The premise of the Obama piece seems like a stretch, and sure enough Politico can't really substantiate its headline:

Barack Obama invokes Jesus more than George W. Bush

Whether Obama does or does not, I don't think really matters or is even all that newsworthy. But in terms of journalism, the Politico piece highlights how reporters there often concoct news angles based on little or no evidence and then just run with them.

For the “Jesus” article, Politico's Eamon Javers points to only three times since taking office that Obama has referred to God during public speeches. To me, that number seems utterly ordinary and no, Javers never convinces me that Bush didn't also make three references to God during his first four months in office.

And again, the Obama examples are utterly mundane:

In his speech Thursday in Cairo, Obama told the crowd that he is a Christian and mentioned the Islamic story of Isra, in which Moses, Jesus and Mohammed joined in prayer.

At the University of Notre Dame on May 17, Obama talked about the good works he'd seen done by Christian community groups in Chicago. “I found myself drawn — not just to work with the church but to be in the church,” Obama said. “It was through this service that I was brought to Christ.”

And a month before that, Obama mentioned Jesus' Sermon on the Mount at Georgetown University to make the case for his economic policies. Obama retold the story of two men, one who built his house on a pile of sand and the other who built his on a rock: “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand,” Obama said. “We must build our house upon a rock.”

Yet from that, Javers types up a sweeping trend story about Obama's “invocation of the Christian Messiah” and his “overtly Christian rhetoric,” even though Politico can't document either.

Also, notice that in the third example, Obama in his Georgetown speech never mentioned “Jesus,” as the Politico headline claimed. Obama simply made reference to “a parable.” So in truth, Politico can only find two instances to back up its storyline.

FYI, it was Politico's Ben Smith, typing up a misleading shorthand of Javers article, who announced Obama “talks about Jesus constantly.” Because that's the man-made story Politico's pushing today.