Former President Bill Clinton was in Chicago yesterday, speaking at a fundraiser on the subject of the current health insurance overhaul.

Somehow, some way, Clinton wound up talking about ethnic diversity, the Fort Hood murders, and – most bizarrely – the AMC network’s “Mad Men.”

Clinton began his descent with the following, quoted from Lynn Sweet’s Chicago Sun-Times blog:

"I wasn't at the press conference last night, and I also don't have all the facts, but I think it's fair to say that Obama handled that question -- oh, what's the word I'm looking for -- stupidly?"

So quite surpisingly said Comedy Central's Jon Stewart on Thursday's "Daily Show" in reference to the President's statement at Wednesday's press conference that the police officers involved in Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates's arrest "acted stupidly."

I kid you not.

In a fabulous display of bipartisan comedy -- Stewart deliciously lambasted Republicans, Democrats, Fox News, CNN, Brian Williams, healthcare reform, and, yes, the President -- Stewart ended the segment criticizing Obama's answer to Lynn Sweet's question about what the Gates incident says about race relations in America (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 6:12, vulgarity warning, h/t NBer balboa):

We all know that Barack Obama, if he isn't actually divine, at least qualifies as a Superman.  So I guess it's fitting that he's married to a Superwoman.  Or at least that's the impression we get in today's Chicago Sun-Times article "Michelle: Her first month as first lady  THE EAST WING | In just a month, Michelle Obama has put her mark on her new domain, as she embraces an activist agenda."  Authored by Washington Bureau chief Lynn Sweet, the gushing appraisal begins:

It's Friday in the East Wing of the Obama White House, the realm of first lady Michelle Obama.

Many of the cream-colored walls are still bare. The Obama administration, after all, is just one month old.

But there is a growing photo collection in the hallways that charts the increasing activity of the first lady in the last two weeks as she settles in to her new role and starts expanding her portfolio of issues.

The newest item on her non-controversial agenda is healthy living. That's in addition to assisting military families, pushing work-family balance, national service, women's concerns and opening up the White House to the community.

Wow!  Can you imagine one woman accomplishing so very much so quickly?  But the fawning has just begun as Sweet moves on:

Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs is conducting his second-ever press conference right now. Below you'll find my live-blogging of the questions. I can't promise verbatim rendering of the questions, but should the Obama administration post a full transcript later on, I'll link to that as well. [see related post]

I'm watching the video via MSNBC.

13:20 ET:  Unid'd female reporter: This morning this event with the bipartisan leaders that the president had... but will there come a point when the president, and democratic leaders in the congress decide to have a vote whether Republicans like it or not?

13:21 ET, same reporter asks follow-up question on bipartisan cooperation

13:22 ET, male reporter asks about economic stimulus plans

13:25:  What kind of reassurances can you give on the economic package. And on Pakistan, did the president consult with the Pakistan government on the strike.

Gibbs replies that he won't address the airstrikes or other military operations.

13:25, Major Garrett, Fox News Channel: You will never speak of any military operation taken by the United States?

Gibbs replies he won't discuss those airstrikes at today's briefing

Lynn Sweet wants the Obama team to come clean over its contacts with Blago.  David Shuster has a different concern.  He's hoping the media won't get "adversarial" once the Obama folks get around to releasing their report about who said what to whom.

Shuster made his pre-emptive plea for good media manners on this evening's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the MSNBC show Shuster has recently begun hosting now that David Gregory has moved on to Meet The Press.

Sweet, of the Chicago Sun-Times, began with a reasonable reporter's take on the pending release by Team Obama of its accounting of contacts between the President-elect's representatives and Blago and his minions: take your time but be complete.  In contrast, Shuster's focus was his demand for media decorum and desire to exculpate Rahm Emanuel before even learning the facts.

View video here.

Now that he's President-elect Barack Obama's new chief of staff, according to various Nov. 6 media reports, will Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., face the same scrutiny Karl Rove did when he was named Bush's deputy chief of staff? More importantly, will the media take note the tie Emanuel had to the now taxpayer-owned, failed government-sponsored enterprise Freddie Mac?

