That’s the message that John McCain’s campaign wants you to believe: The adoring media is “in the tank” for Obama and never challenges him; Obama has been anointed “The One”; and McCain can’t get a break, especially when he’s eating bratwurst in Ohio and his Democratic challenger is wowing a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin and meeting heads of state.

McCain has been the sweetheart of the press corps since his 2000 campaign against George W. Bush. McCain has even been on “The Daily Show” about a dozen times. So how true is the “love” line? Here’s how the daughter of one of the presidential candidates recounted a March 2008 party at her parents’ home: “Yesterday we hosted the press corps at our cabin in Sedona and my dad grilled his famous ribs and chicken for them. And it was a really fun experience. I thought it was going to be a lot more difficult than it ended up being because anytime there’s a big group of press around you have to be ‘on’ in some context or another. But everyone really relaxed and it was really fun to kind of see, you know, big journalistic figures like Holly Bailey [of Newsweek] swinging on the tire swing and Jon Martin [of Politico.com], like, helping my dad grill ribs and it was really funny to see just, like, the juxtaposition of, like, the D.C. reporters at my cabin in Sedona and having the press corps meet longtime friends.”

Was that 10-year-old Malia Obama, recounting her birthday party with her parents and the press? Nope! It was recent Columbia University graduate Meghan McCain, on her Web site, mccainblogette.com, which features videos from the campaign trail. It’s definitely worth a watch.