One more, and perhaps the most important, question about Jay Mariotti leaving the Sun-Times

Now that Jay Mariotti has left the Chicago Sun-Times and, one can hope, the city, there's one more question that begs to be asked:

Who decided to keep Mariotti on the paper in the face of his obvious and many failings? Who decided to sign him to a multi-year contract while the paper is mired in the depths of its worst financial crisis?

One has to assume that editor-in-chief Michael Cooke is ultimately responsible. Cooke is the latest in a long list of out-of-town editors inflicted on the paper by a parade of different owners, some of whom had no clue about the special nature of Chicago journalism and its newspaper readers.

If Cooke is responsible, how odd it seems that he now seems glad to see Mariotti gone. ''We wish Jay well and will miss him -- not personally, of course -- but in the sense of noticing he is no longer here, at least for a few days," Cooke said.

He told Chicago Reader media critic Michael Miner: "We’re not hearing from grief-stricken fans. The truth is quite the opposite. Quite the opposite. We've gotten hundreds of e-mails, including ones that say 'Now we’ll buy the paper.' By all indications our circulation will go up."

Too bad it took so long for someone to figure it out.

Even more news that you won't hear at the Democratic National Convention

Daley's kin's firm could profit on museum move

More news you won't hear at the Democratic National Convention..

Or from the mainstream media

US economy shows signs of rebounding

The United States economy grew at a revised 3.3 percent annually in the second quarter of 2008, the Commerce Department said - much higher than its first estimate of 1.9 percent.

This news comes to us courtesy of Radio New Zealand, which along with other foreign news outlets beat the American newsmedia to the story, as shown on Google News. When the American media finally got around to reporting it, the tone was, "yeah but, wait until (the impact of the tax rebates wear off, or Europe's economy catches up with the decline, or take your pick) hits and things will get worse."

If you think this is outrageous, wait until Obama becomes president

His campaign tries to force a radio station to not air an Obama critic

Unhappy that Chicago's WGN radio would ask writer Stanley Kurtz what he has found in documents linking Obama with one-time fugitive radical Bill Ayers, Obama's henchmen organized a campaign to flood the station with angry calls.

Sure, it's their right to protest Kurtz' appearance on the highly respected and long-running "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg," but it is clearly WGN's right to have as a guest anyone they wish. It says so right in the Bill of Rights.

Here's the Obama campaign's explanation for this attempt to muzzle Rosenburg:

WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers.

It occurs to me that it is up to the listeners (read: voters) to decide for themselves the merits of what Krutz has to say--something that the Obama campaign is doing everything possible to prevent. Just last week, the University of Illinois at Chicago tried to stop Kurtz from examining documents that had been donated to the taxpayer-supported institution that disclosed Obama's role as head of a foundation in which Ayers was heavily involved. Only under intense pressure did the university finally open the files to Kurtz. Yet to be determined is who pressured this public institution to close the records; someone connected to Obama or his campaign? Obama himself?

The temptation for the Obama camp, of course, will be to smear Rosenberg as just another conservative wingnut talk show host, which would be a gross distortion. Rosenberg, a University of Chicago professor, is intelligent, fair-minded and respected for the level of discourse he has conducted for decades in the evenings on WGN.

Judging by the Obama camp's unhinged reaction to Kurtz and anything connected with Ayers, one would think that Kurtz is on to something. I haven't read Kurtz' article in the National Review magazine yet, but I sure will now. And I hope you do too. Every hit on the magazine's web site or every purchase of the magazine at the newsstand will be a rebuke to the Obama censors.

The whole mess makes me quake at the idea that a President Obama and his campaign brain trust--including such Chicago Democratic Machine hacks as David Axelrod--would have access to the Justice Department and any other tools available to squash criticism of the sainted Barack.