Perhaps rightfully so, John McCain is not happy with the way the media is going on about Barack Obama's overseas trip, while his domestic goings-on are covered as mere blips on the news cycle radar.

With all three evening news anchors in attendance, as well as the upper echelon of the press corps, Obama's trip is being chronicled endlessly in newspapers and on television, with pictures coming back to the U.S. of Obama meeting with senior military leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain, meanwhile, is shown palling around in a golf cart with George H.W. Bush.

The difference in treatment has "irked" the McCain camp. While McCain used to refer to the media as his "base," he's now sees a climate where the press is bending over backward for his opponent and leaving him in the proverbial dust. So what's a guy to do?

Complain.

Except, as we've seen before, that isn't the best strategy.

A McCain senior adviser says the video has been ginned up for a while but the campaign waited to release it. Tuesday's first press conference held abroad by Sen. Obama proved to be the right opportunity, that person said.

Media executives defend their coverage, arguing that Sen. McCain has made it as far as he has in part because of the access he gave the media in the primary season, and the resulting coverage.

"It used to be the stories were 'everyone was in love with McCain — he's on his bus, he schmoozes the reporters, they all give him a break,'" said Paul Friedman, senior vice president for news coverage at CBS. "That's the irony. These guys are now crying foul, and they've had the advantage of terrific relationships with the press." [WSJ]

If this sounds familiar, it should (though the reporting on the matter hasn't yet brought it up). Hillary Clinton went through the exact same treatment during her face-off with Obama.

She was once a media darling: The inevitable Democratic choice for president, and somebody this Obama guy shouldn't bother messing with, because she was the shoe-in. Then the tides turned, and media friends like NBC News and MSNBC turned on her to get aboard the "rock star" Barack bus.

Not that MSNBC would ever choose McCain over either Clinton or Obama, but McCain's reaction to the way he sees his treatment is the same one Hillary tried: Criticizing the media for their obvious bias.

And does McCain remember where this got Clinton? Nowhere. In fact, the media became all the more complacent in criticizing her while lifting her opponent to Jesus status.

This is a bad strategy. Even media analysts paid to think about these things agree! In December, Steve Adubato wrote on MSNBC.com, "Blaming the media is the oldest, and one of least effective, tactics used in campaigns."

For a candidate to criticize the media's way of reporting things is to ask for a death sentence.

The press not take lightly these accusations; they will stop overlooking small infractions they would have previously let slip by. And reporters, much like the candidates themselves, hold grudges. It would be wise for McCain to stop blaming the press for the way he's covered and, dear god, don't finger reporters by name.