Chicago Tribune: Everybody Loves Barack

Sunday is a day of worship. So today’s Chicago Tribune devoted more than 50 paragraphs to venerating Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

In the front page “Obama's national appeal rallies an army of backers,” correspondent Jeff Zeleny details how popular the junior senator is among the rich and famous. Warren Buffett is a fan and has contributed to Obama’s political action committee, as have Hollywood’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen and Steven Spielberg.

Bobby Kennedy’s widow Ethel is an admirer. She refers to Barack as “our next president.”

The Oprah seal of approval has been conferred on Obama with Ms. Winfrey confiding to her viewers: “He is the man of the moment and a man for our time. He is fast becoming America’s favorite son.”

With all the adulation he receives from the mainstream media, that may well be accurate. The Tribune’s story contains not a critical word.

A revealing quote comes from Democratic activist Jim Wallis, who says that Obama “manages to be passionate and principled without being ideological.” So far Obama has generally managed to elude identification as a political liberal. Only this summer, he said in a speech that Democrats “are trying to decide what our core values are.” After more than a century they still don’t know what they stand for?

Barack Obama may say things like that, but it’s clear he knows exactly what he believes in. So far in the Senate, he’s voted with Teddy Kennedy over 90 percent of the time. The Chicago Tribune doesn’t find that newsworthy.