Obama strokes media

Cultivating opinion makers, President-elect Barack Obama isn't playing favorites.

After attending a dinner Tuesday evening with conservative-leaning columnists, he met today with more liberal and moderate commentators, Politico reports.

The conservative scribes included George F. Will and William Kristol; the progressives included Frank Rich and Rachel Maddow.

The Globe's Derrick Z. Jackson was also among the columnists at today's session. Both gatherings were off-the-record, meaning the participants could not report on what was said.

Despite criticism from some quarters during the campaign, Obama benefited from rather positive coverage overall -- much to the consternation of his rivals, first Hillary Clinton, then John McCain, whose campaign even put out a video mocking the media's love affair with Obama.