Emanuel, who was a senior adviser for former President Bill Clinton throughout the 1990s, was appointed to the board of Freddie Mac upon his departure from the Clinton administration.

"Clinton's going-away gift to Emanuel was a seat on the quasi-governmental Freddie Mac board, which paid him $231,655 in director's fees in 2001 and $31,060 in 2000," Lynn Sweet wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times on Jan. 3, 2002.

I may have found the real reason Sen. Barack Obama was hesitant to appear on "The O'Reilly Factor." Fear of flunking the "Great American Culture Quiz."

From an October 29 blog post by Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet:

RALEIGH, N.C.--Barack Obama seemed to mix up black television sitcoms "Sanford and Son" and "The Jeffersons" in a speech Wednesday, where he was making the point that if Social Security had ever been privatized--as Republicans tried to do a few years ago, folks invested in the stock market would have been whacked with giant losses because of the economic meltdown.

"Can you imagine if you had your Social Security invested in the stock market these last two weeks, these last two months.

You wouldn't need Social Security. You'd be having a, ya know like Sanford and Sons, 'I'm coming Weezy."

Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Lynn Sweet, seems to have changed hats from journalist to Obama fundraiser promoter. In reporting on new fundraising efforts by the Obama campaign due to their worry over the energized McCain-Palin team, Lynn slips from straight reporting to acting as a flat out PR agent for an upcoming Chicago fundraiser. First Lynn mentions the new concern about the rise of the Republican presidential team in her column:

WASHINGTON--The McCain-Palin ticket is up in the polls--but wait--it's a fund-raising opportunity for the Obama team, a chance to sound the alarm to high end female donors. The Obama campaign is planning a major fund-raising push aimed women next month in Chicago. Men are welcome--if they donate at least $1,000--the price of a general admission ticket. To be a national chair of the event, raise $100,000 or contribute $57,000

"Daley scoffs at worries of political purge," reads a August 20 Chicago Sun-Times headline recording the dismissive reaction of the city's Democratic mayor about how his city worker firing spree could turn into a political purge. Only Daley's Democratic Party affiliation was nowhere mentioned in Fran Spielman's nine paragraph story:

Mayor Daley on Tuesday scoffed at a federal hiring monitor's demand for guarantees to prevent the threatened layoff of well over 1,000 city employees from turning into a political purge.

"A layoff is done because of union rules. I don't know where you get that" concern about firings based on politics, Daley told reporters after a firefighters graduation ceremony at Navy Pier.

[...]

Elizabeth Edwards authorized a friend to attack John Edwards over his infamous "she was in remission" interview on Nightline.  That's the stunning assertion of Sandra Westfall, the "People" magazine writer who authored the article [excerpt here] containing the friend's crticism. Westfall was a guest on tonight's Verdict with Dan Abrams.

DAN ABRAMS: Sandra, let me start with you. Is it fair to say that the story that you guys have in this week's magazine is effectively Elizabeth Edwards' side of the story?

SANDRA WESTFALL: You know, she authorized her brother and her best friend to speak to me on her behalf.

View video here.

In her August 4 blog post -- "Energy fueling Monday's agenda. Obama, 47 today, acts, McCain reacts" -- Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet glossed over a ludicrous statement by Sen. Barack Obama wherein the presumptive Democratic nominee suggested that properly inflating tires would eliminate the need to drill for more domestic oil.

Sweet noted that Republicans are :

[P]laying defense, because talking about oil prices is the Obama team agenda--are offering tire gauges to reporters, mocking Obama for suggesting that people keep their tires inflated properly in order to save gas.

