Governor's surrender

Plan to tear down NIU building is selling out to violence

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

You've got to hand it to Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He sure knows how to keep everyone off balance, whether it's proposing to drag the state deeper into the financial pit with unexpected and unaffordable new programs, purchasing Wrigley Field when there's no need, or, now, signing on to raze the lecture hall where five Northern Illinois University students were fatally shot and replace it with a new classroom and memorial building, at a mere cost of $40 million.

Who knows what foolishness he'll surprise us with next. Maybe he'll dissolve the legislature, much as English monarchs of yore did when displeased with parliament.

An NIU memorial is so obviously wrong that Blagojevich's spokeswoman quickly said the idea wasn't his; he was reflecting campus opinion. Someone needs to tell the campus that, even in grief, it's wrongheaded. For me, it's caving in to the whims of a mad gunman. "Look, Mom and Dad," students could tell their visiting folks, "here's where [crazy man's name deleted by the columnist] shot all those kids. Isn't that interesting?"

For taxpayers, it would be an unconscionable waste of good money, especially when the campus has been waiting years for $20 million to renovate the Stevens Building, which houses the anthropology department and theater program.

Nonetheless, Blagojevich will ask the General Assembly to immediately cough up the $40 million for replacing Cole Hall, the scene of the killings. Apparently, he considers it just a formality; he announced at a news conference that the hall "will" be demolished.

Some legislators seem chary, urging thought before rushing ahead; perhaps they were too afraid of "offending" by saying what really needs to be said about the profligate idea. Naturally, Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) jumped right on board, saying he supports the governor's proposal. The idea also has the support of NIU President John Peters, who said students and others had urged him to push for the building's removal and to "consecrate" the site. "I talked to a lot of people, and very early on I made the decision that we had to raze that ... building and replace it with something fitting ... our needs and as a memorial," Peters said.

I think the whole bunch badly needs a course in leadership. Cole Hall seems to be a functional building. Its replacement would require the construction of at least two 500-seat lecture halls. And we can hardly wait for the artistic competition to decide what best "memorializes" the shootings.

Not that history survives as a pre-eminent course of study at many universities, but perhaps we might recall the University of Texas clock tower. From the tower's observation deck, sitting atop the university's 27-story Main Building, a barricaded student shot and killed more than a dozen people and wounded many others on the campus below. The 307-foot-high tower, one of the tallest buildings in Austin, was the scene of the nation's first mass killing of its type. The gunman fired his rifle for more than 1 1/2 hours before a policeman penetrated the barricades and shot him dead.

That was in 1966. And the tower still stands. And the observation deck remains open. (It was closed in 1974 because nine people committed suicide by throwing themselves from the deck; it reopened in 1999, with safety bars installed.)

Today, believe it or not, tours are conducted. Not so much because of the gruesome spectacle that happened there, but rather because it is the centerpiece of a 1937 campus master plan, an Austin landmark and an important symbol of learning. When the school reopened the observation deck, the university president, Larry Faulkner, said something important. He called the tower the "most important symbol of academic aspiration and achievement in Texas. [It is time to] actively use this icon of higher education in positive ways."

Although Cole Hall is something of a campus centerpiece, few would argue that it has the cachet of the Austin tower. Yet, it symbolizes something as important as the tower, something about the higher aspirations of mankind and something that should stand in the face of the lunacy that occurred there. Tearing it down would be surrender.

Ban anonymous sources in campaign stories

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

Bob Meyer, a friend who is a loyal and long-time reader of the New York Times, left an angry message on my voice mail:

“I’m canceling my subscription. I’ve had it.” He didn’t say why, but I could easily guess: the recent “smear” of Sen. John McCain.

I’ve got nothing to do with the New York Times, but as a longtime journalist, I guess that I qualified as a target for Bob’s anger. Bob’s not an ideologue; he loathed Newt Gingrich and disdains most politicians of whatever party. But the serious journalistic faults of the paper’s front page and weakly attributed report of McCain’s alleged affair with a lobbyist were obvious even to the layman.

Read more at PoliticalMavens.com

Democrats make rules, then gripe about them

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Bad-loser Democrats, who have endlessly crabbed about Republicans "stealing" the last two presidential elections, are at it again, bellyaching about being "disenfranchised" anew, but this time by their own party.

How refreshing.

Their gripe is that the Democratic Party has "disenfranchised" its voters in Florida and Michigan by decreeing that their primary elections won't count at the convention in the selection of the party's presidential nominee.

The reason? The two states violated the party's rules by holding their primaries before the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday vote. The party had warned the states against it, but the states, knowing the consequences, went ahead anyway. Likewise, hundreds of thousands knew their votes wouldn't count, but they voted anyway. Laughably, many now are whining about being disenfranchised.

The irony, of course, is that if the two states had not been so pigheaded and held their primaries later, they now could be playing the role of kingmaker in the closely fought battle between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

So, some Democrats, being Democrats, now insist that the rules shouldn't count, and that the two states' delegates should be seated at the convention anyway. If that happens, Clinton, who won both states, would scoop up the majority of their 366 delegates, perhaps enough to tip the nomination to her. Never mind that Obama didn't campaign there and wasn't on the Michigan ballot. Clinton's gusty delegate grab is contemptible.

The word "disenfranchise" also is being thrown around loosely in regard to how the party's 796 superdelegates will vote. As "insiders" -- senators, congressmen, governors and party bigwigs -- superdelegates can vote any way they please. Now some Democrats are saying nuts to the rules, demanding that the only role of superdelegates is to rubber stamp the popular vote. If not, the critics say, the insiders will be disenfranchising the millions who voted for the top vote-getter. Ain't it grand?

The word "disenfranchise" was popularly used when Jim Crow laws denied black Americans the right to vote, so it is particularly ironic that Democrats -- the self-described champions of civil rights -- now are accusing one another of the sin. But the party isn't interested in irony; it's worried about disintegrating. It should. It may already be too late to reverse the perception that insiders, by picking the nominee, will shove aside the voters.

Consider: Without a wholesale shift of superdelegates to Obama, the convention could open with neither candidate having a winning majority. There could be a gigantic, ugly and destructive floor fight over whether the Florida and Michigan delegates should be seated and over changing the superdelegate rules.

The damage might be avoided, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean suggested, if Clinton and Obama could work out a deal before the convention, but that wouldn't placate progressive activists who already are furious that the convention might be "brokered" in violation of their "power to the people" orthodoxy. Other damage-control schemes that have been floated include: an appeal to a special convention committee to settle the dispute; a deal by the two states to split their delegates according to some make-up-the-rule-as-you-go-along formula, or convening special caucuses in the two states to, in effect, redo the primary.

None of them will work because the aggrieved can challenge them on the convention floor. Perhaps party dealmakers think they could avoid a public fight by coming up with a rule beforehand designed to prevent a floor challenge, but that would only further inflame dissidents -- an honored appellation among Democrats (except when dissidents are divisive). I can see it now: network TV anchors high in their booths dramatizing the "struggle" by the sainted against wicked party insiders. Never mind that the insiders were elected to their jobs by Democratic voters, who got what they deserve. Like superdelegate and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Democrats have only themselves to blame for letting their nomination process turn into a rhubarb, with their goofy, complicated and utopian delegate rules designed to give "voice" to every possible demographic slice. Here's a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences: Rules designed to give power to the people wind up handing more power to insiders.

Looking at the muddle, one senior party member told me that helping to craft those "inclusive" delegate rules decades ago was one of his life's great regrets.

Maybe he should become a Republican. That party, with its straightforward, winner-take-all delegate formula, is picking a nominee without the self-destructive nonsense about disenfranchisement.

Finding an answer for the NIU shootings

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Well before we even knew the name of the gunman in the Northern Illinois University killing spree, some people already knew why he did it. Guns. Or, not guns.

And so, another tiresome argument over gun control was reignited, with both sides spilling their invective all over the Internet. The victims, their families and friends deserve better. If we have to discuss it, at least let the discussion be a little more intelligent and respectful.

Not that we needed another school shooting to begin the discussion. Mass shootings have been occurring with increasing frequency. Just a week ago at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge, a 23-year-old women killed two students, and then herself.

Continue reading in the Chicago Daily Observer

The governor of three states?

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

Mitt Romney should run for governor of Michigan in 2010.

Yeah sure, I, too, thought it was way out when a friend suggested it at lunch a few days ago, but after listening to his reasons and the more I thought about it, the more intriguing and rational it sounds. Besides, it would be great fun.

The deadly serious suggestion came from John Tillman, chairman of the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market and liberty-based think tank. He parried every objection I could think of, and some that I hadn’t.

Tillman—a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and speaking for himself—explained it would be a perfect opportunity for Romney to show that he could turn around not one, but two states. Using free-market and liberty-based principles to successfully govern, Tillman said, he could cement his conservative credentials. And set himself up for a run for the White House if the presumptive GOP nominee, John McCain, should lose.

