So once it becomes clear that Barack Obama will get the nomination, it is legitimate to scrutinize him? How fair to Hillary, how devoted to keeping the nation informed, how wonderful many in the media are about fulfilling their journalistic responsibilities?

Except for the Wall Street Journal and certain magazines on the right (and ABC and Fox News), we would have been completely uninformed about Obama.

Howard Kurtz writing in the Washington Post discovers the truth about media coverage of Obama:

Still, says David Greenberg, a Rutgers University professor of journalism and history, the coverage could be far worse. For journalists, he says, "there has been a real infatuation with Obama that has served as almost an unconscious restraint" as many became "taken with the idea of demonstrating their tolerance and America's tolerance by electing a black candidate."

What loosened those restraints, Greenberg says, was the media's conclusion that Obama had virtually wrapped up his nomination fight against Hillary Clinton. "It's backwards -- the toughest scrutiny should come while it's still a real fight," he says.