Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Last word tonight on Obama from John Kass' column

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass has some interesting things to say about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in his Wednesday piece.

From his column, free registration may be required:

Not all reporters prance when Obama's name is mentioned, but there are more than a few. I'm thinking of those who are so enraptured that they write in prose evoking the excited shrieks of adolescent girls squealing at the Beatles when Obama was a child. National media coverage of the man has become so ridiculous, all but embarrassing, and he knows it, what with a veteran political writer longing to follow him into a locker room, to glimpse those pecs made famous in a People Magazine photo.

Obama was brave enough to walk on a beach knowing the paparazzi would snap that picture of him. He's fit, but let's hope he doesn't do a Speedo shot if his numbers fade. And who else would run for the presidency and get into a political knife fight with the Clintons if they weren't brave? They'll leak to damage him, and I can already imagine a legitimate question coming from Sen. Hillary Clinton's camp:

Obama couldn't see his pal, the indicted influence peddler Tony Rezko, coming on a questionable real estate deal even when all of political Illinois knew Rezko was radioactive. With such childlike innocence regarding Rezko, how could Obama hope, as president, to deal with Vladimir Putin of Russia?

Putin will eat him for breakfast, they'll say, ignoring the fact that Hillary's co-president, Bill, lavished a Michael Jordan-autographed basketball on Kim Jong Il in hopes of keeping North Korea away from nukes.

About that "veteran political writer longing to follow him into a locker room." The reporter was Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, a liberal's liberal.

Here's what she wrote last week:

Obama's physique is old news to Chicago Sun-Times readers. I've worked out several times next to Obama at the East Bank Club, but alas, could not follow him into the locker room.

Sweet has Obama mania, as does fellow Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin, who I lampooned a couple of times about this shameful bit of prose from her column last month:

Now, it seems, time has chosen Obama as his clock ticks toward a January date with destiny. And no group of people is more excited than those of us who will cover the election. We like the fact that we knew him when. Long before folks in Iowa or New Hampshire stuck out their hands to press his flesh, we actually rubbed shoulders. He's our homey and we are his. As hometown press, we're wild about this story. A politician from Chicago tearing down a barrier of race. One of our own ready to make history.

Luckily in Chicago there are some reporters who haven't been infected by Obama-mania, such as Kass.

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