Certainly, he couldn’t do worse than the current Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Just this yesterday, the tax and spend governor unveiled a proposed $44.8-billion budget that’s almost 3 percent higher than this year’s. She’s bragging that she can do it without a tax or fee increase, but it should be noted that she’s getting plenty of help from a big hike last year in the state income tax and from a surcharge on the state’s main business tax. It’s expected to bring in an extra $1.54 billion this year.

Tillman is a Michigan native who is saddened by how liberal policies have driven away business from a rust-belt state already hard-hit by a recession. He figures that voters are ready for a change (Granholm is prevented by the state’s term limit law from running for a third term, so Romney would have to face someone else.) Trying to be a governor of a second state shouldn’t be a problem with voters, since Romney was born in Michigan and he’s returning to the state he loves to straighten things out. That should inoculate him against carpet-bagging charges, especially when voters already have shown that they are perfectly willing to elect someone who was born out of the country—Canadian native Granholm.

A bigger hitch, however, might be the tired old charge that he’s using the governorship as a stepping-stone to be president. Voters don’t like it when someone runs for an office expressly to position himself for a run at a higher office. For some reason, just the perception can kill a candidacy. I’ve never minded it though; in business, it’s not held against you if on your way to becoming a vice president you have bigger things, such as CEO, in mind.

Go for it, Mitt.

This post also appears on PoliticalMavens

Show exit polls the door

Incessant analysis adds little value

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Now that exit polls have confirmed that white men can bring themselves to vote for a black presidential candidate, can we dump the pollsters?

It was thanks to pollsters interviewing those who had cast votes that reporters-turned-sociologists could proclaim the startling fact that a significant percentage of white males could shrug off their supposedly deep-seated racism and vote for a black man, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). As if we needed a poll to tell us that.

CNN's "best political team" of commentators on Super Tuesday night told us. One team member, former presidential adviser David Gergen, was amazed that Obama could get 45 percent of the white male vote in a Southern state. It was, he said, historic. Host Lou Dobbs, reading my mind, cautioned against stereotyping white men, but Gergen, reminding everyone that he was from the South and, therefore, I suppose, an authority on white male racism, said it couldn't have happened as recently as two years ago.

Of course, Obama, an extraordinary candidate whatever his race, wasn't running two years ago. But, thanks to exit polls, we can keep the fight going over just how racist we all are.

Exit polls are poisonous. At least how they are used. Which is obsessively. They provide ammunition for those who ponder whether Hispanics are racist because they voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) instead of for a fellow "minority." Or conversely, whether black voters are racist because they voted for Obama in near "unanimous" numbers.

They inform us which candidate has the support of "upper-income" voters, so we can fuel class warfare by voting for his opponent. They give us such "insights" as this from Jonathan Tilove in a Newhouse dispatch: For the first time "Caucasian men" will have to get used to the idea that one of their own might not be president. But, he points out, exit polls tell us that because women and blacks are voting for their own, the decision of whether a black or a woman will be nominated is left in the hands of white men. Apparently, no matter how we try, we just can't get white men out of the equation.

Super Tuesday analysts treated exit polls as sacred texts, droning on and on and on about which candidate most appealed to (or was disliked by) a particular racial, ethnic, religious or gender voting bloc.

Maybe it was because they had nothing else to jabber about until they could proclaim a winner the instant the polls closed in each state. Maybe it was because explaining the far more complex mechanics of delegate selection was too difficult. Or maybe it was because they thought that exit poll results are terribly interesting and important.

Important? For some, more important than the elections themselves. Recall that in the 2004 presidential election, the conspiracy theorists concluded that Republicans somehow had stolen the election from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and handed it to President Bush because the election results did not conform to the exit polls. The polls had "predicted an overwhelming victory" for Kerry, and a stolen election, for some, was the only plausible explanation.

Here's a plausible explanation: The polls were wrong; the elections were right. Legendary newspaper columnist Mike Royko, brimming with disgust for the polls, often advised his readers to lie to pollsters. Some voters, I'm sure, do. There also are many other ways for the polls to be "wrong." Sometimes the sample of voters polled does not accurately reflect the profile of the actual voters. For example, some experts suggest that conservatives are less willing to share their voter information with strangers, thus tilting the sample to the left. Who knows? Who cares?

Here I'll go out on a limb: Exit polls fail to serve any consequential purpose in the democratic scheme of things; they may even be inimical to the commonweal. No, I'm not suggesting that they should be banned or outlawed. But there's an irony in their compulsive use. When so much is made in this presidential campaign of "unifying" our country, the exit polls shove us into compartments with our "own kind." Exit polls, when they focus excessively on our sociology, magnify our differences. We shouldn't need exit polls to know that we've made significant progress in the last 50 years in coming together. Maybe when reporters and pundits stop hanging on to every detail of exit polls, we'll know that we, as a nation, have grown up.

Boo Hoo, Someone Edited My Copy

Sun-Times editorial page editor cries in her beer

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

In perhaps the shortest tenure of any editorial board editor in my memory, the Sun-Times’ chief opinion-maker, Cheryl Reed, has quit, and not without cause.

According to her, newspaper management inappropriately fiddled with the paper’s editorial endorsements of Barack Obama and John McCain, without telling her. I would have quit too (I served on the Sun-Times editorial board for 22 years), but not for the high-and-mighty, ego-inflating reason offered by Reed. To me, it would have been a clear signal by the publisher and owner that they had lost confidence in me, and it was time to go. The failure to collaborate on changes made in copy is something that’s done to rookie reporters, not editorial page editors. The message from management to Reed was simple and clear: You blew it.

But, instead of being embarrassed by this rebuke, she has turned this reproach into a badge of martyrdom.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

The Choice for Illinois Democrats

By Dennis Byrne

Chicago Daily Observer

When Democratic partisans vote in the Illinois primary Tuesday, they’ll have a choice between two leading candidates, one of which doesn’t want to play by the rules and the other who likes to play hide and seek.

Astonishingly, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) wants to change the rules in the middle of the primaries in her favor. And her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) missed so many Senate votes, it would be hard to tell where he stands; except that one analysis of his voting record shows that he is the Senate’s biggest liberal.

Not much of a choice, if you ask me.

First, Clinton’s wanting to change the rules in midstream:

It involves her “wins” in Michigan and Florida, two states that were stripped of their voting delegates in the Democratic convention because they violated the Democratic National Committee’s orders not to hold their primaries before Super Tuesday.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Handout is just that no matter its name

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Like the Boy Scout who insists on helping an old lady cross the street when she wants to stay put, everyone seems determined to help out seniors, whether we need to do so or whether everyone can afford it.

The list of all the entitlements, benefits and freebies larded onto the elderly is way too long to publish here, other than to mention they include, according to AARP, deals on travel, financial services, entertainment, computers, gifts and insurance.

As if that weren't enough, Gov. Rod Blagojevich blackmails the Illinois legislature into giving seniors free bus and train rides. Seniors already get deeply discounted fares, but paying less than the price of a coffee latte for a bus ride apparently is asking too much of seniors.

Now comes Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) who wants to make 20 million seniors eligible for a handout under the $150 billion economic stimulus package working its way through Congress. The House, earlier passing its version of the bill, cruelly -- we're supposed to think -- excluded these seniors from receiving any largess.

Of course, that's a vast oversimplification. Here is the reality: The House-passed version would give rebates of $600 (individual) and $1,200 (couples) to all but the wealthiest taxpayers. People who don't pay taxes wouldn't get the rebates, which is why they are called rebates. Among those getting rebates are seniors whose taxable income isn't high enough to pay any taxes. One reason their income isn't high enough is that some or all of the Social Security payments that they receive are not taxable.

So, here come the oily politicians making it sound like the rebates discriminate against poor seniors.

Baucus' response is devious: Allow Social Security payments to be counted when determining whether a senior is receiving enough income for a rebate. Of course, the Social Security payments still won't be taxed fully or at all, because we don't want to "punish" seniors for receiving Social Security.

If this is confusing, look at it this way: Baucus wants to return to 20 million seniors the taxes that they never paid. My point is: As a senior, I'd gladly accept whatever you want to give me. But don't call it a rebate. Be honest; call it a gift, or a handout.

To carry out this self-serving charade, Baucus and his Senate cohorts unconscionably risk stalling or killing a rare, bipartisan House-Bush administration agreement that many Americans (but not necessarily I) believe is a desperately needed economic stimulus package. Baucus explains it all with a cliche: "America's seniors have worked hard all their lives, paid taxes all their lives, and they contribute to our economy today." To which an appropriate answer is: "Yeah, so what?" Plenty of Americans are working hard, paying their taxes and contributing to the economy.

In reality, this handout is the work of politicians of both parties who want to appear to be fair and compassionate, but who are afraid of offending a large bloc of voters who believe that they've got something coming to them.

