By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
More than his racist minister chums, his starkly liberal voting record, his pandering to the get-out-of-Iraq-right-now zealots, what really bothers me about Barack Obama is his association with politics as practiced in Chicago and Illinois.
This is not a crime, of course, but the fact that he is someone who got his start and was propelled to stardom after an internship in the incubator of perhaps the nation's most corrupt state gives me, at least, pause. It seems that everywhere you turn here, especially if it is toward the federal courthouse, some politician or political insider is being found guilty of some or another form of corruption. Antoin "Tony" Rezko's conviction last week, the George Ryan conviction last year, the federal indictments that make references to questionable conduct by alphabetized state officials, the reported investigation that is dogging Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the conviction of a City of Chicago patronage boss and others on the periphery of Mayor Richard M. Daley's inner circle . . .
Well, need I go on? That Obama can brush against the climate of corruption enveloping Chicago and Illinois like heat and humidity saturate rain forests and come out unblemished is remarkable indeed. It's possible; Chicago and Illinois have generated a number of clean and honest politicians. Like a pearl found amid the swine, perhaps Obama can be counted among them.
But if Obama's affiliations with the likes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Rev. Michael Pfleger and ex-revolutionary Bill Ayers are legitimate issues, so is his political apprenticeship in the bowels of a political process that has sent governors, aldermen and countless other public officials to the pen. Has Obama picked up any bad habits by hanging around with these gents? Is he susceptible to the pressures that the "guys back home" will undoubtedly bring? The conventional wisdom among the Chicago punditry is that Chicago and Illinois pols are smacking their lips at the thought of installing an associate in the Executive Mansion.
I think that the conventional wisdom is right.And we're not just talking about Democrats. Many state and local Republicans are as pregnant with the audacity of swag as Democrats. My guess is that Illinois GOP big shots and moneybags will sit on their hands in the presidential election, to show how accommodating they are, so that they won't be forgotten when the food line opens.
So, will Obama successfully insulate himself from the influence peddlers, political insiders and maneuvers that have cemented our reputation? The Rezko case is troubling. As Obama was declaring himself the Democratic presidential nominee last week, a Chicago jury was declaring Rezko guilty of corruption, demonstrating the Fates' ironic sense of humor. Rezko and Obama knew each other as far back as 1990, when Rezko offered the young Harvard law student a job, which Obama declined. And Rezko was among Obama's early contributors in his first run for the state legislature. More campaigns and more contributions flowed in from Rezko, including a $10,000 donation that Obama later had to give to charity because it was allegedly tainted by kickbacks.
Just about every president has had questionable characters in or about his administration, such as Jimmy Carter's Bert Lance and Dwight Eisenhower's Sherman Adams. If similar characters slip through the back door into the Obama White House, please let them be from some other state.
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Monday, June 09, 2008
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Illinois' fake budget
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Proposed expenditures shall not exceed funds estimated to be available for the fiscal year as shown in the Budget—Sec. 2(a), Illinois Constitution
The General Assembly by law shall make appropriations for all expenditures of public funds by the State. Appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year.--Sec. 2(b) Illinois Constitution
Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Proposed expenditures shall not exceed funds estimated to be available for the fiscal year as shown in the Budget—Sec. 2(a), Illinois Constitution
The General Assembly by law shall make appropriations for all expenditures of public funds by the State. Appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year.--Sec. 2(b) Illinois Constitution
Considering the constitution’s unequivocal command that the expenses can’t outstrip revenues, it’s hard to give any credibility to the Legislature’s assertion that it can go home after passing a budget that is, oh, just a couple of billions short of being balanced.
Yet, incredibly, that’s the claim being made by the Democrats....Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Monday, June 02, 2008
The scariest part is the Trinity congregation
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Barack Obama’s pastor buddies don’t frighten me as much as his church-going brethren.
You have to expect that the bizarre likes of Michael Pfleger and Jeremiah Wright would ooze to the surface in any number of organizations or institutions—right or left, Republican or Democratic. But the multitude gathered in what is supposed to be a temple of God, cheering on the racist slobbering of the two “reverends’” is scary.
Cheering is too mild a word. Look at the video of Pfleger’s rant against Hilary Clinton; notice the guys in the background. They’re on their feet, clapping, laughing and cheering. One is nearly doubled over in laughter. Broader shots of the crowds show that while some people are sitting quietly—in disapproval, I hope—there also was widespread affirmation of both Pfleger’s and Wright’s “sermons.”
