MSNBC's Lee Cowen has remarked that it's hard for a reporter to maintain any sense of objectivity in the charismatic presence of Barack Obama. Yet it's clear that some reporters and pundits do a better job than others.
"[Obama] is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair."
--Ezra Klein, The American Prospect
"You remember in the great movie Lawrence of Arabia where the Turks aimed all their guns at the sea, and the Arab revolt came in from the desert. They crossed the Nefu. They weren't supposed to be able to do that. It could be tonight we could see this latter-day Lawrence, Barack Obama, cross the Nefu and come in behind the Clintons into their own base, the very base that they are absolutely confident of. ... And here you see the possibility that they're going to lose Aqaba to the Arabs."
--Chris Matthews, "Hardball"
"The historians can put aside their reference material. This is new. America has never seen anything like the Barack Obama phenomenon."
--Bob Herbert, The New York Times
"The Democrats almost certainly have their nominee. ... [Obama's] victory speech ... came closer to King Henry's (well, Shakespeare's) Crispin Day oration to his troops on the eve of battle than any American political speech I can think of."
-- Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect
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