Dan Froomkin

New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan posted Monday on a report by two "centrists" ludicrously lambasting the media for letting Mitt Romney get away with lie after lie during the campaign: "Did the Mainstream Press Really Bungle the Campaign’s ‘Single Biggest Story’?"

In one of the most fascinating media-related pieces I’ve read in a while, Dan Froomkin interviews Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, two longtime Washington observers who wrote a book together and soon after, they say, found themselves near pariahs in a city that didn’t want to hear what they had to say.

How could a liberal actually be upset with the liberal media for their coverage of the 2012 presidential election? Well, Daniel Froomkin of The Huffington Post (formerly of The Washington Post) is furious. His complaint carried the headline “How the Mainstream Press Bungled the Single Biggest Story of the 2012 Campaign.”

What would that story be? “Namely, the radical right-wing, off-the-rails lurch of the Republican Party, both in terms of its agenda and its relationship to the truth.”

Liberal journalism professor Jay Rosen was puzzled when Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin wondered aloud whether he and other journalists should be skeptical of Barack Obama. Conservative blogger Jon Henke was downright flabbergasted:

I'm not sure I understand why this is even a question. Indeed, it would seem to me that it would be grounds for immediate dismissal.

"Immediate dismissal" is an overreach, but Jon is right to call Froomkin out for his bizarre musings about how to cover Barack Obama. No journalist should ever wonder whether skepticism of politicians is warranted; it always is.

The problem these days is that few mainstream journalists are the least bit skeptical of Obama. And the fact that the Post columnist tasked with covering the Obama administration is even thinking of giving Obama a pass, if only for an extension of the honeymoon that began with his candidacy, doesn't bode well for future coverage of "The One."