That New Yorker cover got all the attention

But a longer story inside is very revealing, and the guys at Powerline have parsed it attentively.

In a long New Yorker article Ryan Lizza documents the rise of Barack Obama in Chicago from community organizer to United States Senator. Lizza’s article coincidentally demonstrates that Obama’s grandiosity is a quality that can be traced through his years in Chicago. The entire article is worth reading.

But requires devoted time to get through and absorb. Scott Johnson offers some excerpts, and they should draw you into the actual article.

Like this:

{Obama secured the endorsement of state senator Alice Palmer to succeed her while she unsuccessfully sought the Democratic endorsement for a congressional seat and then refused to step aside to let her reclaim her position. Palmer filed a petition for a place on the ballot.] Obama was conciliatory about the awkward political situation, telling the Hyde Park Herald that he understood that some people were upset about the “conflict between old loyalties and new enthusiasms.” Privately, however, he unleashed his operators. With the help of the Dobrys, he was able to remove not just Palmer’s name from the ballot but the name of every other opponent as well. “He ran unopposed, which is a good way to win,” [former D.C. Circuit Judge Abner] Mikva said, laughing at the recollection.

And this:

[Obama helped design his new senate district running from the South Side to the North.] The new district was a natural fit for the candidate that Obama was in the process of becoming. “He saw that when we were doing fund-raisers in the {Rep. Bobby} Rush campaign his appeal to, quite frankly, young white professionals was dramatic.”…

In the end, Obama’s North Side fund-raising base and his South Side political base were united in one district. He now represented Hyde Park operators like Lois Friedberg-Dobry as well as Gold Coast doyennes like Bettylu Saltzman, and his old South Side street operative Al Kindle as well as his future consultant David Axelrod. In an article in the Hyde Park Herald about how “partisan” and “undemocratic” Illinois redistricting had become, Obama was asked for his views. As usual, he was candid. “There is a conflict of interest built into the process,” he said. “Incumbents drawing their own maps will inevitably try to advantage themselves.”

And, a glimpse of some early self-assurance:

Obama has frequently been one step ahead of his friends and the public in anticipating his own rise. Perhaps it is all those people he has met over the years who told him that he would be President one day. The Reverend Alvin Love, a South Side Baptist minister and a longtime Obama friend, said that Obama called him in December, 2006, seeking advice about whether to run for President. “My dad told me that you’ve got to strike while the iron is hot,” Love recalls saying, and Obama replied, “The iron can’t get any hotter.”

Obama has always had a healthy understanding of the reaction he elicits in others, and he learned to use it to his advantage a very long time ago. Marty Nesbitt remembers Obama’s utter calm the day he gave his celebrated speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, in Boston, which made him an international celebrity and a potential 2008 Presidential candidate. “We were walking down the street late in the afternoon,” Nesbitt told me. “And this crowd was building behind us, like it was Tiger Woods at the Masters.”

“Barack, man, you’re like a rock star,” Nesbitt said.

“Yeah, if you think it’s bad today, wait until tomorrow,” Obama replied.

“What do you mean?”

“My speech,” Obama said, “is pretty good.”

Just wait until Denver, when he’s surrounded by 75,000 cheering supporters. That makes a huge difference in how a candidate’s promises and policies and beliefs are perceived. (It will certainly help John McCain, but not to the degree it will make Obama soar.)

Wathing him deliver his Iraq speech yesterday, I thought about how different that same speech would be if he were in a stadium surrounded by tens of thousands of adoring fans, as many of his campaign speeches were set during the primaries. It’s totally different to read the text. It was basically the same content as his op-ed piece that appeared in the Times the day before.

NRO has analyzed that content. So did Rich Lowry.

And the Washington Post.