Good opening here to a Chi Trib story about business as usual in Washington under a recently inaugurated messiah:

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama said that in overhauling health care he would make negotiations public—and even invite C-SPAN to air the talks on television.

Yet in recent months, lobbyists and health insurance company representatives have been meeting behind closed doors—with the White House’s knowledge—in Sen. Edward Kennedy’s office to debate options for a new health system.

As a candidate, Obama pledged to cut “earmarks” for lawmakers’ pet projects to pre-1994 levels. But the president soon is expected to sign a bill laced with more than 8,500 earmarks.

Nicely done, putting data up front, a fairly classic noosepaper lede.  But feeling the need to take the sting out of it, the writer — LA Times man Peter Nicholas, of the Tribco Washington Bureau — excuses Obama:

Transforming Washington’s political culture is proving tougher than Obama may have envisioned.

As if Mr. Obama went to Washington from the South Side of Chicago, where he has had unstinting support from the Democrat machine, and “may have envisioned” some sort of reformable situation.

Call this a quirk, even if it’s true you don’t want to be tendentious in a news story.  And “may have envisioned” leaves open the possibility that he did envision it.

Note too that Nicholas was sounding an alarm last July:

In more than a year of campaigning, Barack Obama has made a long list of promises for new federal programs costing tens of billions of dollars, many of them aimed at protecting people from the pain of a souring economy.

But if he wins the presidency, Obama will be hard-pressed to keep his blueprint intact. A variety of budget analysts are skeptical that the Democrat’s agenda could survive in the face of large federal budget deficits and the difficulty of making good on his plan to raise new revenue by closing tax loopholes, ending the Iraq war and cutting spending that is deemed low-priority.

In today’s story, a think-tanker tells Nicholas, “It’s very different to make promises on the campaign stump than it is putting together an administration and running a government,” further to exonerate the man who didn’t know enough but promised change.

Of many reporters, if not of Nicholas, who foretold problems, it may be asked, where was such a commenter before the election, to help readers put campaigning in perspective?

Trouble with quoting her now is that it’s too much like saying boys will be boys, tut-tut.  But campaign coverage should trumpet this insight, not save it for post-election stories that excuse the lies.