They were eating it up.
Read more in the Chicago Daily ObserverThe UN is failing Myanmar
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
As the clock ticks, uncounted Myanmar survivors of Cyclone Nargis are dying of starvation or disease while the world stands by, its helping hands supposedly tied by the country's Stone Age tyrants.
A month ago, the cyclone killed 78,000, left 56,000 missing and another 2.5 million facing hunger, homelessness and disease, and it will only get worse because the rulers of this impoverished nation have been systematically barring foreign aid workers and supplies. Some guess that the number of dead could double while help is stalled at the borders, but who really knows how many are imperiled by the hidden and grotesque eradication under way there? Yet, the world stands idly by.
This is, if anything ever was, a job for the United Nations. And what is the UN doing to move perhaps the only government in modern times to ban massive aid being offered by the international community? Talking. Conducting diplomacy. Seeking permission. Consultation. Exchanging views. The kind of blah-blahing that Barack Obama says will be the touchstone of his Democratic administration if he becomes president.
Here's a measure of the UN's futility: While hundreds of thousands are suffering and dying, a UN agency is asking permission to import six emergency vehicles. Six. The response as of this writing, from Hakan Tongul, a UN deputy director of some sort: "We haven't heard anything from the [Myanmar] government."
Sure, the UN is trying to do much more. It reports that about 160 aid flights—some 10 to 15 daily—have arrived. Last week's headlines said: "Myanmar approves all pending visas for UN aid workers." OK, that sounds like the devastated country soon will be crawling with hundreds, even thousands, of competent, compassionate and fully equipped aid workers. Well, no. Actually, it's more like 45—the number of pending visas. And there's more good news: Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders and the UN Children's Fund have sent in more than 14 aid workers. Wow.
I dare say that Rotary International and its ShelterBox program may have accomplished more on its own. ShelterBoxes are staged, ready-to-deploy containers that provide a tent, stove, water-purification kit, blankets, tools and other necessities that enable families to survive for six months. Rotary said it had landed more than 1,000 containers in Myanmar, but many more are needed.
Still, in the face of the piddling amount of aid that the Myanmar government is allowing in, these heartless tyrants incredibly insist that the "Myanmar people are self-reliant and can stand on their own without foreign assistance." The government would have the international community believe that the relief phase of the disaster has ended and the economic recovery phase has begun.
The UN apparently accepts such nonsense at face value. John Holmes, UN undersecretary general for this and that, told the media after a visit to Myanmar that no cyclone-caused diseases have been reported. Yeah, sure—this after international aid agencies were unanimous in their warnings that disease and infections from the stacks of unburied bodies and widespread malnutrition were now the most serious problems.
Nor will it get any better. The cyclone devastated the fertile Irrawaddy River delta region, the country's rice basket. Farmers are missing the rice-planting season.
The UN says Myanmar has expressed "great sensitivity" about allowing in outside aid, especially from western nations, and most especially from the American relief vessels, waiting patiently just over the horizon. The UN, as always, is sensitive about everyone's "great sensitivity," so it does little more than dither. Clearly, dealing with the Myanmar bullies requires aggressive policies.
The UN was created for such circumstances, and it is failing its charter miserably. Does the UN even dare think about violating Myanmar's sovereignty by barging in uninvited? Does it have the moral and political mettle to gather a coalition of willing nations to save the lives of hundreds of thousands? Or will the UN continue its high regard for brutish sensitivities while tens of thousands are without food, water, shelter or even the means to bury its dead, and while, incredibly, the government reportedly is forcing survivors to return "home" when there is no home to return to? While the Myanmar government attempts to shoot down rescue helicopters, would the rest of the world idly stand by? It would.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Wanted: Fiscally responsible politicians
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) suggests that a massive, costly, long-awaited and controversial statewide public-works program won't be considered by the legislature until after the fall elections.
The idea that politicians can't settle difficult issues before an election has become so widely accepted that it hardly raises an eyebrow anymore. That's the way it is, we're told. But is that the way it should be?
Think about what this practice says: Elected officials are too frightened of voters to do the right thing. They hope that putting a couple of years between what they do and the next election will help voters forget. Beyond what should be an embarrassing display of cowardice, it also reveals a low regard for public opinion and a lack of faith in the democratic process.
