...is that Ryan Lizza's article is a Herculean feat of reporting. If you haven't read it, read it now. Here is one of the many, many great images Lizza give us of our next potential president, as he beefs with a fellow state legislator in Illinois:
Obama voted—a parliamentary error, Obama says—to block funding for a child-welfare facility in Hendon’s district. Hendon rose and criticized Obama for the vote. The two men became embroiled in a yelling match on the Senate floor that looked as if it might become physical; they were separated by Courtney Nottage, then the chief of staff for Emil Jones. Nottage led Obama off the floor to a room that legislators used to make telephone calls. “It looked like two men that were having a serious disagreement and they had walked up to one another really close,” Nottage told me. “I didn’t think anything good could come of that.”
Hendon told me, “He’s the one that got mad, because he said I embarrassed him on the Senate floor. That’s when he came over to my desk.” Before Nottage broke them up, Obama, who had learned to box from his Indonesian stepfather, supposedly told Hendon, “I’m going to kick your ass!” Hendon said, “He said something like that.”
Hmmm. Sounds like a black president to me.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I am surprised you are only picking up on it now.
So let me explain it to you. The Ryan Lizza piece IS the reason why Obama made a fuss about the cover.
Not that the cover was not offensive but there was no reason to create such a heavy brouhaha which would propagate the cover more widely than it would have ... unless you wanted liberals to get riled up at the New Yorker, therefore distracting them from that piece - brilliant but not completely positive about Obama's image, which we know he is very attached to.
I read it yesterday. Brilliant piece. It's a shame it's being overlooked amid the controversy.
Not cutting me much slack today, eh folks? It was a long article. I just finished it Friday. I know my blogging frequency makes it appear that I don't have a life--and that's basically true--but family has been known to pull me away from my duties. And I'm liberal. The cover didn't distract. Having tons of other crap to read did though. Anyway, I'll be faster next time :)
This is the first thing I've read in a couple of weeks that made me really LIKE Obama again.
Chicago politics is never as simple (though maybe as black & white) as national journalists want to make it. To survive and prosper, you have to carve your niche (sometimes with a bloody tool) and be prepared to make enemies out of supporters & vice versa. To rise quickly, you have to be smart enough to assess all the options, know all the players and then get the job done. You also have to be a pretty hard nosed individual.
That's one reason why I think Senator Obama can become a great president who may be able to actually lead the country, and solve some problems we have. He probably won't be this fantasy progressive pushover that most of the media, and conservatives think he is. Even though he wasn't born here, he's more 79th Street than Lake Shore Drive.
One other thing about Lizza's piece, as somebody who was in Daley Plaza at that antiwar rally, believe me, Obama was THE STAR speaker that afternoon (regardless of what the Tribune wrote). The buzz in the crowd was all about this State Senator who could some day be President. It's true, he made that kind of impression.
I'm surprised you think this article was well done. It's mostly innuendo and unsophisticated conjecture pretending to be wisdom, written in a rhythmic, journalism 101 style. Opening it at random, here are some quotes from page 58:
"Obama was learning that one of the greatest skills a politician can possess is candor about the dirty work it takes to get and stay elected."
Huh?
" He seemed to believe, according to colleagues at the time, that he was destined for better things..."
Herculean reporting?
I could go on, but this clumsy article has wasted enough of my time. The NYer is normally so deeply edited, I can't believe the clunkers that bog down almost every paragraph of this piece.