But the Illinois senator didn't just echo some public service announcment about how properly inflated tires improve fuel economy. What Obama critics are making light of is this recent comment from last week where he suggested it does much, much more. It would eliminate our need to drill for more oil (emphasis mine):

Check out the promotional ad for Lynn Sweet's reporting from Obama's Mideast tour, as captured from the Chicago Sun-Times Web page today. The caption reads "Lynn Sweet Aboard O-Force One! Get up-to-the-minute updates from Barack Obama's World Tour."

With the media's history of Obamagasms, wouldn't the Mile High Club be a better comparison to draw?

In her July 15 column, "'Tasteless cover,' fascinating story," Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet lamented that the fuss over the New Yorker's satirical Obama cover art sucks all the oxygen out of the political newsroom. As such, it leaves almost incombustible the otherwise potentially explosive reporting by reporter Ryan Lizza, who penned the New Yorker cover feature (emphasis mine):

WASHINGTON -- The shame of the controversy over the cover of the latest edition of the New Yorker -- portraying Barack and Michelle Obama in the Oval Office, her wielding an AK-47, him in a turban and robe outfit suggesting he is a Muslim -- is that it draws attention away from a very good story inside by Ryan Lizza about Obama's Chicago political roots.

[...]

The cover hides an in-depth story about Obama's political roots, taking us to Hyde Park, the Gold Coast and Springfield. Lizza brings us inside Obama's Chicago political world and the political culture that spawned the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Among Lizza's scoops:

Chicago Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet spent an hour of her life today that she'll never get back: live-blogging Michelle Obama's appearance on "The View."

You may recall Sweet from a previous NB post noting her story on how "Obama's Ayers connection never bothered anyone" in Chicago, or from this one where I credited her with noting a 2007 Obama gaffe involving the number of fatalities in a tornado-ravaged Kansas town.

Sweet joins our very own Justin McCarthy among the very few people who have ever been paid, literally, to watch the Barbara Walters-produced gabfest.

You can find her three "View" posts here:

Barack Obama's penchant for gaffes is hardly anything new, but as the Illinois Democrat has come closer and closer to becoming the official Democratic presidential nominee, it seems the mainstream media have become less and less likely to note his gaffes. A cursory Web search finds a few instances of the mainstream media picking up on Obama gaffes in 2007, when Sen. Clinton was well ahead of Obama in the polls and was widely expected to be marching towards coronation in Denver.

"Obama's gaffes start to pile up" read the headline for a March 28 Lynn Sweet column. March 28, 2007, that is:

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, 46 days old on Tuesday, has run into some speed bumps, created because of a series of missteps magnified because he is under microscopic scrutiny.

It's too early to say whether the gaffes slow Obama's momentum -- or if they become barricades, extracting a more significant price for the Illinois Democrat's White House bid. They are getting noticed.

Consider the items that have been accumulating since Obama announced on Feb. 10:

Weather Underground leader turned-academic William Ayers is now so docile that it never really "bothered anyone in Chicago," that Sen. Barack Obama had any connection to him, wrote Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet in the April 18 paper. Along those same lines the Washington Post's Peter Slevin argued that the '60s radical was now "considered so mainstream" in Chicago "that [Mayor Richard] Daley issued a statement on Thursday praising him as a 'distinguished professor of education' and a 'valued member of the Chicago community.'"

But while he may have forsaken violence long ago, as his blog attests, Ayers's politics are far from mainstream, and go far beyond the standard Democratic arguments to withdraw from Iraq. For example, Ayers wants to pay reparations in Iraq AND Afghanistan and practically withdraw the U.S. military from the entirety of the Middle East, even in countries that have longstanding security arrangements with the U.S.

Taken from an April 13 blog post titled originally enough, "End the War" (emphasis mine):

I'm not sure what got into Howard Kurtz Sunday morning, but the Washington Post/CNN media analyst, and "Reliable Sources" host, really laid into the press for their horrible coverage of the presidential campaign.

Maybe more surprising, Kurtz voiced his displeasure with both print and television news coverage, as well as what was being written and said about the candidates on both sides of the aisle.

So go get some popcorn, and prepare yourself for a media bashing guaranteed to put a smile on your face: