Division Street

The hottest meme in the political universe right now is the apparent inability of the media to find a way to have fun at Barack Obama’s expense, but what the media is missing is that when it comes to Obama, the media themselves have long been the target. The Obama Messiah Watch anybody?

Now comes the ever-dependable Onion once again to teach the media a few lessons with “Time Publishes Definitive Obama Puff Piece.”

Remember, it’s funny because it’s true.

When I first heard about the New Yorker cover flap, I figured I’d take a look at it and find that not a whole lot of people know from satire and dismiss it or chastise the complainers. But I have to tell you, I’ve looked at that cover over and over again, studied it, stared at it from every which way, and I don’t see the satire. Obama and his supporters have a right to be angry.

It’s a great drawing, that much is true. Especially the caricature of Michelle. If only!

But on the cover, without cover language, or without the context of being attached to an article inside, the desired effect is lost. If, as Kelly McBride, head of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute has said, the cartoon’s title, “The Politics of Fear,” appeared on the cover as well, there would have been no problem. Or if the drawing was inside the magazine surrounded by an article giving it context. But alone on the cover without context - and with such a dead-on depiction of the way the Obamas are perceived and/or smeared by right-wing nutjobs - is too dry and removed to qualify as successful satire. The New Yorker is wrong, and I can’t remember such an egregious misstep by the magazine.

I’d still love a poster of it, though.

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The New York Times on Sunday reported on dismay among Obama supporters upset over what Times columnist Bob Herbert calls “lurching with abandon.” But the Times did so in a way that marginalizes those supporters. Start with the headline: “Obama Supporters on the Far Left Cry Foul.”

Those upset with Obama are hardly restricted to the “far left.”

The Times continues with references to “left-wing bloggers” and “purists,” as if those stunned by Obama’s reversals are starry-eyed idealists (never mind that that’s how Obama the hopemonger has portrayed himself) who aren’t pragmatic (cynical?) enough to know how to win elections.

Memo to the Times: All those folks giving those $5 donations that impress you so much? That’s them!

But there’s no question that the most conservative of Obama’s supporters are upset too.

(Interesting aside: Those voting against the FISA bill include not just Hillary Clinton, but John Kerry, Dick Durbin and Harry Reid, among others. And in the veep watch, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd - neither of whom has a chance to be put on the ticket in my view - voted Nay. Evan Bayh, who I think has a very good chance, voted Yea.)

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At the Beachwood, including:

1. Miss Manners on patriotism.
2. Kim Wilde’s Kids in America.
3. Regulated Militia Well. A poem.
4. 13 Anthems. Including The Respangled Banner, The Alphabetically-Spangled Banner, The Star-Spangled Forecast, and The Redacted Banner.

Posting here at Division Street will resume later today.

As long as I’m reading the New York Times Op-Ed page (”Caveney’s Dish“), David Brooks outlines an indisputable fact about where Barack Obama gets most of his funding from despite the campaign’s efforts to tell you otherwise: from rich people.

“As in other recent campaigns, lawyers account for the biggest chunk of Democratic donations. They have donated about $18 million to Obama, compared with about $5 million to John McCain, according to data released on June 2 and available at OpenSecrets.org,” Brooks writes.

“People who work at securities and investment companies have given Obama about $8 million, compared with $4.5 for McCain. People who work in communications and electronics have given Obama about $10 million, compared with $2 million for McCain. Professors and other people who work in education have given Obama roughly $7 million, compared with $700,000 for McCain.

“Real estate professionals have given Obama $5 million, compared with $4 million for McCain. Medical professionals have given Obama $7 million, compared with $3 million for McCain. Commercial bankers have given Obama $1.6 million, compared with $1.2 million for McCain. Hedge fund and private equity managers have given Obama about $1.6 million, compared with $850,000 for McCain.”

Hedging on Hope!

“When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer. The Goldman Sachs geniuses are followed by employees of the University of California, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, National Amusements, Lehman Brothers, Harvard and Google. At many of these workplaces, Obama has a three- or four-to-one fund-raising advantage over McCain.”

Cynics might suggest these are “insiders” and “special interests.”

“When he is swept up in rhetorical fervor, Obama occasionally says that his campaign is 90 percent funded by small donors. He has indeed had great success with small donors, but only about 45 percent of his money comes from donations of $200 or less.”

By small, he means short. Most of his donors really aren’t very tall.

“Over the past few years, people from Goldman Sachs have assumed control over large parts of the federal government. Over the next few they might just take over the whole darn thing.”

Viva la Revolucion.

