Only a few honest journalists left in the world, John Kass is one of them:

They feel betrayed. But just where did they think he comes from, their once-and-future young king, who wields the magical sword Axelrod, the singing blade solemnly handed to him by Richard “Shortshanks” Daley under the Michigan Avenue Bridge, as he rides forth to transform our cynicism into something good and pure?

If you’re a parent, you’ve seen young children tell stories at night, perhaps after making s’mores around a campfire, just as the fireflies come out. Their eyes get big and they begin to believe the words coming out of their mouths, like that time they pulled the sword from the stone.

It must have been like that with many journalists about Obama, believing, as kids often do, that they too could safely wield the great sword Axelrod, channeling the thrumming blade to smite cynicism across the land.

Or perhaps not.Either way, Obama stressed the need for public funding of presidential campaigns—to limit the dark forces on candidates tempted to trade ideals for cash. So the Chicago guys ran it through the City Hall calculator:

Either accept $85 million in public financing like that old pro-campaign-finance-reform Republican geezer John McCain, or break the promise and raise at least $500 million in private financing and use it for TV commercials to smash McCain in the name of reform.