Today: The Media Swoons--and Covers for--Barack Obama. Back Then: The Media Swooned--and Covered For--JFK

The only difference: today, the media covers for Obama's incompetence and manifold failures. Back then, it covered up JFK's out-of-control addiction to boinking:

John F Kennedy was addicted to sex. His short spell in office, romantically dubbed 'the thousand days', is almost as noteworthy for its 'thousand nights'. He suffered from an acute case of satyriasis and lacked all self-restraint. He celebrated the success of his spellbinding inaugural address by seducing a leading Hollywood actress and bedded scores of women thereafter.

Nor does the scandal end there. One of Kennedy's girlfriends, Judith Exner, was used to pass classified CIA plans for the assassination of Fidel Castro to Chicago mafia boss Sam Giancana, while another shared a joint of marijuana with the president, having been promised that cocaine was readily available if she preferred.

One key to Kennedy's immunity was his relationship with the press. A good-looking war hero from a good- looking family with a good-looking wife, he was almost bound to be feted. Having come within a whisker of winning the vice-presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic Convention, he became a media star virtually overnight - and the honeymoon never ended.

He was always more comfortable in the company of journalists. As a candidate, he would drink late into the night with reporters; as president, he dined with Washington's journalistic elite - the Alsops, the Grahams and the Bradlees. He rarely turned down requests for interviews. While it is almost inconceivable that journalists were unaware of his womanising, Kennedy had built up enough goodwill among editors to ensure it was discreetly overlooked. When national newspapers were sent photographs allegedly showing Kennedy leaving the apartment building of one of his mistresses, for instance, the story was buried...

How times have changed. In our day, the only thing that would get the media to do its job and ask unpleasant questions of a president it adores is if Obama proved to have the same sexual peccadillos as JFK. But since Barack is only screwing the country, it's okey-dokey with the news hounds.