As a senior, I invite Baucus to pander to someone else. Some seniors don't need or want this charity. Yes, seniors who actually need help should get help. But blanket handouts, like Blagojevich's free rides for every senior regardless of need, make no more sense than subsidizing left-handed golfers because they're, left-handed. The wrongness of Blagojevich's unwarranted generosity is so obvious that even the most politically savvy can't figure out what he thinks he gains by it.

By giving another freebie to seniors, Baucus and his pals are reinforcing the idea that seniors, simply because they have survived 65 or more years, deserve a cash gratuity. This is especially insidious as we approach a crisis in the funding of Medicare and Social Security. Seniors and would-be seniors have to know that some changes will have to be made. Medicare costs are so out of control that it's hard to imagine how the solution could not include some castor oil. So, what we don't need right now are the likes of Blagojevich and Baucus reinforcing the idea that seniors are entitled to every handout that wanders through our politicians' demagogic minds.

Flummoxed in Illinois, A Guide to Super Tuesday.

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

For a change, the Super Tuesday presidential primary in Illinois is important.

In recent history, Illinois, like so many other states, has been the tail, waged by the dog when it comes to picking each party’s nominee. After Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and a few other early state primaries and caucuses, the media were wont to bestow the “Big Mo” crown on one candidate or another. By the time the tail-end states got around to their primaries, the other candidates, if they had not already dropped out, were swamped by an electorate that didn’t want to “waste a vote” on a Slo Mo candidate.

But this time, no clear winner has emerged in either party, in popular vote or in delegate count. As a result, Super Tuesday has enfranchised the 70 million registered voters in the 22 states that are selecting Democratic delegates and the 21 picking Republican delegates. Suddenly, your vote counts

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

McCain most capable of this batch of hopefuls

Politics is the art of the possible

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Nothing seems to anger die-hard Republicans more than Cafeteria Conservatives -- folks who pick and choose which right-wing diktat they will believe or reject.

Chief among the die-hards is Rush Limbaugh, the conservative equivalent of the Roman Catholic Church's Curia, who deigns to define what constitutes conservative purity. No one better in the church wields the nihil obstat (nothing hinders) stamp better than his lugness. Not even medieval church censors were better at defining what is free or not free of doctrinal error.

The case in point is presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). For Limbaugh, McCain's apostasies on global warming, campaign-finance reform and who knows what else (listening to Limbaugh for more than five minute is a danger to one's mental health, so I don't) draw almost as much passionate wrath as do his twangings on Hillary Clinton.

I disagree somewhat with McCain on such topics, but he doesn't deserve such hostility. Neither do other Republican candidates for their sundry and alleged conservative shortcomings. Limbaugh-minded commentators would explain that so many Republicans are wandering about undecided with eyes vacant because none of the candidates is without doctrinal sin.

Myself being something of a conservative (usually pronounced through pursed lips as if the speaker has tasted something vile), I wish they'd all stop "waiting for Reagan," as William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, put it. Republicans have canonized President Ronald Reagan -- they shouldn't -- and anyone who doesn't fit his mold is labeled a "defective product." This nonsense is guaranteed to increase the number and severity of party inquisitions. And it threatens to hand the White House to the Democrats.

For all of McCain's alleged faults, he holds an American Conservative Union lifetime rating of 82.3. True, that's the lowest among the leading GOP candidates. But, RealClearPolitics.com's consolidated polls of various head-to-head races show that McCain is the only Republican candidate who is, at this moment, ahead of the Democratic front-runners, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. Are die-hard conservatives so dead set against a slightly less than pure conservative president that they would prefer either Clinton or Obama (with American Conservative Union ratings of 9 and 8, respectively) in the White House?

McCain's conservative credentials can be verified by a close examination of Project Vote Smart's Web site (www.vote smart.org), where the voting records, issue positions and interest group ratings of the candidates are detailed. Spend time there, and you'll find that McCain isn't the ogre that custodians of the conservative flame would have us believe.

For me, the two most important issues in the election are national security (i.e. the war on terror, the war in Iraq and the nuclear threat posed by lunatic tyrants) and the quality and philosophical grounding of the new president's appointments to the Supreme Court and other federal courts. (The latter should be most critical to pro-lifers. Whether the high court will return the question of abortion to voters depends on the quality of those appointments.) McCain is on the right side of both issues, and that's what counts for me. Everything else -- the economy, free trade, balanced budget and so forth -- comes in second. McCain's remarkable comeback in the polls means something. Perhaps its significance coincides with the success of the Iraq "surge" -- something he courageously had urged for years while former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was still carrying out his lame war strategy.

Or perhaps voters are getting tired of the mind-clanging, headache-inducing demands for "outsiders" who are the "agents of change." Right. Tossing a puppy into a ring of snarling pit bulls also will bring about change. Reformers often fail because they don't know the territory. For all the glory heaped on Obama, I'd put my money on the less illustrious and consummate insider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to be an effective agent of change. Not that he is, or that his change is the kind I'd like.

This election, any election, comes down to a single question: Who can govern the best? Not who can orate the best. Or which candidate is the correct race or color. Who can govern the best ... it's not a conversation you often, if ever, hear in the endless jabber about the presidential elections. I suspect voters are getting tired of all the strategizing by creepy political advisers and just want someone to govern, someone who, as one shoe commercial says, can "just do it." If so, that's why McCain will get the Republican nomination.

Kerry Goes Down with His Swift Boat, Again

By Dennis Byrne
RealClearPoliticvs

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) now has accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of the worst possible--in his mind--evil: "Swiftboating" his choice for president, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

Kerry, demonstrating a child-like inability to let go, on Tuesday dragged out the swiftboating analogy in an e-mail responding to what he called "disgusting lies" that "they" are floating that Obama is a secret Muslim and refuses to observe the Pledge of Alliance.

Kerry doesn't say who "they" are, but it's clear, considering the deteriorating civility of the two campaigns that he was referring to the Clinton camp. Kerry equates the "disgusting lies" told about Obama with what happened to him when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged Kerry's claims, made during his presidential campaign, of bravery and heroism in the Vietnam War.

Read more at RealClearPolitics

Chances for old-time convention look good

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Wanna have some fun? Let's speculate that none of the presidential candidates in either party wins enough primaries to wrap up the nomination before the conventions in August and September.

Those too young to remember the last time the conventions were wide open would be entertained, enlightened and appalled at the sight of party leaders and state delegations horse-trading behind closed doors to select their candidates. As scandalous as this might be for some, I don't think it's necessarily cataclysmic because the smoke-filled rooms have produced some good candidates and presidents.

So how likely is a wide-open convention? Far from a certainty, but it's possible, which in itself is startling.

This isn't well understood because the media focus on the primaries has been entirely misdirected. Like the presidential election, it's not the popular vote that counts. All that counts is the number of delegates each candidate corrals. Too many stories simply ignore the delegate count.

To illustrate: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in New Hampshire. But it appears Barack Obama walks away with more delegates. That's because you need to include the preferences of superdelegates -- party bigwigs who vote at the convention for the candidates of their choice. More of those delegates are committed to Obama than Clinton, so the delegate totals from New Hampshire show Obama with 12, Clinton 11 and John Edwards 4, according to CNNPolitics.com. It gets even more confusing because every party in every state has its own way of naming delegates, some so arcane it's hard to capture the big picture. Some states give all their delegates to the winning candidate, others portion out delegates among the candidates to reflect the vote. Some states caucus, some name superdelegates and some states send some uncommitted delegates. Winning the Democratic nomination requires 50 percent, or 2,025, of the convention's 4,049 delegates. Looking at the delegate tally as of this writing (after the Nevada caucus and before the South Carolina primary), Clinton has captured 210 delegates, or 54 percent of 386 delegates selected, according to CNN. If she continues to gather delegates at the same ratio, she will be the party's nominee, but not by much. Obviously, there's no way to predict if she can maintain that pace.

On the GOP side, Mitt Romney is leading with 72 delegates, or 46 percent of the 156 delegates selected, according to CNNPolitics.com. In other words, none of the Republicans, including Romney, is gathering delegates at the ratio necessary to win the nomination before the convention.

Still, you ask, couldn't it be over after Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when more than 20 states, including Illinois, pick their delegates? Maybe not. If, say, Clinton held at 54 percent after Super Tuesday, she still would be more than 900 delegates short of winning the nomination, according to my estimates. The same holds true on the Republican side. Which means that the selection of the candidates could fall to the later primary states. How refreshing. That's far from the usual practice and not how all those states that moved their primaries up to ridiculously early dates planned it. So, sorry, Illinois and the rest of y'all; you were much too clever for your own good.

One other thing to keep in mind: With the field so wide open, Super Tuesday voters will have to make up their own minds, without worrying about "throwing away their votes" on an obvious "loser." Here's a juicy scenario. Imagine the nomination coming down to the last of the primaries, in June, in states like Montana, New Mexico or South Dakota. The sight of candidates furiously scraping for those few delegates would make Iowa and New Hampshire look like muted afterthoughts. So, we could end up with one or two "wide-open" conventions. If you think the primaries have been divisive so far, wait until you see how Clinton, Obama and the others go after each other if it all comes down to August. Welcome to the politics of mutually assured destruction.

