"Confused" MSM

UPDATE (more below): Rezko hauled into court for mortgage fraud. Gee, what a surprise, hmm Barack Sweetie?*** The Tribune is worried voters might be "confused" about McCain's tying Obama to the Chicago Machine, but they give some useful background, including this on Bill Daley:

Still, Obama has been faulted by some progressives for his quiet approach and for not forcefully supporting the reform primary challenge of Forrest Claypool to then-incumbent Cook County Board President John Stroger, who was backed by the city's leading Democrats.William Daley, the brother of Mayor Richard Daley, is an economic adviser to Obama. He is Midwest chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and previously was president of SBC Communications Inc. He also was Commerce secretary in the Clinton White House and a leading administration salesman for the North American Free Trade Agreement that Obama has vowed to restructure. Earlier, Daley was a Clinton appointee to the board of now discredited mortgage giant Fannie Mae.

And recall Bill was Al Gore's go-to guy to keep the vote contested in 2000, when Al reneged on his concession and claimed little old ladies in Florida were "confused" by the butterfly ballot. (Ah yes, the butterfly ballot which was routinely used in Daley's Crook County without incident for years.) Meanwhile MSM and leftie bloggers split hairs while ignoring major stories. Also this and this. More:

But Robert Gibbs, a senior aide to Obama, discounted the McCain ad. Gibbs said he believed it was "highly ineffective" to try to link Obama to dishonored political machine politics when his elections to public office were due to "grassroots" voters and not "ward organizations or the political bosses."

"If you talk to any person in Illinois and ask them if Barack Obama came to power as part of some Chicago machine, I think they'd probably spend that 30 seconds laughing at you," Gibbs said.

Haha. It's true Obama started out as a hardball, hardcore leftist challenge to the Chicago machine, but he has long since become a part of it. And how do you spell astroturf Mr. Gibbs?

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey, HotAir looks at the Stanley Kurtz review of the Annenberg Challenge and Obama's long relationship with Bill Ayers. I would just add that the unions were probably too conservative for Obama and Ayers. Some teachers probably thought actually teaching math and science was a good idea, rather than political organizing. After all, I recall a stat that 40% of Chicago teachers send their kids to private or parochial schools because they know the Chicago schools are lousy.

P.S. Illinois blogger Dan Curry, Reverse Spin wraps it up: "Ten Reasons Barack Obama is no Reformer".

UPDATE: MK Ham at TWS:

Maybe women voters—considered a battleground demographic— would be interested in what the Hope 'n' Change ticket might wish to do with their children's education, and should have information about his past efforts in this vein.

Not to mention SexEd for kindergartners. Kurtz himself expands at NRO. More at Powerline, NRO.