This morning's email blast from Barack Obama—am I the only one who dreads the daily emails from the Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns, or, in her case, "campaign"?—makes the previously covert quite overt. His cash-begging note makes clear that he knows, and that you know as well, young Democrat, that the amount of money raised each month is not just cash on hand for his pleasure in spending but also a tool to generate favorable media coverage. The world is watching, he says, to see if he can consistently out-raise McCain. This is the year that the measure of a candidate has become his war chest. And also, somehow, that's become a perfectly acceptable thing to say.