COMM 386: What does this mean?

In one of the 20th century's better quotations, Sir Winston Churchill once said Russian foreign policy was "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." I've also heard it said of the Illinois Legislature. So my conclusions about the following story, if I had any, would be tentative.

But now comes this item from Lynn Sweet, political columnist and Washington bureau chief for The Chicago Sun-Times. Senator Obama has used his presidential campaign clout with state Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, to convince him to call the Senate back in session to override Governor Blagojevich's amendatory veto of the "Pay to Play" ethics bill.

I'm not up to speed on the issue, and I'm not sure why Obama would want to get involved with a state issue. National political figures don't usually do that.

But he did.

Sweet thinks a Sun-Times story had something to do with it. She writes in her blog:

The call to Jones came after my colleague, Dave McKinney, the Sun-Times Springfield bureau chief, wrote about the impending death of the [ethics] bill.

McKinney reported how a good government activist suggested Obama should help and how Obama's campaign ducked questions from the Chicago Sun-Times about whether Obama should intervene to save the ethics bill.

Obama made the right call. Jones, who is going to retire soon, was easily pressured to call the Illinois Senate back to work.

The Chicago Tribune's Washington blog, called "The Swamp," reported the development without mentioning the Sun-Times.