More Hard-Hitting Campaign Journalism

And while we're on the subject of Barack Obama as pop-culture product, last night Access Hollywood debuted the beginning of its four part[!] interview with Barack, Michelle and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha. The Obamas—who have been on something of a soft-media assault lately, with a cover shot in Us and Michelle's guest spot on The View—sat down with eco-cabana owner Maria Menounos for a gloves-off grilling that included:

* How "for the Obamas, family always comes first," Michelle "is his rock" and his daughters "help him keep it real"

* "How Michelle and Barack keep their romance alive and what makes the girls feel so loved by their mom and dad"

* The shocking revelation that the candidate doesn't like ice cream. Doesn't like good old, hard-working, regular-folks American ice cream. "My daddy doesn't like sweets," reveals Sasha, though Barack confesses a partiality for mint chewing gum: "I'm pretty conservative when it comes to my gum"

Enjoy it while you can, as Obama has already said this is likely to be the last such interview for his daughters. In retrospect, he told Good Morning America today, the interview gave "a little bit of pause [to] Michelle and I, particularly given the way it sort of went around the cable stations. I don't think it's healthy and it's something that we'll be avoiding in the future." (Expect the McCain camp to pounce on the Access Hollywood flip-flop issue.)*

As for the equal-time issue, this spring Cindy McCain was interviewed by Access' Nancy O'Dell. About, um, infidelity allegations against her husband. I'm sure they'd have gotten around to the ice-cream question if they'd had more time.

* I wrote this parenthesis as a joke, but as I type, MSNBC is running a segment chyroned "OBAMA INTERVIEW CONTROVERSY: Sen. Obama criticized for allowing kids to be interviewed on Access Hollywood."