What Illinois legislators are putting off is a huge—maybe $35 billion huge—proposal to fix the state's decaying highways, mass transit and other public assets. Hardly anyone argues whether the fix is needed—witness the pathetic CTA—but no one can seem to agree on how to pay for it. Some suggest the state should sell or rent out some assets, such as the state lottery, but no one wants to say that taxes should be raised.
What voters lose is the opportunity to rapidly respond to the politicians' decisions. Voters have to wait two to four years for their chance to punish or reward. If anything, it should be just the opposite. Actions involving revenues, expenses and the budget should only be allowed, say, three months prior to the next general election. If politicians don't pass a balanced budget by those elections, government should shut down and not reopen until the newly elected politicians enter office and pass a balanced budget.
Draconian and pie in the sky? Yes. But how bad is that compared with Illinois' current state of collapse? As it now stands, lawmakers are stumbling around trying to pass an annual budget by the end of this week. Unfortunately, their failure to do so won't bring on a government shutdown; the only consequence is that a budget passed after month's end would require a supermajority, giving Republicans a stronger voice in the process.
One might think that's a good thing, to rein in the Democrats' propensity for big-money programs. But it's not necessarily so; Republicans have displayed fiscal irresponsibility by proposing an Illinois gas-tax holiday, which could put a $200 million hole in the budget, according to some estimates. A gas-tax holiday is a giveaway, pure and simple, one that doesn't do anything to solve the problem of high fuel costs.
But since Illinois Republicans no longer know what they stand for, I'm not surprised that they're acting more like Democrats than Democrats.
If Republicans wanted to be Republicans, they should take the advice of Citizens Against Government Waste and the Illinois Policy Institute. They note that the problem with the state budget and its ballooning deficits isn't the lack of revenues, as so many assume. In fact, revenues are the highest ever, but expenditures are growing faster. In their "2008 Illinois Piglet Book," the organizations identified $686 million in waste. Here's some of what lawmakers believe we can't do without: pheasant and fur-bearing animal conservation; a culinary arts center; petroleum marketing; displaced homemakers counseling and training; salmon stamp design; Chinese erhu music; Polish folk dance; polar bear photo essays; grants, contracts and administrative expenses associated with the development of the Illinois grape and wine industry.
Yes, I'm cherry-picking the obvious, but you also can question the big items. There is the $12 billion and ever-increasing money going for education, even though, as the "Piglet" points out, student performance remains flat.
"Piglet" is fat with such examples, and you don't have to hunt hard to find your own. Despite the billions spent by the state to protect children, the Tribune last week described the horrendous case of the severely disabled Jaylen Brown, 13, who died of abuse so horrible that it's hard to imagine. Jaylen was in the care of a mother and two state-provided nurses, all charged with felony neglect.
Is it fair to suggest that one botched case demonstrates a systemic breakdown? Probably not. But you sure can add Jaylen to the list of people who weren't served by the state's bloated budget.
Chicago Tribune
State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) suggests that a massive, costly, long-awaited and controversial statewide public-works program won't be considered by the legislature until after the fall elections.
The idea that politicians can't settle difficult issues before an election has become so widely accepted that it hardly raises an eyebrow anymore. That's the way it is, we're told. But is that the way it should be?
Think about what this practice says: Elected officials are too frightened of voters to do the right thing. They hope that putting a couple of years between what they do and the next election will help voters forget. Beyond what should be an embarrassing display of cowardice, it also reveals a low regard for public opinion and a lack of faith in the democratic process.
What Illinois legislators are putting off is a huge—maybe $35 billion huge—proposal to fix the state's decaying highways, mass transit and other public assets. Hardly anyone argues whether the fix is needed—witness the pathetic CTA—but no one can seem to agree on how to pay for it. Some suggest the state should sell or rent out some assets, such as the state lottery, but no one wants to say that taxes should be raised.
What voters lose is the opportunity to rapidly respond to the politicians' decisions. Voters have to wait two to four years for their chance to punish or reward. If anything, it should be just the opposite. Actions involving revenues, expenses and the budget should only be allowed, say, three months prior to the next general election. If politicians don't pass a balanced budget by those elections, government should shut down and not reopen until the newly elected politicians enter office and pass a balanced budget.
Draconian and pie in the sky? Yes. But how bad is that compared with Illinois' current state of collapse? As it now stands, lawmakers are stumbling around trying to pass an annual budget by the end of this week. Unfortunately, their failure to do so won't bring on a government shutdown; the only consequence is that a budget passed after month's end would require a supermajority, giving Republicans a stronger voice in the process.