Look on the bright side. Both parties could end up with their strongest candidates, or perhaps a surprise, compromise candidate who isn't even in the race now. Someone who didn't collect all that special-interest money. Someone like Harry Truman, a great president, who no one thought would ever occupy the White House. Or Dwight Eisenhower, who was selected by the GOP convention. Or Abraham Lincoln, who won the nomination in the old "Wigwam" on the banks of the Chicago River. We can only hope.

Saying "No" to Abortion

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

There's good news to celebrate on the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton U.S. Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortions for any reason: The U.S. abortion rate has dropped to its lowest level since 1974, the year after abortion's legalization.

But judging from the news accounts, you might get the idea that this is bad not good news. We're told about the difficulty that abortion clinics have in staying open, "restrictive" abortion laws being passed in many states (such as, oh dear, stopping a child's friend from taking her across state lines for a secret abortions without the knowledge of their parents), intimidation by "anti-choice zealots" and so forth. In other words, reason for the decline is that women are being denied their "reproductive rights."

No mention was made of another, perhaps more obvious contributing factor. Maybe increasing numbers of women are deciding that having an abortion is not a good idea.

This, after all, is the most effective way of reducing abortions, better than all the laws that might be passed. And it is an effect rejoinder to an appalling statement made by "anti-lifer," Beth Jordan, of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. Delighted about the increasing use of the abortion pill, RU-486, she said, "It's going a long way toward normalizing abortion."

Thanks for the honesty, Ms. Jordan. The real goal is to "normalize" the termination of human life.

Leave Iraq? We already are

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

While a number of presidential candidate continue to blather about "getting out of Iraq," the truth is that the United States already has begun the process.

In his recent visit to the Middle East, President George W. Bush announced that an Army brigade and a Marine Expeditionary Unit have already returned home, not to be replaced. "In the coming months, four additional brigades and two Marine battalions will follow suit," he said.

In another little noticed development, Bush said that Iraqi forces have "conducted a surge of their own, generating well over 100,000 more Iraqi police and soldiers to sustain the security gains. Tens of thousands of concerned local citizens are protecting their communities, and working with coalition and Iraqi forces to ensure al Qaeda cannot return."

While the president's critics grudgingly acknowledge that although the surge has dampened violence, it hasn't worked because it hasn't brought forth some undefined kind of parliamentary flowering. Yet, one underlying divisive issue--the distribution of oil revenues--has generated enough agreement among the contending Sunni, Shia and Kurd factions--the money now is being parceled out throughout the country. That, in turn, allows Iraqis to address one of the remaining major hurdles: reconstruction. Perhaps most important, the three factions increasingly are working together at the local level.

Contrary to his critics, Bush hasn't buried his head in the sand. Items that he listed on the Iraqis' to-do list were the continued improvement of conditions from "bottom up," passage of a revised de-Baathification law and a national budget, continued growth of Iraqi security forces and their efforts to take the fight to al Qaeda and other extremist groups, the defeat of criminals that are victimizing neighborhoods, the further reduction of the flow of terrorists through Syria and blocking Iran's support of terrorists.

That's quite a load, but it at least is more detailed than the vague demands to "get the troops out of Iraq."

Keeping the Lights on at The Bright One

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Someone has to save the Sun-Times.

Someone who cares about Chicago and journalism and integrity. Not like the recent set of incompetents and crooks that have sent the newspaper into what increasingly looks like a death spiral.

Chicago must not only keep two newspapers, but two good newspapers. Chicago cannot pretend to be a world-class city without two—no more than it can expect to capture the Olympics with a creaking, busted CTA.

The Sun-Times and its sister newspapers are cutting $50 million, about 11 percent of its expenses, in the coming half year. The Sun-Times itself last week started to ax about 20 percent of its newsroom staff. Business editor Dan Miller, seeing the darkness approaching, resigned—an ominous portent for sure. Having worked with Miller at the old Chicago Daily News, I know that he should be running the entire paper, not leaving it. With all this, putting out a quality newspaper will be impossible; surviving difficult.

Continue reading in the Chicago Daily Observer

Gangbangers as Terrorists

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

The shooting of a 41-year-old Chicago mother on the South Side evoked a creative idea: Treat gang members as domestic terrorists.

Said Chicago Tribune reader “Welcome to Chicago”:

Laws should be adjusted to limit the rights of gang members. Gang members are domestic terrorists and should be handled using a higher level of force as well as vigilant strategic planning….Of course we care about everyone’s civil rights and rights as a citizen in this country. [But] as soon as an individual or group has proved that after several documentations by police that he is a gang member, then his or her rights should be similar to a terrorist.

Interesting. If we treated gang members as terrorists, perhaps we should send them, without trial, to detention (preferably on a boiling hot Caribbean island) as “enemy combatants.”

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Let the Red States Drown

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

The “silver lining” of global warming is that it will destroy the “red states,” the bastions of rightwing “troglodytes.”

No kidding. Left-winger Dave Lindorff is gleeful that millions of Americans will be driven from their land or worse by the “deluge” caused global warming. He says this in something called the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel:

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.

Look at a map of the US.

The area that will by [sic] completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

The Midwest, he says, faces a “permanent condition of unprecedented drought, making the place largely unlivable, and certainly unfarmable….[W]e will see the decline and depopulation of the nation’s vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics.”

Finally, in the Southwest, already parched and stiflingly hot, the rise in energy costs and the soaring temperatures will put an end to right-wing retirement communities like Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs. Already the Salton Sea is fading away and putting Palm Springs on notice that the good times are coming to an end. Another right-wing haven soon to be gone.

Most of the blue states—the Northeast and West coasts, specifically—are high enough to escape dire consequences of global warming, he says happily.

So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called “red” state region either gone or depopulated.

And when all these conservatives, running from the flood, seek to find a new life in the blue states, Lindorff would yank away the welcome mat.

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figurative, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

By this, I gather that Lindorff means to chuck the “guilty throngs” into reservations or concentration camps, and repeal the constitutional concept of “one-man, one-vote.”

At first I thought this might be parody, written by some conservative trying to make the left look as ridiculous as possible. But apparently, this weird, paranoid publication is legit, at least in the minds of its editors. They needed no help to look like fools.

There’s not much point trying to explain to this crowd what’s wrong about finding joy (or even “poetic justice”) in the destruction of a large hunk of America and the dislocation or destruction of the homes, businesses and lives of a huge number of its citizens. Lindorff might get this point if he thought about the fact that the victims of Hurricane Katrina would be doubly ruined.

Oh, wait a minute, I get it; it’s only people whose political views are different than Lindorff’s who don’t deserve his compassion. He’d allow residents of New Orleans Ninth Ward into his Blue Heaven, because, well, they’re not from the Right Wing.

How very fascist.

This also is posted on Political Mavens

Bipartisan Forces Gather in Court Against Blagojevich

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

For those who already are convinced that Gov. Rod Blagojevich is nuts, here's something to add to the growing pile of evidence: He's now insisting that legislation he once signed into law is unconstitutional. You can reasonably ask why he enacted the law in the first place, and the obvious answer is that the law no longer serves his cynical political purposes, so he pretends that the law, and the Illinois Constitution, doesn't apply to him.

Blagojevich figures that voters are too stupid or uninterested to appreciate what he's up to. But check it out; you might be amazed as I am at his audacity. You'll recall that the governor had proposed a huge increase in the state health-care program, substantially increasing the number of beneficiaries and proposing a gigantic tax increase to cover the costs. You'll also recall that his idea died when he failed to get even a single legislator to vote for it. No matter; he started the program on his own, without legislative approval. When a legislative committee -- the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules -- that oversees administrative actions then blocked his move, he said, in effect, kiss my burro, and went ahead with the program anyway. You don't need a lawyer to understand that his defiance of the legislature was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of legislative and executive powers.

The state, the constitution says, can spend money only from "public funds" authorized by law, and that only the legislature can authorize the expenditure of public funds. Even a moron should understand the constitution's clarity.

But Blagojevich pushed ahead anyway, saying, "Because we didn't get some legislators to support this, I'm acting unilaterally to expand health care." Under the law, the joint committee on rules has the authority to review directives, such as the one establishing the health-care expansion, for conformance with laws passed by the legislature. Since there is no law that authorizes the program, the committee's decision to block it seems fairly hands-down.

But always there's a loophole, and Blagojevich is trying to drive a truck through it.

The law allows the governor to create some programs on an "emergency" basis. So, the governor declared an emergency, even though no one in the administration adequately explained to the joint committee what the emergency was.

Now comes the twist.

The law that Blagojevich himself signed earlier (the Illinois Administrative Procedure Act), gives the joint committee on rules the authority to suspend the governor's "emergency" action, and after due consideration, it did. Blagojevich's office now argues that the joint committee's action is unconstitutional.

The guy thinks he's Napoleon. All that's left is for him to declare himself emperor, suspend the constitution and crown his wife empress.

