* I just heard from a respected Chicago reporter who said he, too, is having difficulty getting responses from Barack Obama’s press staff.

That’s not a good idea for many, many reasons.

* Meanwhile, Lynn Sweet has an interesting blog post today, “The Obama backlash. It’s started.”

While Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is vacationing in Hawaii–might be the last quiet time for years, poised as he is for a 2008 White House run– a body of anti-Obama material is surfacing–centering around his record and his religious beliefs and yes, his middle name, Hussein. It’s a backlash–and a foreshadowing of what is to come.

* I excerpted some bits from Carol Marin’s piece below, but here’s another one.

Like most politicians, Obama was not averse to bringing home the bacon. According to published reports, Obama secured $100,000 in Illinois FIRST funds from then-Gov. George Ryan. The money went to the Museum of Science and Industry for an exhibit on the concept of time.

So, we got Barack and Rezko and Barack and Ryan. Since he didn’t speak up during the fall campaign, we got Barack and Blagojevich. And he just got Mayor Daley’s endorsement. Not to mention Alexi.

* Some people have claimed Obama is the anti-war candidate, but some anti-war people ain’t so sure.

Obama’s position on the Iraq war was pretty much summed up by his comment, cited at Alex Cockburn’s Counterpunch, as follows:

“On Iraq, on paper, there’s not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago. There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who’s in a position to execute.”

* And then there are the wingnut oddballs who somehow manage to retain their mainstream media credentials, yet write utterly ridiculous claptrap.

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

Is that even the man we’d want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn’t turn down)?

NO WAY, JOSE . . . Or, is that, HUSSEIN?