One might think that's a good thing, to rein in the Democrats' propensity for big-money programs. But it's not necessarily so; Republicans have displayed fiscal irresponsibility by proposing an Illinois gas-tax holiday, which could put a $200 million hole in the budget, according to some estimates. A gas-tax holiday is a giveaway, pure and simple, one that doesn't do anything to solve the problem of high fuel costs.
But since Illinois Republicans no longer know what they stand for, I'm not surprised that they're acting more like Democrats than Democrats.
If Republicans wanted to be Republicans, they should take the advice of Citizens Against Government Waste and the Illinois Policy Institute. They note that the problem with the state budget and its ballooning deficits isn't the lack of revenues, as so many assume. In fact, revenues are the highest ever, but expenditures are growing faster. In their "2008 Illinois Piglet Book," the organizations identified $686 million in waste. Here's some of what lawmakers believe we can't do without: pheasant and fur-bearing animal conservation; a culinary arts center; petroleum marketing; displaced homemakers counseling and training; salmon stamp design; Chinese erhu music; Polish folk dance; polar bear photo essays; grants, contracts and administrative expenses associated with the development of the Illinois grape and wine industry.
Yes, I'm cherry-picking the obvious, but you also can question the big items. There is the $12 billion and ever-increasing money going for education, even though, as the "Piglet" points out, student performance remains flat.
"Piglet" is fat with such examples, and you don't have to hunt hard to find your own. Despite the billions spent by the state to protect children, the Tribune last week described the horrendous case of the severely disabled Jaylen Brown, 13, who died of abuse so horrible that it's hard to imagine. Jaylen was in the care of a mother and two state-provided nurses, all charged with felony neglect.
Is it fair to suggest that one botched case demonstrates a systemic breakdown? Probably not. But you sure can add Jaylen to the list of people who weren't served by the state's bloated budget.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Dan Seals' campaign ploy offering cheap gas snarls traffic
Up in the North Shore's 10th congressional district, Democrat candidate Dan Seals was surprised that his offer of $1.89-a-gallon gas tied up traffic in Lincolnshire for a mile and a half. Only about 50 motorists got to the pump, and the rest sat fruitlessly in line, idling away gasoline and polluting the air. Not exactly the "greenest" political stunt, but it sure shows voters what kind of mind they'd be dealing with if he replaced incumbent Republican Mark Kirk.
Oh, yes, while his campaign workers were handing out bumper stickers to waiting motorists, Seals told a reporter, "We're not asking people to vote for me." A good reason not to.
Oh, yes, while his campaign workers were handing out bumper stickers to waiting motorists, Seals told a reporter, "We're not asking people to vote for me." A good reason not to.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Newsweek as a mouthpiece for Obama
Even for the usually biased Newsweek, its May 19 cover story ("Sit Back, Relax, Get Reday to Rumble") was an extraordinary paean to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Essentially, it suggested that any criticism that John McCain leveled at Obama's position would be construed as a personal attack. To its credit, Newsweek has published on its web site the response of the McCain campaign. It's worth a read.
Exploring the nature of Illinois voters
Chumps.
That’s what Illinois voters are. We got a healthy reminder of that today when we were treated to the latest outrage about an old, old story—the sweet deal that some insiders wrangled from state government to build a fancy hotel in Springfield. The deal was that if the hotel didn’t make a profit, the insiders wouldn’t have to pay off a state loan they got to help build the palace.
Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer
GOP wants state gas tax holiday(s)
These are fiscally responsible Republicans? A tax holiday that could cost $200 million when the state deficit is one of the nation's worst? Has the state GOP sunk so low that it has joined the "give-it-all-away" Democrats? Does the state GOP stand for anything at all? No wonder that it is virtually as extinct as the Field Museum's Sue.
Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | Ill. House wants gas tax holiday | Crain's
Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | Ill. House wants gas tax holiday | Crain's
Class warfare bites Democrats in the ass
Gee, what a shame. The political party most responsible for fueling class warfare for the past 50 years is itself now torn by class warfare. Can the Democratic nominating process get any more nasty? The pleas for "ending the divisiveness" have reached near-hysteric proportions by those who can't wait to launch class warfare against John McCain and the Republicans.