The first to file suit against this coup d'etat wasn't an affronted legislator, but a civic-minded individual, Riverside attorney Richard Caro. It's the second go-around for Caro, who last year unsuccessfully sued to stop Blagojevich's unilateral and witless decision to cast $10 million into stem-cell research. Caro's suit has been consolidated with another one filed by Republican Ron Gidwitz, a former Illinois gubernatorial candidate, and Gregory Baise, president of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association.

Blagojevich retaliated by calling the legal challenge "Scrooge-like," suggesting it was a product of Republican malevolence toward the poor.

Now, however, Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, a Democrat, has intervened to defend the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules' powers, while the Chicago-based Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law has asked to intervene on Blagojevich's side. Cook County Judge James Epstein will hear the case.

This is shaping up to be a first-class constitutional crisis, the kind that the courts are reluctant to enter. Bringing it on apparently doesn't bother Blagojevich, whose Napoleon complex is far advanced. If he loses this fight, he can always whine about how those meanies are endangering people's health care.

Politically, he wins either way. Does it matter that the governor is trashing the constitution? Most people probably consider the fight to be a boring "process" issue, too arcane to bother with. But the answer does matter, to the people who sign up for his plan, only to have it yanked away from them because of its obvious illegality.

In this, Blagojevich doesn't really care about the people he claims to be championing. But there's a bigger issue: To ask if this really matters is to ask if the rule of law and democracy matter.

Enough already with the political change

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

The results of the Iowa caucuses, we’re told, prove that Americans are demanding change.

But if you ask me, we’ve got enough change. Every drawer in my house is brimming with loose change. I’ve got cans loaded with change. Nickels, dimes quarters and pennies; they’re clogging up the works and weighing us down.

Read more at Political Mavens

Speak for yourself, Ellen

Following today’s “disappointing” job numbers, in which the economy increased the number of new jobs it has created for, gee, I don’t know, 48 straight months, Ellen Zentner, United States macroeconomist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York, said this:

“The economy tanked in December.”

The verb tank is defined as “failed completely.”

I expect to see Ellen soon selling apples on the street, along with everyone else who has failed completely.

This post also appeared on Political Mavens.

Iowa cornfields fuel folly of presidential hurdles

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

'I've long said that the Iowa caucuses are the gift to Midwestern agriculture.'

-- John Doggett, vice president of public policy for the National Corn Growers Association, as reported by the Associated Press

Gift, you say? Yeah, I suppose you could call a multibillion dollar government handout to special interests a gift. But the word gift just doesn't seem accurate or vast enough to describe the massive plundering that's in store for taxpayers and consumers at the hands of ethanol addicts.

That's thanks to the unrealistically important role that Iowa plays as the first state up in the presidential sweepstakes. Iowa is the nation's biggest corn-producing state (Illinois comes in second), and ethanol's biggest feedstock is corn. So, a veritable parade of presidential candidates from both parties must prostrate themselves in Temple Ethanol.

Take Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York who opposed a hike in ethanol subsidies a couple of years ago, but now that she's stumping Iowa fairgrounds and parlors, she's for them. "Iowa is way ahead of the rest of the country," she said. "What you've done with ethanol ... you're setting the pace."

Yes, Iowa could give lessons to the Texas oil industry when it comes to "setting the pace" in the subsidy Preakness. The Iowa Corn Growers Association keeps close track: Six of the top eight Democratic candidates support or lean toward supporting a 51-cent "blenders credit" for every gallon of pure ethanol mixed into gasoline to help keep the price lower than gasoline.

(Wait a minute, you say. If we have to subsidize ethanol to compete or beat the price of gasoline to the tune of 51 cents a gallon, why don't we just use gasoline? Good question.)

Our beloved Sen. Barack Obama goes further; he would give motorists a 35-cent-per-gallon tax credit for using E85 -- a fuel blend that uses only 15 percent gasoline. Only Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware outright opposes the subsidy. The group apparently couldn't fathom where Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut stand on the 51-cent subsidy, but Dodd is for a big hike in the federally mandated use of ethanol (another form of subsidy).

Republicans are little better. Of the leading GOP candidates, only Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas outright oppose the 51-cent subsidy. Then again, Paul opposes everything, except, I guess, freedom. McCain also "leans towards" opposing a 54-cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol, made from sugar cane much more efficiently than from corn. No other candidate (except, of course, Paul) in either party appears to oppose the tariff.

I can think of no other major issue garnering such bipartisan agreement and, in this, bipartisanship is not a virtue but a sell-out.

Despite its canonization by "greens," researchers on the grant dole, processors like Decatur-based ADM, ethanol is more promise than reality and possibly a swindle of national proportion.

It may cost more energy to make ethanol than it saves. Its demand for corn puts upward pressure on food prices. It's more costly and difficult than oil and gasoline to transport. The industry's protectionist trade policies anger allies and make a mockery of our argument for free or fair trade.

Gallon for gallon, ethanol provides less energy than gasoline. Even its environmental value is questioned.

The ethanol industry disputes this, but what is not in dispute is that ethanol has made farmers, investors and others in agribusiness rich. As if they were not made rich enough by a lavish aid bill enacted two years ago, President Bush has signed an energy bill that vouchsafes significantly greater cash and benefits to the industry.

Everyone understands the need for stability in the nation's agriculture sector, but the anti-technology, unscientific and ideologically inspired promises being seeded all through Iowa by the candidates go beyond reasonable.

And it will continue for as long as some unwritten rule requires that Iowa kick off the presidential campaign, giving its winners a head start to be president. Maybe it's time for a constitutional amendment that would make the contest for the presidency a truly national election, instead of this silliness now thrust upon us by the farmers of Iowa.

The Exaggerated Death of Newspapers

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

"Newspapers are dead. They didn’t have to be, but their window of opportunity closed long ago."— Steve Rhodes, Beachwood Reporter, a blog.

“I’m sick and tired of listening to everybody talk about and commiserate over the end of newspapers. They ain’t ended, they’re not going to end and I think they have a great future.” – Sam Zell, new Tribune Co. boss.

My money is on Sam. And my apologies to Zell for mentioning Rhodes in the same breathe.

Rhodes apparently doesn’t catch the irony of pronouncing newspapers DOA, while he fuels his blog with daily rants about…newspapers. If Rhodes is right that the papers already are dead, I guess that means he’s living off a cadaver.

But Rhodes isn’t alone....

Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer

The true meaning of Christmas--hope and love

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Cheer up; the kids haven't forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.

I should say that at least my grandchildren haven't; I can't speak about all the rest. But then, the kids have time to contemplate the true meaning of Christmas, not having to lug in a Christmas tree and decorate it, shop for everyone who deserves or expects a present, figure out where all the money will be coming from, write Christmas cards, cook Christmas Eve and Christmas meals for the entire extended family and then clean up the whole mess.

So, if you can take a moment this Christmas Eve, take a deep sigh. And listen to the children.

What is Christmas, I ask Leia, 5, who is innocently ignorant of Black Friday and other corruptions. "Jesus' birthday." Who's Jesus? "God."

For days now, Lisa, 6, and Leia have been reviewing the material. Jesus lives in heaven. Heaven is "up there." Jesus is very old. They know the roles of the Angel Gabriel and the Magi. They know they were bringing baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, although they didn't know what the latter two were and I had to look it up myself to know that they were fragrant resin -- dry tree sap, in other words.

Of course, any kid can memorize this stuff, but with Lisa and Leia, there's something different about it. They also can memorize the plot of a "SpongeBob SquarePants" episode. They can become excited about hearing a new story, seeing a new movie and discovering the sights of a far-away vacation. Except, says their mother, Kati, their interest in Christmas is somehow deeper. So is their curiosity. Somehow, it feels built-in, emerging from something innate. They needed no special prompting to kindle their interest in the Almighty. Having heard the story, they latched on to it, and one question led to contemplation and to another question, and on and on.

This is not to suggest that Lisa and Leia are somehow special. But it is to suggest that they may be representative of the childlike innocence that brings us all to contemplate the meaning of things almighty and our own existence. Someone once said that if God didn't exist, man would have to invent him, in response to that inner drive that seeks to explain the who, what, why and how we are.

That drive emerges early and the questions pop up often, one right after another, as children experience the delicious taste of something altogether new. Those universal questions, I'm certain, appear whatever the faith of the children's fathers and mothers. That they do is a tribute to the deeper, inquisitive and better sides of our nature.

Which is why this natural curiosity needs to be nourished, in the public sphere as in the private. No, this is not a pitch for prayer in public schools; I'm against it. But I'm for teaching children about all the religions and the eternal questions. Call it social studies, comparative religions, philosophy or metaphysics even. Teach them first, before their fascination is dampened by adult cynicism. Teach children about all the world's religions and alternative (secular) explanations to the deep and enduring questions. Even if I'm wrong about these questions naturally bubbling up into the consciousness of all children, the instruction will at least bring these questions to the fore.

