Bloggers Discuss Barack Obama’s dating Life

A look at President Barack Obama's social life three decades ago was a hot topic on blogs last week. The online conversation began after Vanity Fair published a selection from author David Maraniss' new book-Barack Obama: The Story-in the June 2012 issue of the magazine.

The excerpt went into great detail about Obama's relationships with two girlfriends in New York City shortly after he graduated from Columbia University in 1983. The author quotes from letters Obama wrote to one of his girlfriends, Alex McNear, as well as passages from the diary of another girlfriend, Genevieve Cook. For the week of April 30-May 4, the Obama story was the No. 2 subject on blogs, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The wide range of reaction from bloggers included positive and negative assessments of Obama and evaluations of his letter-writing style as well as commentary on the work of Maraniss, who also authored a biography of Bill Clinton. Another political story was popular on blogs for the week. Bestselling horror author Stephen King wrote an opinion piece for The Daily Beast on how the super rich, including himself, should be taxed more. Those sentiments generated a mixed response in the blogosphere.