Here's one analysis of how silly it has become:
The white vs. off-white election -- -- chicagotribune.com: "West Virginia had too few delegates at stake to matter much. Still, it's been easy to get the feeling that some people, particularly those in the Stuff White People Like demographic, have concluded that the place is so backward it doesn't matter at all.
The problem is, voters like those in West Virginia don't see it that way. They may represent a shrinking demographic, but, as all the campaigns know, there are still enough of them that they can't be ignored. The catch is that in an election in which race plays such a prominent role, the greatest tension may not be between black and white but white and off-white."
Here's one analysis of how silly it has become:
The white vs. off-white election -- -- chicagotribune.com: "West Virginia had too few delegates at stake to matter much. Still, it's been easy to get the feeling that some people, particularly those in the Stuff White People Like demographic, have concluded that the place is so backward it doesn't matter at all.
The problem is, voters like those in West Virginia don't see it that way. They may represent a shrinking demographic, but, as all the campaigns know, there are still enough of them that they can't be ignored. The catch is that in an election in which race plays such a prominent role, the greatest tension may not be between black and white but white and off-white."
Monday, May 19, 2008
Those lyin' Democrats
If George W. Bush was lying about the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq had or would soon have, what do you call these Democrats?
Hat tip to Buck Hiles.
Hat tip to Buck Hiles.
Gay marriage decision came from a tyrannical court
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Before everyone drops into a deep swoon over the California Supreme Court's decision "allowing" gay marriages, it might be worthwhile to read the entire 121-page decision to discover that it changes, well, practically nothing.
California already has extensive laws granting same-sex couples virtually the same rights as opposite-sex couples. The 4-3 majority recognized that fact but said the "substance" of the laws didn't really matter. "The question we must address is whether . . . the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution." Our task, the majority said, is "only to determine whether the difference in the official names of the relationships [is unconstitutional]." It is unconstitutional, the majority concluded, because applying the term "marriage" only to the legally sanctioned relationship between opposite-sex couples denies the "dignity and respect" that should be accorded to same-sex couples. The solution, according to the majority, is to strike down a law that says "marriage" certificates can only be given to opposite-sex couples. Whatever the legal relationship is called, the legislature will have to create a name that is the same for same-sex and opposite-sex couples. This fight is about a word. And whether it is "disrespectful" to apply it to one group and not another.
That such a decision came out of California is unsurprising; the only question was just how curious, obtuse or laughable would be the logic in overturning the will of the nearly two-thirds of California voters who passed the law in a referendum.
The majority didn't disappoint. It's difficult to try to reduce its logic to one sentence, but here goes: The legislature provided equivalent rights to same-sex couples by passing strong domestic partnership laws, so the citizen-initiated and approved ban on same-sex marriages had to go.
A dissenting justice, Carol A. Corrigan, said while her sympathies were on the side of gay marriage, she could not "join this exercise in legal jujitsu, by which the legislature's own weight is used against it to create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the people's will, and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference."
On second thought, this isn't so funny; it's scary.
The majority declared that people had no say in the matter. It said that, in its supreme wisdom, it could overrule a constitutionally created process for the people of California to directly exercise their will. The court proclaims its view is so fundamentally correct that it cannot be "abrogated by the legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process." In other words, the people of this state are not supreme.
Let's think about that for a minute. The court is saying that some rights are so fundamental that they cannot be voted away by a majority, or even a supermajority, of the citizens or their representatives. That the court in its wisdom knows and can define what these rights are, and order them enshrined into law despite overriding public opposition.
This isn't a new judicial philosophy; its roots go to a fundamental debate over how to protect the minority's rights from the tyranny of the majority. It is why the federal and some state courts are insulated from the popular will by various means; they are appointed, not elected, and serve for life.
It is a proper and well-established role for a supreme court. It is how a U.S. Supreme Court led America into ending legal racial discrimination.
But another essential and fundamental feature of American democracy is the system of checks and balances, to protect against such things as the tyranny of an unaccountable, unresponsive and even rogue branch of government. The founders were determined to avoid any branch of government taking on the mantle of a King George III.
The answer, of course, is that we can overrule any of the three branches of government by amending the Constitution because it is, after all, the people's Constitution, not the court's. It is the people's ultimate check on the imbalance of power.
