Press must end love affair with Obama

Barack Obama is our next president and all Americans should wish him success, even those who voted against him like me. But can we please tone down the crushing, gushing and emotional obsession over Obama in the news media?

For example, President Bush's second inaugural cost $40 million dollars and the news media screamed bloody murder about how wrong that was and how many Army Humvees that could buy. Obama's inaugural cost $100 million, and the press wanted to spend even more in the celebration.

And the endless comparisons between Obama and President Lincoln in the news media are just getting grotesque. Let's see how he does before we deify him!

We are in perilous times with two active wars, a severe economic crisis and truly dangerous enemies like global terrorists, North Korea, Iran, and Russia once again.

We need an aggressive and impartial press to challenge President Obama when he is wrong and support him when he is right. President Obama will have to make hard and unpopular decisions, and he will get some right and some wrong, just like every president before him.

What we don't need is an adolescent gushing love affair between the press and the president, which will make honest judgments about him by "we the people" impossible. We need the revival of a professional and objective news media that died during the election, and we can only hope will rise from the dead now that their candidate has won.

Randy Rossi

Grayslake