And this is why I find that all current scrubbing of the meaning of Christmas from the public sphere to be so disappointing and damaging. You know how it goes: "We can't sing Christmas carols in school because they are religious." We're taking a "holiday break," not a "Christmas vacation." I even heard of one principal who justified the banning of Christmas carols but permitted the singing of the Dreidel song, because the latter celebrated what he called a "secular" holiday. The principal himself could stand a course in comparative religions.

It's not just the gross commercialization and secularization that warps the meaning of Christmas. The festivities and rituals and nostalgia and good feelings, as welcome, positive and comforting as they are, also are slightly off the mark. For Christians, Christmas is the beginning of our redemption, carried out in the Easter rising. It's why Christmas is a time of hope and love. That's not a bad thing to know.

Merry Christmas.

The costly lunacy of Block 37/CTA express rail service to O’Hare and Midway Airports

Especially as the CTA is scraping around for big money

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

If it’s a good idea, it shouldn’t take all that long to get it going.

By many accounts, Chicago took only four years to rebuild and obliterate just about all signs of the 1871 fire that destroyed downtown and most of the city.

Reversing the flow of the Chicago River—an engineering marvel of its time—took 13 years from conception until its 1900 finish. Literally raising the city a half dozen feet out its swampy bottom took six years in the mid-1850s, a mere 30 years after the city’s founding.

Then there’s block 37.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Then again, perhaps BP's refinery plans aren't so bad

A report suggests the company's upgrades will be up to code and won't ruin Lake Michigan

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Sometimes important news eludes us because it all sounds so technical. Take the fight over BP's plans to allegedly pollute Lake Michigan. The news that we missed from an independent analysis is that the company's plan for a $3.6 billion upgrade of its northwest Indiana refinery will not muck up the lake, as the plan's critics assert and as the public has been led to believe.

Perhaps the analysis was missed, at least in Illinois, because the 33-page report, released Dec. 6, was requested by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and done by A. James Barnes, professor of public and environmental affairs and adjunct law professor at Indiana University. Undoubtedly, this means it will be attacked as biased, unreliable, unscientific and blah, blah because Indiana -- which benefits economically from the expansion -- had a hand in it. Never mind that such a claim impugns the reputation of a respected scientist and fails to meet any test of substantive argumentation.

Anyway, to oversimplify the professor's conclusions, he found that the expansion plans complied with state and federal permitting requirements and that the discharges will not violate Lake Michigan water-quality standards. "The question of the extent to which any increase in TSS [total suspended solids] or ammonia should be allowed is a fair one and at the heart of this controversy," Barnes wrote. "However, the concentration of TSS permitted per liter of water (the equivalent of 10 grains of sand suspended in a pint of pure water) illustrates how far the description of it in several newspaper reports as sludge is from reality. In fact, industrial sludge -- such as the material that accumulates at the bottom of wastewater treatment tanks -- cannot legally be dumped into Lake Michigan or disposed of in a manner where it will reach Lake Michigan.

"Similarly, the permitted ammonia concentration is the equivalent of one eyedropper drop of household ammonia solution in a pint of water. Thus, some public perceptions/reactions were not based on an accurate understanding of the true facts." If the discharges are controlled as planned, he said, they "would not be expected to cause a violation of water quality standards or interfere with designated uses in Lake Michigan (including full body contact recreation such as swimming), and maintaining the aquatic community and drinking water supply." In fact, the limitations placed on the discharge "are demanding, and in several instances, much more restrictive than, those issued by adjoining states to refineries."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency confirmed, he said, that Indiana's regulations aimed at preventing "degradation" of lake waters conforms with the federal Great Lakes Water Quality Initiative Anti-degradation Policy -- a kind of clean-water gold standard. In fact, he said, "Indiana is more protective of the lake than the adjoining states."

Still, the controversy has illuminated a problem created by some vagueness in Indiana's rules, he said. That lack of clarity created uncertainty about what information BP had to submit to win approval, and that, in turn, led to an incomplete public record justifying the approval. And that, in turn, led to the public perception that the process was opaque. Barnes recommended that Indiana make a number of improvements (beyond the usual practice of burying legal notices in newspapers) to make the process more transparent. Among his other recommendations, Barnes urged the U.S. EPA to update its petroleum refining regulations, now some 20 years old, to reflect new and enhanced techniques for treating wastewater. That is particularly important, he said, because a number of refineries, like BP's, are planning to switch from the light, sweet crude to the heavier Canadian crude whose refining creates increased pollutants.

But even if the permits were entirely legal and appropriate, that still leaves the issue that defines the opposition: There should be no degradation of the lake waters, no matter how slight or inconsequential. Barnes discusses how degradation means different things to regulators, the regulated and the public and how that adds to the confusion surrounding the permitting process, but that still leaves unanswered whether the prohibition of even the slightest degradation is good public policy. Good public policy, in my view, is: no degradation unless the benefits outweigh its costs. So, we're back to the original question: Do the tiny, if nonexistent, environmental costs of the expansion outweigh the benefits of this $3.6 billion construction project in our midst that will reduce our dependence on crude oil from unfriendly sources? You don't need an expert to give you that answer; common sense provides it.

The Des Moines Register’s flop GOP debate

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

Spare us another “debate” like the Republicans had Tuesday in Iowa.

Actually, I should say like the sham put on by the Des Moines Register and its editor, Carolyn Washburn. Sadly, it shed virtually no new light on any of the candidates (except for Alan Keyes, whose appearance surprised the multitudes who didn’t realize he was running for public office, again).

Washburn failed miserably to achieve her own stated purpose: a face-off to provide “some clarity” about the differences among the candidates. The major problem, of course, was the format in which Washburn laid down the rule that no one could take more than 30 seconds to answer her questions on such complex topics as economy and national security.

I can’t imagine what reason Washburn had for imposing this counter-productive rule. Repeatedly, she tried to enforce this dictate, cutting candidates off precisely at the moment when they could have plumbed their differences. Did she really think that the candidates would be more thoughtful with less time? Did she really think that such an absurd decree would inspire candidates, in a compressed amount of time, to abandon their canned answers? When it was over, the illumination of the candidates’ differences was faint, indeed.

The high point came when former Sen. Fred Thompson had enough...

Read more at Political Mavens

Credentials, not color

City enters new era as top cop's resume dominates talk of town

Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Oh, and did you happen to notice that Chicago's new police superintendent is white?

Of all the things noticed about Jody Weis, his race may have been the least. Not that you couldn't see that he was white, but his nomination as the city's new top cop drew far less attention than the other notables:

He's an outsider and an FBI guy, making him the ultimate no one who nobody sent. He's to be paid more than $300,000, making him the city's highest-paid employee. But hardly anyone is making a big deal out of Mayor Richard M. Daley's failure to pick someone with darker skin pigment.

Well, almost no one.

"I don't think this is a good message sent to our community," said Rev. Steve Greer Jr. of Christian Valley Baptist Church in North Lawndale. "We needed a representative sensitive to the issues that African-Americans face and understand why we do what we do."

Weis could make up for being white, I suppose, by following Greer's suggestion that the new superintendent choose an African-American for his second in command.

But that's about it. No marches on City Hall. No huffing and puffing about the city's minorities being disrespected and snubbed. No pundits spewing the usual racist crud about how you can't understand the black man's problems with the Police Department unless you're a black man or woman. Not a dissenting voice among the aldermen, although that's not new.

Maybe the anger was there, but perhaps the city's reporters, editors and producers just didn't bother going out to look for it, which would be a welcome relief from the usual knee-jerk story line that's so popular in the city's newsrooms.

Or maybe the usual carpers are just keeping their powder dry for later when they're planning a really big protest.

Not to make too much out of something that didn't happen, but could this sudden colorblindness in a city of stark contrasts be a sea change? Could a person's color no longer matter? Could it be a welcome sign of maturity in our civil matters?

If so, that's good news.

Perhaps it means that the town's black leadership and black communities are so fed up with the gangs and crime, police misconduct and brutality that they don't give a fig what color the new chief is as long as he is able do something about it.

Just four years ago, Rev. Jesse Jackson was railing about the failure of the Chicago Police Board to pick a black finalist to replace Terry Hillard, an African-American selected by Daley five years earlier. Jackson appointed himself to appoint a committee to submit a black finalist.

A black chief is needed, he said back then, because the black community is the one most victimized. "We're the most profiled, the most arrested, the most jailed, the most brutalized and, therefore, we expect to have in the highest places people whose credentials and track record earn trust in our community," he said. By "credentials" I take it he meant African-American.

With Weis' appointment, the same sentiment showed up on Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Web site. In a statement, Jackson said he was "astonished" that interim Police Supt. Dana Starks, an African-American, was passed over.

"But this is not just about the placement of a new police superintendent," he said. "The state's attorney [an elected office], the fire chief -- all of these key positions are held by whites and not minorities. This is a matter not just of ethnicity but of sensitivity."