Thankfully, such a move is under way in California where hundreds of thousands of citizens have petitioned for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, thus putting it out of reach of an autocratic court. Now comes the scariest part: One of the many supporters (I didn't get his name) of the court decision interviewed on television was asked what would happen if the people approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. Would the court go so far as to overturn a provision of the Constitution itself? "I don't know. I hope so," he said.
By which we are provided a window into the mind of a tyrant.
Chicago Tribune
Before everyone drops into a deep swoon over the California Supreme Court's decision "allowing" gay marriages, it might be worthwhile to read the entire 121-page decision to discover that it changes, well, practically nothing.
California already has extensive laws granting same-sex couples virtually the same rights as opposite-sex couples. The 4-3 majority recognized that fact but said the "substance" of the laws didn't really matter. "The question we must address is whether . . . the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution." Our task, the majority said, is "only to determine whether the difference in the official names of the relationships [is unconstitutional]." It is unconstitutional, the majority concluded, because applying the term "marriage" only to the legally sanctioned relationship between opposite-sex couples denies the "dignity and respect" that should be accorded to same-sex couples. The solution, according to the majority, is to strike down a law that says "marriage" certificates can only be given to opposite-sex couples. Whatever the legal relationship is called, the legislature will have to create a name that is the same for same-sex and opposite-sex couples. This fight is about a word. And whether it is "disrespectful" to apply it to one group and not another.
That such a decision came out of California is unsurprising; the only question was just how curious, obtuse or laughable would be the logic in overturning the will of the nearly two-thirds of California voters who passed the law in a referendum.
The majority didn't disappoint. It's difficult to try to reduce its logic to one sentence, but here goes: The legislature provided equivalent rights to same-sex couples by passing strong domestic partnership laws, so the citizen-initiated and approved ban on same-sex marriages had to go.
A dissenting justice, Carol A. Corrigan, said while her sympathies were on the side of gay marriage, she could not "join this exercise in legal jujitsu, by which the legislature's own weight is used against it to create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the people's will, and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference."
On second thought, this isn't so funny; it's scary.
The majority declared that people had no say in the matter. It said that, in its supreme wisdom, it could overrule a constitutionally created process for the people of California to directly exercise their will. The court proclaims its view is so fundamentally correct that it cannot be "abrogated by the legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process." In other words, the people of this state are not supreme.
Let's think about that for a minute. The court is saying that some rights are so fundamental that they cannot be voted away by a majority, or even a supermajority, of the citizens or their representatives. That the court in its wisdom knows and can define what these rights are, and order them enshrined into law despite overriding public opposition.
This isn't a new judicial philosophy; its roots go to a fundamental debate over how to protect the minority's rights from the tyranny of the majority. It is why the federal and some state courts are insulated from the popular will by various means; they are appointed, not elected, and serve for life.
It is a proper and well-established role for a supreme court. It is how a U.S. Supreme Court led America into ending legal racial discrimination.
But another essential and fundamental feature of American democracy is the system of checks and balances, to protect against such things as the tyranny of an unaccountable, unresponsive and even rogue branch of government. The founders were determined to avoid any branch of government taking on the mantle of a King George III.
The answer, of course, is that we can overrule any of the three branches of government by amending the Constitution because it is, after all, the people's Constitution, not the court's. It is the people's ultimate check on the imbalance of power.
Thankfully, such a move is under way in California where hundreds of thousands of citizens have petitioned for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, thus putting it out of reach of an autocratic court. Now comes the scariest part: One of the many supporters (I didn't get his name) of the court decision interviewed on television was asked what would happen if the people approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. Would the court go so far as to overturn a provision of the Constitution itself? "I don't know. I hope so," he said.
By which we are provided a window into the mind of a tyrant.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
A call for change that you won't hear from Obama
...because that would get the Mideast tyrants mad at us, and lower respect for America in the Arab world.
Bush to Call for Change in Mideast - WSJ.com
Bush to Call for Change in Mideast - WSJ.com
Obama Says Bush and McCain Are Naive
Wait a minute, Barack Obama is calling someone else "naive?" The guy who said in a presidential debate that he would met, without preconditions, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
I'd say something about the pot and the kettle, but it would be considered offensive and politically incorrect.
Obama Says Bush and McCain Are ‘Fear Mongering’ in Attacks - New York Times: (subscription required)
I'd say something about the pot and the kettle, but it would be considered offensive and politically incorrect.
