JOHN KASS: OBAMA SLAPS THE SENATE, press misses the story:

But today’s news is that Obama, often treated by the national media as the gentle Mr. Tumnus of American politics, got privately hardball with Reid over the Tombstone issue.

According a story in the Tribune by Rick Pearson and Mike Dorning, Obama didn’t want the Chicago Way on parade in Washington, less than two weeks before his inauguration, when he formally becomes the agent of the change we can believe in. Obama is perfectly within his rights to try to wriggle out of an embarrassing political situation, and what could be more embarrassing for him than to have Illinois political corruption constantly on the news in Washington? People might start asking questions, wondering how Obama could come out of a city run by the wrought-iron fists of the Daley machine but smell like the neck of a baby after a bath.

I’m still wondering.

Yet Obama was tricky, not mentioning his phone call to Reid when talking to reporters Wednesday. . . . Obama almost wasn’t asked anything about Burris on Wednesday. One reporter barely tossed it up at the end, after others asked him about the war in the Gaza Strip (Obama still can’t comment about Gaza because he’s not yet president) and the economy (though he’s not president, you can’t stop the guy from commenting on that one).

What Obama forgot to mention is that he ordered the Tombstone issue settled because it became his problem. So he told Reid to cave.

Read the whole thing.