That was fast. The Sun-Times broke the story about Barack Obama's relationship with Tony Rezko on Monday, but I think we may have already reached the point where Obama's reaction to the story is drawing more attention than the particulars of the story itself. Carol Marin, a reporter for NBC 5 and a columnist for the Sun-Times, puts the boot in today:

Barack Obama tells us he is the messenger of a new kind of politics.

Open. Transparent. Different.

But put the pedal to the metal and ask Illinois' junior senator new and serious questions about his radioactive, federally indicted, former friend Antoin "Tony" Rezko, and suddenly this gleaming presidential hopeful and paragon of new politics behaves just like any other dissembling, dismissive Chicago pol, ducking the discussion while pretending not to.

Read the rest.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune runs a somewhat unflattering report on Obama's history of charitable giving which begins this way:

Giving, service and compassion are recurrent themes on the campaign trail for Sen. Barack Obama, but the Democratic presidential contender has only recently dug deep into his own pockets to support charitable causes.

Lastly, Maureen Dowd questions whether it's smart for Michelle Obama to publicly chide her husband as a "mere mortal" for things like not putting his socks in the dirty hamper. Dowd writes:

Many people I talked to afterward found Michelle wondrous. But others worried that her chiding was emasculating, casting her husband -- under fire for lacking experience -- as an undisciplined child. [snip]

But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam J.F.K. into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffins. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk the mystique?

And Dowd makes another point, which circles back to touch on the Sun-Times story as well:

Michelle conveys the appealing idea that she will tell her husband when he's puffed up or out of line. She aims high -- she ordered her husband to stop puffing on cigarettes as he started campaigning. But then, why didn't she see the red flags on the Rezko deal?

All in all, not a very good day for Obama as far as the media is concerned.