You could have pulled the rhetoric right out of the 1960s playbook, a far different world in the history of race relations. The "color barrier" long ago was broken here, and the idea of a black superintendent for the sake of his color is regressive, not progressive. Sure, Jackson has tried to redefine the argument in terms of sensitivity, but the racial undertones remain: a white person is incapable of being sensitive because of -- what? -- inbred racism?

Still, Jackson's response seems muted, hopefully demonstrating a certain degree of acquiescence to today's reality, the reality being that most folks have come to recognize the racism in suggesting that you need black skin to build trust. Now we can allow Weis to do the job that really matters -- get rid of the bad apples, both in the department and in the neighborhoods.

We've Gone Too Far With Focus on Religion

By Dennis Byrne
RealClearPolitics

Oh, just shut up about Mitt Romney's faith. He doesn't have to explain it to anyone.

This isn't just directed at separation-of-church-and-state radicals who take offense that a president might be a practicing person of faith. It's also directed at evangelicals and others who are weighing such questions as, "Are the Church of the Latter Days Saints" and its adherents Christian enough?

Even after Romney's speech on Thursday, in which he tried to straddle the wide gulf between the practice of his religion and the president's oath of office to faithfully enforce the nation's laws, the discussion rolled along on the same, tired theme. Would Romney's speech satisfy Iowa evangelicals who "own" the Iowa Republican caucuses? Would it please those who demand to know whether Romney's church is "truly Christian." "Did the speech," post-speech commentators wondered, "ease voters' concerns about Mormonism?"

Read more at RealClearPolitics

Kids thinking they can be president is okay; but wanting to be president isn’t.

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Everyone who wrote an essay in kindergarten, raise your hand.

No one?

Well, Barack Obama has, but I didn’t see his hand go up because maybe he isn’t in the audience. In fact, an essay he wrote in kindergarten in which he declared his desire to become president has briefly appeared as a central issue in the Illinois Democratic senator’s presidential campaign.

The issue here, as couched by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, is just how truthful is Obama’s finely honed image as someone who never really thought of running for president until the masses demanded it?

More fascinating, though, is the idea a kindergartener—Obama or anyone else—wrote an essay when he was five or six. Especially when so many Americans today can’t write a paragraph or even a complete sentence.

An essay, for the love of mike, is defined as a literary composition, often reflecting an author’s personal view. When did ...Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Why isn't this study about the pill and breast cancer heeded?

By Dennis Byrne

Chicago Tribune

Not wanting to become known as the town quack, I am reluctant to write another politically incorrect column about breast cancer.

Four weeks ago, when I reported a study that found a statistical link between abortion and breast cancer, the hate e-mail poured in, denouncing me for being an ignorant, stupid, anti-science, anti-choice and anti-woman lunatic. But it also brought a message alerting me to yet another study, suggesting that premenopausal women (younger than 50) who used oral contraceptives prior to having their first child faced a higher risk of breast cancer. Yes, I know, this debate has been going on for years, if not decades, and judging by the last studies given wide exposure a few years ago by the media, the issue seems settled: Oral contraception does not significantly increase the risk of breast cancer.

There's just one problem. According to an analysis in one of the most credible peer-reviewed journals in the country, the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the risk is real. The study employed an often-used medical research technique called "meta-analysis" that allows researchers to combine data from other studies on the risk to get a larger picture. The result: Premenopausal women who used oral contraceptives prior to having their first child have a 44 percent higher chance of getting cancer than women who didn't use the pill. If they used the pill for more than four years prior to their first full-term pregnancy, the risk increased 52 percent. Chris Kahlenborn, an internist at the Altoona (Pa.) Hospital and the study's lead author, suggests one additional woman in 200 could get breast cancer. Extrapolated throughout the population, that could mean thousands more cases every year. I'd say that's an important story.

The reaction? Nearly total silence. Since it was published more than a year ago, I couldn't find a single reference to it in the archives of the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times or this paper. The Associated Press appears not to have covered it. I couldn't find a single mainstream media article about it in a Google search. But stories about other breast cancer risks were plentiful, including one about how sleeping with a night light on can increase your chances of getting breast cancer. The National Institute of Cancer doesn't mention the study on its Web site, but it did detail a 5-year-old study claiming to find no higher risk to pill use. The American Cancer Society also doesn't mention the study and concedes only that "it is still not clear what part" the pill plays in breast cancer. Such guidance, if not deceptive, is certainly incomplete.

"The last word seems to be that the pill is safe," Kahlenborn told me, as he called me with his frustration with being unable to get this important information out to women. "The word basically in the medical community before the study, and it continues to be, is that the pill is quite safe." But the results of his study are disquieting enough that if the pill were just coming out today, the findings would be enough for the Food and Drug Administration to keep it off the market, he said.

Why so little attention? My guess is that the pill has been so widely accepted, that it has become such a key part of feminist ideology and that the pharmaceutical companies make so much from it, that few folks are willing at this stage to talk about its dangers. It's no small irony that those who habitually are quick to criticize big business and government for failing to "do enough" to protect consumers are mostly silent when it comes to talking about this particular risk.

Here, I also should clarify some things to all the folks who are itching to hit the "post comment" button: Kahlenborn is pro-life, but what has that to do with his research? As for me, I am not opposed to contraception, oral or otherwise. I am not plotting to get the pill banned. I am not writing this column for hidden religious reasons. I am not saying that the Kahlenborn study is the last word; I'm not a scientist, so I can't vouch for its methodology or conclusions. Just like the abortion/breast cancer study, I'm writing about it because people have a right to know about the existence of health information, even if it is contradictory to the given wisdom.

The truth is that I'd just as soon not write about it, for all the heat it generates. I just wish that someone else would.

Chastity? Icky!

By Dennis Byrne
The Barbershop

Even in my adolescence during 1950s, the idea of a “chastity ball,” at which girls pledged to their fathers to remain virgins until marriage, would have been considered, well…. Let’s put it this way: To my knowledge, no one thought about it. And, perhaps, no one would have gone.

Of course, back then lots of folks thought chastity was a worthwhile goal for all kinds of reasons—not just religious. For better or for worse, it was part of the culture. But as unlikely as such a lavish dance would have been even then, I doubt that it would have stirred up the kind of scorn and hatred that this one did in the Chicago Tribune’s on-line Forum. For me, the response was as creepy as the posters thought the dance was.

(To see the responses go to the bottom of the on-line story; this you’ve got to read.)

For a bunch of these folks, it conjured up images of incest. Others said the whole thing was evidence that right-wing Christian screwballs still thought of girls/women as property. Others unleashed intensely personal attacks (e.g., “I would like to add that the people in the article are really sad and CREEPY!” On the ridicule and insults went: Icky, weird, nonsense, patriarchical, daddy’s little girl fantasy, depraved, sickening, gross, disturbing, disgusting, 18th century, perverse, pornographic, yucky, a bunch of crap, scary and, worst of all, offensive.

Phew, you’d think that they had been plucking out each other’s eyes, beating their grandmas or using cattle prods on puppies.

On display was the kind of bigotry that the left constantly reminds us that the right is guilty of, but as long as it’s the left’s bigotry, it’s all right. Laced through the scores of posts are vile displays of hatred of Christians, Catholics and people of faith. Hatred of people living their own lives as they choose to. For all the times that I receive mail from similar folks telling me to stay out of their private lives, I wish many of these posters had exercised the same restraint.

You can be sure, a number of posters said, that these are precisely the kinds of suppressed and controlled girls who go wild once they have discovered the joys of sex (the Catholic high school girl stereotype still persists). Others said, quite to the contrary, but in equally condemnatory language, that these are the kinds of girls who become afraid of having sex. Perhaps the most “icky” (and least demonstrable thing) said in all the posts came from Bobby Brown, from Germany: “Eventually these young girls will drift into S & M, visit the Tower of Power and take Golden Showers.”

I didn’t count, but it appeared that well over 90 percent of the posters had something bad to say about the dance. Some had good points: Why should all the responsibility be heaped on the girls? Why don’t the boys have the same kind of dance, mother-son perhaps?

Maybe they should have boyfriend-girlfriend chastity dances instead, because, after all, those are the people who are most in need of the message. If anyone would attend. I have a feeling that not a few posters would object to that too because what really has them upset is the idea of chastity itself. So ‘50s. So useless. So destructive.

Here’s what I think the story is behind the purity dance: The whole idea of virginity has gone in to such disrepute and has been attacked so viciously is some quarters, that it has spawned a backlash. It always happens when an extreme idea creeps into the culture, in this case the idea being that chastity is actually bad. Not a few people want to say they’ve had enough, and this dance is their way of showing it.

Maybe the best thing that has been said so far was posted by Mark from Elk Grove Village:

Purity is important to those who consider it important; we all live by differing values. Some young men and women consider it important to wait until marriage, others don't. Some young men and women consider their parent's council important in understanding relationships with the opposite sex. If these values are important to them, there's no fault in helping them to understand and enjoy the value of purity.