Obama Says Bush and McCain Are ‘Fear Mongering’ in Attacks - New York Times: (subscription required)
"Consistently throughout his comments about foreign policy, Mr. Obama yoked Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain as one entity, mentioning their names in the same sentence 10 times in barely 10 minutes. He portrayed them as being not only inflexible, but also “naive and irresponsible,” the characteristics they ascribe to him."
Myanmar cyclone: Burma junta is killing its own people, says West - Telegraph
What would Barack Obama do? Why the silence?
Talk is increasing among responsible Europe nations to provide aid to the dying survivors regardless of what the junta thinks while it carries out genocide of its own people.
Myanmar cyclone: Burma junta is killing its own people, says West - Telegraph
Talk is increasing among responsible Europe nations to provide aid to the dying survivors regardless of what the junta thinks while it carries out genocide of its own people.
Myanmar cyclone: Burma junta is killing its own people, says West - Telegraph
Friday, May 16, 2008
Ayers shudda been on “Laugh-In”
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Bill Ayers is a funny guy.
Read more on The Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Bill Ayers is a funny guy.
Well, maybe not so funny when he was saying things like: ’‘Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.”
But his memoir—Fugitive Days, an accounting of his life on the run in the 1960s and 1970s as a chieftain of the radical and violent Weather Underground—is funny. I know, we’re supposed to be taking Ayers seriously ever since he showed up as a contributor to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) But a read of his 295-page book suggests he is a bit more notorious than he deserves, and a lot more comical.
Considering the controversy that Ayers has stirred up, I thought that his book might provide needed insight. But getting through it was like a slog through a used clothing store crammed with bellbottoms, psychedelic art, tie-died T-shirts, fat ties....Read more on The Chicago Daily Observer
Monday, May 12, 2008
Chicago’s blue bag recycling program: Garbage in, Garbage out
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
A pop quiz: When was Chicago supposed to run out of landfill capacity and we’d all have to start eating our garbage?
Answer? I don’t know exactly, but it was some time past, according to environmentalists who warned that in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s the city—and the rest of the country—would run out of places to dump the garbage. Adding to the crisis mentality were scary claims that leaking toxic substances and methane would poison and asphyxiate the populace. Somebody had to “do something,” and fast.
So, Chicago and other municipalities stampeded into adopting solid waste recycling programs. Americans suddenly were “educated” or forced into massive recycling efforts, separating paper, cans, plastic and other materials from the oozing, dripping, rotting stuff. Recycling became a matter of given truth in the bible of the caring, even though the net benefits were, and in some quarters still are, in doubt.
Among those jumping on the bandwagon was the then-recently elected Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, the first of his many attempts to establish his green credentials. But instead of going for a relatively simpler, less expensive and more effective model deployed by most other jurisdictions, Daley decided he had to do it His Way....
Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
A pop quiz: When was Chicago supposed to run out of landfill capacity and we’d all have to start eating our garbage?
Answer? I don’t know exactly, but it was some time past, according to environmentalists who warned that in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s the city—and the rest of the country—would run out of places to dump the garbage. Adding to the crisis mentality were scary claims that leaking toxic substances and methane would poison and asphyxiate the populace. Somebody had to “do something,” and fast.
So, Chicago and other municipalities stampeded into adopting solid waste recycling programs. Americans suddenly were “educated” or forced into massive recycling efforts, separating paper, cans, plastic and other materials from the oozing, dripping, rotting stuff. Recycling became a matter of given truth in the bible of the caring, even though the net benefits were, and in some quarters still are, in doubt.
Among those jumping on the bandwagon was the then-recently elected Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, the first of his many attempts to establish his green credentials. But instead of going for a relatively simpler, less expensive and more effective model deployed by most other jurisdictions, Daley decided he had to do it His Way....
Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer
Troop surge in the 'hood?
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
The only thing we haven't tried in our desperation to end Chicago's violence is a troop surge.
So then, why not a surge? Give people whose 3-year-olds get shot playing outside what they most want and deserve: security. Call out the National Guard. After all, a surge finally established some degree of security in Baghdad, and if we're to believe what we read, parts of Chicago are no less of a war zone.
How close are we to an insurrection when gangs have usurped legitimate civil authority and pretty much govern how the people in the neighborhoods shall live, i.e., in terror. The shooters are terrorists as much as the Iraqi "insurgents." Flood violence-torn neighborhoods with visible signs of authority. Troops carrying automatic weapons, if need be. Armored Humvees. Martial law. Curfews. Let the punks and gangs know that they're in a war in which they're outmanned and outgunned. Let them wonder whether their drive-bys will be greeted with return fire from locked-and-loaded troops. Let them see the Air National Guard patrolling overhead in helicopters.
