By The Beachwood Vs. Affairs Desk

Barack Obama will make his presidential campaign official on Saturday with a kickoff event at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, inviting yet more comparisons to Abraham Lincoln. We get the ball rolling.
Lincoln: Likeness on the five-dollar bill.
Obama: Likeness on the cover of a five-dollar magazine.

Lincoln: Stovepipe hat.
Obama: Stovepipe pants.

Lincoln: Born in a log cabin.
Obama: Once rolled a doobie as thick as a log.

Lincoln: Saddled with American Civil War.
Obama: Will be saddled with Iraqi Civil War.

Lincoln: Debated Stephen Douglas.
Obama: Will debate Stephen Colbert.

Read More

Posted on February 11, 2007

Barack Obama’s speech announcing his candidacy for president, as told by CNN’s real-time graphic summary.
JUST IN
Obama: Fired Up.
JUST IN
Obama: You Believe We Can Be One People.
JUST IN
Obama: I’m Fired Up.
JUST IN
Obama: In Face Of War, You Believe There Can Be Peace.
JUST IN
Obama: You Believe We Can Be One People.

Read More

Posted on February 10, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

Barack Obama endorsed Mayor Richard M. Daley on Monday, saying among other things that the city had made great strides in overcoming corruption. Forgive Obama, he hasn’t been in the state much since being elected senator.
Just where does Obama see improvement? Daley is now finishing his worst term since the one in which more than 700 people died in the 1995 heat wave that he so badly mismanaged. Perhaps Obama hasn’t heard of the Hired Truck Scandal, or that Robert Sorich, the mayor’s former patronage chief, is on his way to jail. And that’s just the top of the shitpile; there are also the revelations of Daley’s extensive patronage machine; stalled efforts at CPS and CHA; a CTA that is literally running off the rails; soaring property taxes; and the stain of that pesky Burge Report, whose whitewashing managed in reverse to make the mayor look guilty.
Now, to be sure, Obama’s endorsement had very little to do with Daley’s re-election campaign (except to help satisfy the mayor’s thirst to positively crush his opponents and critics), but everything to do with Obama’s presidential campaign.
And that’s what’s troubling.

Read More

Posted on January 23, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

I’m not anti-Obama. He’s quite likable on the surface. I haven’t made up my mind about him. But I’m against hype, and particularly media hype, and that’s what’s going on. When I was the political reporter at Chicago magazine, my editor rejected both my proposals to embed with Obama first in the primary and then in the general election in order to write insider campaign accounts – win or lose.
After Obama caught fire, I proposed a story examining his legislative record, which still has gone largely unexplored. Also rejected. I proposed a story about “How Obama became Obama,” namely how the circumstances of his U.S. Senate campaign, his speech at the Democratic National Convention, and the tenor of media coverage helped create the man who might be president. Also rejected.
Any story, in fact, that might be a serious journalistic enterprise including critical thinking was rejected.
But my editor, Richard Babcock, the editor of the magazine, desperately wanted an Obama story nonetheless, so he could put him on the cover and sell magazines. The cover decision had been made; now we just needed a story to go with it. And of course, that meant a puff piece, which is what they got.

Read More

Posted on January 18, 2007