mark Halperin saying that reporters are cheering for Obama, E.J. Dionne acknowledging an "old, irrational Clinton hatred" in the media, and one reporter unabashedly noting that they were "giddy/relieved" that they wouldn't have to cover Hillary Clinton in a general election.

I wish that those instances were comprehensive. But indeed, a whole batch of new examples has emerged in just the last few days.

For example, Howard Kurtz pretty much flatly states that the media's adoration of Obama caused them to completely overplay the Ted Kennedy endorsement:

When Ted Kennedy backed John Kerry for president in 2003, no major newspaper outside Massachusetts bothered to cover it, and even the Associated Press kissed off the event with a 200-word item.

When Ted and Caroline Kennedy gave Barack Obama their political blessing last week, it was treated as the second coming of Camelot: live cable coverage, lead story on all the newscasts, anchors intoning the old JFK line that "the torch has been passed."

Why the difference? The liberal lion's embrace of the rookie senator seemed to wave away objections about Obama's inexperience... But it would be hard to overstate the excitement of many journalists too young to have covered the Kennedy presidency, who see Obama as a charismatic champion of another New Frontier...

"The endorsement included two things that media people like: Barack Obama, and the memory and glamour of the JFK years," says Slate writer John Dickerson.

Roger Simon, a Politico columnist, says "It was a huge, emotive outburst for the candidate who's won a lot of hearts in the press corps already."

If Kennedy had backed Clinton instead, it's hard to imagine he would have drawn the same blowout coverage as did his appearance with Obama at American University... Indeed, Clinton's endorsement by Robert Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was relegated to a mere footnote.

You know things are bad when even conservatives are feeling that Hillary Clinton is getting a raw deal. Quoting from Kurtz's article, Rich Lowry of the National Review says:

"[T]he press hates Hillary. There's real glee over the prospect of being done with the Clintons."

You don't have to look much farther than today's New York Times for the double standard applied to the two candidates. First, in describing Hillary Clinton's speaking style, the reporter actually criticizes her for talking too much about policy:

When Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to large audiences, be it a rally with several thousand students or a fund-raiser with well-heeled donors, she often sounds more like a senator than a presidential candidate -- delivering wonky recitations of her policy positions instead of a raise-the-roof stemwinder.

[At an event in San Francisco, she] delivered what sounded like a university lecture, analyzing domestic and foreign policy issues and laying out her plans for tax credits, health care and education reform.

"Hillary Clinton can dismiss soaring oratory all she wants, but it works and there is a time and a place for it, such as Friday night in San Francisco," said Ruth Sherman, a political communications consultant who has been tracking Mrs. Clinton's speeches. "When she cannot drop her prepared remarks in favor of what the moment dictates, it bespeaks a tin ear, a lack of flexibility and certainly a missed opportunity."

In other words, her affinity for policy details is actually a negative. She should deliver soaring oratory and raise the roof.

What about Barack Obama? In a rapturous article about his speaking style, we find this nugget:

The cerebral, soft-spoken speeches that sustained him for months -- shaped to prove Mr. Obama's seriousness -- have given way to energetic words of motivation that are typically interrupted every few sentences by applause.

So when Obama talks policy, he is cerebral and serious. For Clinton, it's a character flaw that reveals her tin ear and inflexibility.

Actually, a side-by-side reading of the two articles--run in the same paper on the same day--shows exactly what Hillary Clinton faces in her campaign.

The media first killed off Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, and finally John Edwards with benign neglect. They failed to knock off Hillary with malicious intent earlier, and are now one day away from succeeding in their second try, having labeled Hillary as a race-baiting liar while lavishing plaudits and praise on Obama. Can the voters again fight through the relentless media drive? I hope they can, but fear that's it's too much this time. New Hampshire voters are famously independent and wary of the press, but nobody can successfully fight the press for that long.

Does this fawning press coverage guarantee an Obama win in November? Let's just say that those whom the press wish to destroy they first give good coverage.