Obama, media and Chicago politics
The American media has failed to take a close look at Barack Obama, writes John Kass in Obama's hometown newspaper Chicago Tribune. He sums up Obama as a product of Chicago politics which, according to him, is not all that clean.
The New York Times has a more in-depth story about Obama's Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side. It says this is not the first time Obama is running as the candidate for change. The difference is he is winnning now -- it did not work in Chicago when he ran against Congressman and former Black Panther leader Bobby Rush in 2000 and lost.
The article is worth reading because it shows how Obama eased his way from the fringes of liberal politics to the national mainstream winning the support of Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago and his machine. It quotes Rashid Khalidi, a Middle East scholar and an adviser to the Palestinian delegation to the 1990s peace talks, who used to invite Obama to dinner. Khalidi says:
“People think he’s a saint. He’s not. He’s a politician.”
Kass says:
As a candidate, Obama will do what he has to do to win. My argument is not with him — but with the national political media pack that refuses to look closely at what Chicago is...
Why is Obama allowed to campaign as a reformer, virtually unchallenged by the media, though he's a product of Chicago politics and has never condemned the wholesale political corruption in his home town the way he condemns those darn Washington lobbyists.
For an answer, I called on Tom Bevan, executive director of the popular political Web site Real Clear Politics and a Chicagoan.
"To a large degree, the media has accepted much of the Obama narrative thus far," Bevan told me. "He's risen so quickly, but his history hasn't been bogged down with an association of Chicago politics and I can't tell you why exactly...
"And I don't know if the country understands just how corrupt the system is in Illinois. People don't see it. They're flying over us, cruising at 30,000 feet," Bevan said.