Jack E. Caveney of Hinsdale bought a quarter-page-plus ad on the New York Times Op-Ed page today titled “A RATIONAL PLAN TO SOLVE OUR CRITICAL SHORTAGE OF OIL & NATURAL GAS.”

It starts this way:

“The Democrats claim that the oil companies presently are authorized to drill where 80% of our oil and gas resources are located. The fact is that 84% of our continental offshore shelf is off limit to exploration or production. They also claim that we don’t have enough oil and gas resources to solve our petroleum problems.”

It ends this way:

“Senator Obama and his fellow Democratic politicians are supporting our present suicidal policies, which provide financial support to our enemies in the War on Terror and to our Communist opponents while destroying our economy.”

So who is Jack E. Caveney, and how can he afford to buy ads on the New York Times’s Op-Ed page?

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According to Fran Spielman and Rich Miller, Bill Daley is once again considering a run for governor.

I wonder what a Bill Daley Administration would look like.

* Jim Thompson heads transition team.
* Treasurer’s Office outsourced to J.P. Morgan.
* Duffs get Illinois State Fair contract.
* Legislators get pay raises in exchange for no longer showing up to work.
* Statewide Hired Trucks!
* Capitol dome becomes rooftop garden.
* State flower becomes the dollar bill.

Barack Obama is coming under fire for his indelicate denials that he is a Muslim. I just realized watching Seinfeld how Obama should address this in the future. Just add the line, “Not that there’s anything wrong with it.”

But seriously, this* is exactly the wrong approach - and it gives you an idea of where Obama staffers got the notion that this was a good idea, Obama’s later apology notwithstanding.

* “As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help.

“Mr. Ellison believed that Mr. Obama’s message of unity resonated deeply with American Muslims. He volunteered to speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf at a mosque in Cedar Rapids, one of the nation’s oldest Muslim enclaves. But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. Another aide appeared at Mr. Ellison’s Washington office to explain.

“’I will never forget the quote,’ Mr. Ellison said, leaning forward in his chair as he recalled the aide’s words. ‘He said, We have a very tightly wrapped message.’”

For all I know Abby Ottenhoff is an amazingly wonderful person in real life, but really, can you believe anything she says?

Ottenhoff is the latest spinmeister to leave the Blagojevich administration, and her exit interview with Bernard Schoenburg of the (Springfield) State Journal-Register leaves me wondering if she’s an idiot or just a liar. Let’s take a look.

“It’s really been an honor to be a part of this administration,” Ottenhoff said.

And for some, it’s also been a crime.

“The recent trial of gubernatorial fund-raiser Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, she said, can be seen as good news for the governor because, while he was convicted of some corruption charges, Rezko was acquitted of ‘issues dealing with Public Official A,’ which was code in court documents for Blagojevich.”

Yes, the testimony of Ali Ata and Joe Cari was wonderful news for the governor! This is a neat bit of spin, but Blagojevich was hardly exonerated by the verdict.

“I think that the governor is in a good place,” Ottenhoff said.

Oh, is he out at Wrigley again?

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The Internet has been around a long time now - long enough to threaten the survival of many newspapers, including the Sun-Times - and yet, the traditional media still largely has a cornpoke view toward the dangfangled technology. And these are the people begging for your trust and patronage?

Consider the editorial “Web Enables Obama To Confront Rumors Head-On” in the Dim One today.

By that title, you’d think this would be a piece appreciating the use of the Web to combat scurrilous smears - a tool not available to, say, those smeared by Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s; or to poor Edmund Muskie in 1968, who, like Hillary Clinton, never really cried; or to Nixon’s enemies in the 1970s and Michael Dukakis in the 1988 campaign and so on.

But no. This, instead, is another tired rant against the Internet. Let’s take a closer look at the complete lack of rational thinking emanating from the geniuses at the Sun-Times.

“For several weeks, a scurrilous rumor about Michelle Obama has wafted through the blogosphere with an awful stench.”

Note the correlation of the blogosphere with a place reeking of an awful stench. How does that explain Rush Limbaugh and Bob Beckel?

Maybe the Sun-Times ought to rail against the radiosphere and TVsphere.

“But you didn’t hear about it in this newspaper for the best of reasons: Not a shred of evidence said it was true.”

The Sun-Times no problem publishing a Christopher Hitchens column a few months ago, though, stating as fact that Bill Clinton was a rapist. (And where is the S-T’s outrage at WTTW for allowing a local author to state that Bill Clinton “is dating” on Chicago Tonight recently without proof?)

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