Another stunning advance achieved by non-embryonic stem cells

By Dennis Byrne

Thankfully scientists ignored the clatter of Michael J. Fox, assorted Hollywood dolts, left-wing ideologues and media spaniels who insisted on paying no attention to, and even ridiculing, the potential of adult and umbilical cord stem cells.

While Fox and the others were living in their embryonic stem cell nirvana,scientists pursued the most promising route. And here’s the result: a toddler’s stunning recovery from Cerebral Palsy symptoms. View video.

Not that they’ve been slowed down by the recent stunning breakthrough in which stem cells generated from skin cells have the same potential of those generated from embryos. They only dig their heads further in the sand, as this editorial posted on the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research shows.

Stubborn, sad folks

Henry Hyde's finest hour

By Dennis Byrne

How best to remember Henry Hyde? With his own words.

As I wrote in a Chicago Sun-Times column, the best of Henry Hyde is perhaps one of the great speeches in the history of Congress: His Jan. 16, 1999 closing argument in support of the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.

It is, I wrote in 1999,

a gift to the people of the United States. It should be read, savored and preserved by all who love liberty and justice. It is the most eloquent dissent of this or any recent decade against the disintegration of the American community, a place where dedication to principle, respect for the law and the rights of the powerless against assaults by the mighty once were revered as high political virtue.

Hyde spoke of the “covenant” that Clinton himself espoused early in his term, that the presidency was a solemn pact of mutual trust and obligation with the American people. Said Hyde: “Trust—not what James Madison called the parchment barriers of laws—is the fundamental bond between the people and their elected representatives; between those who govern and those who are governed. Trust is the mortar that secures the foundations of the American house of freedom…

“We here today are the heirs of 3,000 years of history in which humanity slowly and painfully, and at great cost, evolved a form of politics in which law, not brute force, is the arbiter of our public destinies…The rule of law is no pious aspiration from a civics textbook. The rule of law is what stands between us and the arbitrary exercise of power by the state. The rule of law is the safeguard of our liberties. The rule of law is what allows us to live our freedom in ways that honor the freedom of others while strengthening the common good.”

What remains today, I wrote then, after the Senate acquitted Clinton, were Senators, who in turning their backs on the rule of law for the sake of personal preservation, partisan interest and public popularity, are mere echoes of a handful of people who loved their country more than themselves. The kind of people that John F. Kennedy wrote about in his Profiles in Courage.

The speech is worth reading in its entirety. It can be found here.

Is the recession here yet?

By Dennis Byrne
Human Events

Congratulations one and all, we’re doing a fine job of talking ourselves into a recession.

Thanks go to the media for acting like the kids in the back seat, unremittingly asking if we’re in a recession yet. Thanks go to Democrats, for looking for the slightest crack in the economy so they can stick it to President Bush and the Republicans. Thanks go to financial analysts who gladly deploy the most cockamamie schemes imaginable for predicting the arrival of the slide. Thanks to everyone who, apparently not content with the joys of prosperity, can be counted on to the find the dark lining in every silver cloud.

Thanks to ya’ll for knocking down the value of my house and drying up the real estate market just as my wife and I figure it’s time to downsize. Thanks for diminishing the value of my retirement nest egg. Thanks for weakening the American economy and increasing the chance of leading the world into a global recession. Is it dark enough for ya’ll yet?

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Is it possible for the CTA to operate without a loss, no taxpayer subsidy required?

By Dennis Byrne

Chicago Daily Observer

That question is asked and answered in the affirmative by the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market think tank, in its thought-provoking new analysis: “CTA looking in all the wrong places: Sustainable solution requires new thinking and real reforms.”

I can’t remember anyone seriously and convincingly making such a claim since the early 1970s when, as the Chicago Daily News urban affairs reporter, I started covering the CTA. That’s when it became conventional political wisdom that mass transit should be considered to be a public utility requiring a public subsidy. Hell, I even bought it.

Except for this: How many public utilities (e.g., the electric and gas companies) operate like the CTA, with their consumers paying only about half the costs, while taxpayers pick up the other half?

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No guts in Springfield, no transit fix

Iraqi parliament has shown more courage in solving its problems than Illinois legislators

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

For all of the Iraqi parliament's flaws, I would trade it straight up for the crowd that we've got in Springfield. Ridiculous, you say? Then, consider what both have accomplished. First, the Illinois state government: (This space left intentionally blank.)

That's right, nothing. Maybe the Iraq parliament hasn't done much more but think about its challenges compared with Illinois' crew. Iraq has to repair centuries of tyranny and brutalization. The country is split in three, marked by a centuries-long and sometimes bloody religious feud. With virtually no experience with self-government, the Iraqis are expected to come up instantly with a government and culture that respects democratic values.

Compared with Illinois, Iraq is a shining city on a hill. Compared with Iraq, Illinois is a stupefying challenge to the idea that democracy is the best form of government. Compared with Iraq, all Illinois has to do is relatively easily: come up with a few hundred million dollars to keep mass transit running. Yet, Illinois remains stymied because the political leadership here doesn't have the guts to face transit riders who would be upset if they were asked to pay a fairer share of their costs. As I have mentioned before, mass transit is one of the best transportation deals around; taxpayers match every dollar riders pay in fares. If commuters paid, say, 60 or 75 percent of their rides' cost, instead of 50 percent, perhaps transit wouldn't be knocking on our doors so often. With this, I'm not suggesting that taxpayers should no longer subsidize mass transit, as some of my critics charged. Even if riders paid a fairer share of the cost of their rides, they would still benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars a year in taxpayer largesse.

Which leads to another, thoughtful suggestion, presented in a new study by the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market think tank. It challenges the common assumption that the only "sustainable solution" to the Chicago Transit Authority's problem is to increase revenues, with some fascinating and surprising findings.

While the CTA has indeed made some cuts, huge productivity savings remain yet to be made, the analysis concludes. If the CTA were as productive now as it was in 1979, it could reduce the agency's public subsidy to $257 million, from the current $527 million. That would more than cover the $158million deficit projected for the 2008 budget.

The key problem is the bus system: Now there are 154 bus routes, compared with 134 in 1979, and the total route miles have more than doubled; yet ridership has fallen 45 percent. "The bus operations data indicate that in 1979, the CTA operated a tightly focused, more market-sensitive route map. ... Today, with the route miles up 143 percent, it appears the CTA is running too many route miles for too few riders, making the bus system inefficient," according to the study. In other revealing comparisons between the CTA of today and 30 years ago (all financial figures are in constant 2007 dollars), the analysis discovered that the subsidy per rider has increased 35 percent, to $1.07 from 79 cents. That illustrates the "fallacy of the CTA public relations and budget document claims that the CTA's public subsidy has not kept pace with inflation. While that fact is true in absolute dollars, it is a misleading fact since the key data point is the subsidy per rider. In fact, one could make the case that the subsidy is excessive by $138million."

The institute offers 10 thoughtful proposals for a truly sustainable solution to the crisis, including a call for cessation of all expansion projects: "The CTA has been spending money on expansion and other unneeded projects while basic maintenance is being ignored." Another is to require true transparency of CTA spending: "Every check written, every contractor paid, every consultant hired and all the other details of spending should be open in an online easily searchable database. ... The bill offered by [state Rep.] Julie Hamos [D-Evanston] has transparency window dressing, but we need real sunshine to fix the problems."

Any governor, legislator, politician or public policy wonk who claims to be looking for a sustainable, permanent solution to mass transit funding problems without closely examining and implementing the Illinois Policy Institute's real solutions is lacking the courage to stand up to the given wisdom that the only way to solve the problem is to throw more money at it. It's pathetic when you consider the courage that is required of the members of the Iraqi parliament for the life-threatening job of just showing up.

Ex-Sunni insurgent becomes U.S. ally

How refreshing to read top-notch reporting about what is actually happening on the ground in Iraq. This straight-forward story by Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Liz Sly describes in detail how a former Sunni-insurgent leader personally dispatched an Al Qaeda in Iraq leader and turned into a reliable U.S. ally.

"Americans are our protectors and saviors," he said of the alliance after he and the people in his community became fed-up with the violence and murder. His community now is safe to walk.

Such fact-based reporting is an antidote to the mindless rantings of Democratic presidential candidates. It is thanks to increasing reports of such progress in Iraq that the American public will begin--if it hasn't already--to break through the fog of war.

Mayor Daley as Business Leader

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Could Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley survive as the head of a corporation as infected, as is his administration, with the same level of corruption, waste, incompetence and red ink?

Business Week raised that question in an interesting and readable account, “The CEO of City Hall,” of the Chicago business community’s love affair with Daley and its tolerance of destructive and illegal practices they would never allow in their own operations.

“Admittedly, Daley’s admirers overlook some shortcomings,” wrote correspondent Joseph Weber with longtime Chicago business observer Bob Reed. “In fact, if he were a corporate CEO, his job security would be, well, in doubt.” The article then goes on to list the administration’s....

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