"I know there are those like John Kass who would like me to decry Chicago politics more frequently, and I'll leave that to his editorial commentary," Obama said.

Not the politics, just the corruption, I said then, wishing silently that he had decried it all, that he'd stood up years ago and pointed to the list of sleazy deals, pointed an angry finger at the Duffs, the white, Outfit-connected drinking buddies of Daley who received $100 million in affirmative action contracts through City Hall ..

Obama had nothing to do with the Duff deal. But he kept mum. He has endorsed Daley, endorsed Daley's hapless stooge Todd Stroger for president of the Cook County Board. These are not the acts of a reformer, but of a guy who, as we say in Chicago, won't make no waves and won't back no losers.

Obama the reformer is backed by Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Daley boys. He is spoken for by Daley's own spokesman, David Axelrod. He was launched into his U.S. Senate by machine power broker and state Senate President Emil Jones (D-ComEd) ..

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. They're fixated on what it was, and they think it's clean now.

And they've spent years crafting, then cleaving to their eager and trembling Obama narrative, a tale of great yearning, almost mythic and ardently adolescent, a tale in which Obama is portrayed as a reformer, a dynamic change agent about to do away with the old thuggish politics.

It's as if Axelrod channeled it, wearing a peaked Merlin hat. Obama is a South Sider and does not hail from Camelot or Mt. Olympus or the lush forests of mythical Narnia.

I've joked that reporters feel compelled to hug him, in their copy, as if he were the cuddly faun, the Mr. Tumnus of American politics. But I was only kidding. The real Mr. Tumnus never had Billy Daley or Ted Kennedy carving up Cabinet appointments.

So why the disconnect? 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 as to when pundits will ever put Illinois corruption in context, I called on Tom Bevan, executive director of the popular political Web site Real Clear Politics (which directs readers to my column on occasion) 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, except perhaps that some may have bought into the established narrative and can't separate themselves from it."

"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.

Obama Jr. has actually drawn useful lessons from his father's failure -- he's abstemious, cautious, and, while he talks a lot, he seldom says anything that anybody who disagrees with him can understand.

"When did we start getting our news reported by giddy schoolgirls?"

"[Feith] criticizes Bush for not defending the main rationale for invasion -- protecting Americans from a genuine threat -- and instead emphasizing the subsidiary and iffy goal of establishing democracy."

There are a lot of great lines in [in the professors article on Obama], but no answer to the very obvious question; "What took so long?"

Well, we could just as easily ask, "What took the press so long to cover the allegations by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth back in 2004?"

After all, the Swifties formed before Kerry captured the nomination and his anti-war protesting wasn't exactly a secret. Moreover, the Swift Boat Vets were veterans, many of them had served with Kerry, they were credible -- more so than Kerry himself -- and they actually blew huge holes in some of Kerry's stories.

Yet, despite the fact that they were getting enormous coverage on talk radio and in the blogosphere, the mainstream media almost completely ignored them until Kerry responded to them publicly and then they simply aped the Democratic line, "Their allegations have been disproven," without ever giving their arguments a serious looksie.

Another clue that may help answer Don Campbell's question was the huge outcry on the Left after the ABC debate, where Obama bombed when he had to actually had to answer some tough questions about Jeremiah Wright, his refusal to wear a flag pin, and his connections to terrorist William Ayers.

So, why didn't the media hit Obama on Wright earlier? Why didn't they cover the Swift Boat Vets for Truth earlier? Why was their such a protest over Barack Obama being asked tough questions in a debate?

It's the same answer to every question; the mainstream media is mostly comprised of liberals, they do what they can to try to help their candidate win, and they generally think it helps to give Democrats a pass on tough issues.

Obama's remarks [about working class Pennsylvanians] reflect the emerging demographic transformation of the Democratic party from a bottom-up "party of the people" into a holding pen for all sorts of economic and educational elites. One way to [demonstrate] this is to look at who has been making presidential campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle ..

Through May 1, the Democratic presidential field has suctioned up a cool $5.7 million from the more than 4,000 donors who list their occupation as "CEO." The Republicans' take was only $2.3 million. Chief financial officers, general counsels, directors, and chief information officers also break the Democrats' way by more than two-to-one margins ..

Wall Street firms .. also tilt decisively toward the Democrats. Employees in storied Wall Street institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley have all favored the Democratic field by a large margin. Even both sides of the recent Bear Stearns/JP Morgan Chase deal choose Democratic candidates over Republicans by two-to-one margins ..

universities offer Democrats a hotbed of support. Professors favor Democrats over Republicans by a nine-to-one margin ($3.7 million to $430,000). Their students, though presumably struggling with sky-high tuition bills, nevertheless sacrificed enough late-night pizza and chips to send $4.1 million to their professors' favorite candidates and another $1.4 million to the GOP ..

The white-shirt/red-tie brigade of Republican presidential aspirants holds a nearly three-to-one edge among janitors, custodians, cleaners, sanitation workers, factory workers, truckers, bus drivers, barbers, security guards, and secretaries. While Democrats command the financial loyalty of architects, Republicans successfully woo contributions from the skilled craftsmen who turn their blueprints into reality -- specifically, contractors, hardhats, plumbers, stonemasons, electricians, carpenters mechanics, and roofers. This trend extends to the saloons, where the Democrats carry the bartenders and the Republicans the waitresses. The GOP field even secures more financial support from teamsters, steelworkers, bricklayers, and autoworkers.