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Barack Obama's meteoric rise to become the first African American President is historic not only for its celebrated shattering of the racial barrier but equally for how the mainstream elite media failed to critically vet him during the Democratic primary campaign as the first "post racial" presidential nominee. Obama first came to national prominence in 2004 after delivering an inspiring key note address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston while he was still running for the United States Senate. Just two short years later he would launch his momentous "cult of personality" campaign for the presidency under the guidance of chief strategist David Axelrod. Surprisingly, he would under extreme odds triumph over much older and experienced politicians including Hilary Clinton the presumptive democratic leader who had command of the national political stage when Obama was still a community organizer for the south side public housing projects of Chicago.

How did Barack Obama do it? What was the secret to his phenomenal success? Of course for anyone to ascend to the presidency there must be the favorable convergence of numerous factors but even then it also requires lots and lots of money which Obama raised in copious amounts via the internet (in fact a record half a billion dollars). However, perhaps the most important factor was the unprecedented favorable news coverage of this young charismatic African American politician received by the national print and broadcast news media. One could even argue that the media's unabashed even shamelessly enthusiastic support of Obama was essential to put his audacious candidacy over the top and past his political rival Senator Clinton.

In support of this thesis I will proffer three largely overlooked aspects of Obama's political career and campaign the media by and large failed to develop and disclose to the American people that would certainly have been relevant if Obama was either a republican or not an African American democrat. Although much of this information is public record and has been published in several partisan books critical of Obama they were not pursued or reported in any coherent way by any of the main stream news media including nationally circulated newspapers (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post) and prominent news magazines (Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report) as well as major television networks (NBC, ABC, CBS). These mostly obscure facts were originally reported in several critical

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