The Sanchez Trial Isn’t The End

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Denise Alcantar had never driven anything bigger than a rented moving truck and her only previous work experience was as an office assistant. Yet, the Daley administration figured she was skilled enough to drive one of those big, lumbering garbage trucks for the city. A few months later, she c crushed a fellow city worker between her truck and a post as she tried to maneuver the truck around a turn.

How can this happen?

The same way that the Daley Democratic Political Machine hires incompetents—based solely on their political connections—to inspect porches that later fall down and kill people. The same way that years, ago the Chicago Sun-Times could open an undercover bar and get overrun with city inspectors on the take.

Read more in The Chicago Daily Observer

Special Olympics chief responds to Obama gaffe

In comparing his dismal bowling game to the Special Olympics, President Barack Obama's crew immediately realized that he had stepped in it. An apology rang out from the White House even before the tape of the remark aired on the Jay Leno show.

Which offered Timothy Shriver, Special Olympics chairman, an opportunity to suggest that partial atonement might be achieved by hiring a Special Olympian for the White House.

If George W. Bush had made the same gaffe when he was president, and Shriver had made the same suggestion, looney left blogs would be buzzing with the rejoinder that the White House already has a Special Olympian working there--in the Oval Office.

Cable comic show clowns, of course, would never let us forget that Bush had made the gaffe, but with Obama in the Oval Office, look for this gnat to leave our attention before the next sunrise.

Dodd Draws Voters’ Ire Over Wall Street Pay

Oh, and did the New York Times reporters happen to mention that Dodd is a Democrat?

Check it out here.

Apparently, we're supposed to conclude that he is, because he comes from a heavily Democratic state and has a Republican opponent.

What would it have hurt to have inserted his party identification somewhere, anywhere in the story, if not at the top, where it belongs? It is "small" things that are trashing what used to be an honorable profession, my profession.