Another media industry in the tank for PEBO

All for one, and one for all:

ABC’s Jake Tapper predicted this week that Barack Obama will be “the Britney Spears of 2009.”

Considering that Obama was deemed by some to be the Britney Spears of 2008, it wasn’t much of a leap.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the cover of Us Weekly. While Obama’s political opponents were able to use his star power against him during the campaign — remember John McCain’s “Celeb” ad? — the entertainment press’s fixation with the president-elect seems to be helping him as he prepares to take office.

With a faction of compliant, adulatory and skin-deep chroniclers added to the media mix, Obama has found a consistent wing of support, one that can be used to upend the traditional political media apparatus, bringing new story lines to the fore and changing the game of how a president is covered.

“The number of eyeballs that read People magazine are enormous compared to political publications” says veteran Democratic strategist Chris Lehane. “If you’re able to communicate through those outlets, you’re able to reach more people more quickly, without your message being ‘translated’ by the historic gatekeepers.”

And let’s not forget about the other magazines that have helped Obama not just post-election, but pre-election, too: Us, Vanity Fair, and the other countless men’s and women’s magazines respectively that printed the most glowing articles on the “fashion sense” of the Obamas, the “fitness routines” of the Obamas, the “favorite recipes” of Michelle Obama, etc. These magazines, in conjuction with “serious” news outlets like the NYT, WaPo, CNN, and MSDNC all aided The One in winning this election with puff pieces of their own, rarely examining Obama the man in depth, and implying racism of the outlets (and conservative pundits) who dared to. Both the entertainment media and the mainstream “news” media spent more time in Wasilla trying to dig up dirt on Gov. Palin in just a few weeks than they did in two years of covering Barack Obama.

Does any hope exist whatsoever than any of these outlets will ever seriously scrutinze the next leader of the free world even remotely as much as they did the evil Bush “regime”? If there is, someone – anyone -please convince me, because I have very little that it will.