Of all the harebrained ideas, this might be the worst, you're probably thinking right now. I can't be serious, right? Treating any Chicago neighborhood as occupied territory?
Well, yes, there are a ton of reasons why a military—or whatever you want to call it—solution is unthinkable. The armed forces are not trained to do police work. It could deprive innocent citizens of their rights. Raging gun battles could break out between troops and gangs, endangering innocent people. And here's probably the most shocking reason: The Illinois Constitution, while permitting the deployment of the Illinois National Guard to "enforce the laws, suppress insurrection or repel invasion," also names the governor as commander in chief. That would be the screw-loose Rod Blagojevich. Yikes.
Then again, why not? We've tried all the "root-cause" solutions, and now Blagojevich is jumping in with more: $150 million the state doesn't have for summer jobs programs, after-school programs and what-not programs. Mayor Richard M. Daley has appointed a study group, whose scholars will come up with "new" solutions, but if they do find just one, something that already hasn't been tried and whose failure can't be explained away by "lack of resources," then surely they'll be in line for the Nobel Peace Prize, and we'll all be grateful.
It's always the same old stuff. In trying to "address underlying and systemic causes of the at-risk population," we've filled the landscape with jobs, education, development, housing, incentives, community involvement and other programs, not that there's anything wrong with that, and, yes, there always can be more, and how unsafe would neighborhoods be without them, but . . .
In a twist on lyrics by the immortal Everly Brothers: "Programs, programs, all day long. Will my programs work out right or wrong?" Truth is, community activists can march until kingdom come, demanding they be "empowered to take back our neighborhoods," and little will happen. The media will dutifully show up to tape, we'll feel deep sympathy for the marchers' frustration and the punks will laugh it up.
If my neighborhood were being torn up the same way, I'd demand full deployment. Check points. IDs. Explanations of intent from assorted roving bands of punks. Stop and frisk to enforce the city's tough gun-control laws. The easily excitable and offended will scream that it amounts to a neighborhood lockdown, even a police state. OK, maybe it shouldn't be the National Guard. Maybe it should be something like the more aggressive policing (including constitutional traffic stops to ask, "What are you doing here?") that has significantly reduced homicides and other crimes in Berwyn.
But, I'll not accept the slander that the people struggling for safety in violent neighborhoods are so much different that they don't yearn for the peace and security that the rest of us enjoy, and which is the first and necessary condition for any of us to realize our potential.
They, like I do, want to be able to walk safely with their grandchildren, to shop, to not worry about a stray bullet ripping through the front window and to be unafraid of the violent consequences of so minor an offense as looking at someone funny. You wouldn't find me rushing to the usual media whiners about how the authorities are unfairly picking on our young men, because our young men—as well as our young women, children and grandparents—now would be safe. Or at least safer. For a change.
Chicago Tribune
The only thing we haven't tried in our desperation to end Chicago's violence is a troop surge.
So then, why not a surge? Give people whose 3-year-olds get shot playing outside what they most want and deserve: security. Call out the National Guard. After all, a surge finally established some degree of security in Baghdad, and if we're to believe what we read, parts of Chicago are no less of a war zone.
How close are we to an insurrection when gangs have usurped legitimate civil authority and pretty much govern how the people in the neighborhoods shall live, i.e., in terror. The shooters are terrorists as much as the Iraqi "insurgents." Flood violence-torn neighborhoods with visible signs of authority. Troops carrying automatic weapons, if need be. Armored Humvees. Martial law. Curfews. Let the punks and gangs know that they're in a war in which they're outmanned and outgunned. Let them wonder whether their drive-bys will be greeted with return fire from locked-and-loaded troops. Let them see the Air National Guard patrolling overhead in helicopters.
Of all the harebrained ideas, this might be the worst, you're probably thinking right now. I can't be serious, right? Treating any Chicago neighborhood as occupied territory?
Well, yes, there are a ton of reasons why a military—or whatever you want to call it—solution is unthinkable. The armed forces are not trained to do police work. It could deprive innocent citizens of their rights. Raging gun battles could break out between troops and gangs, endangering innocent people. And here's probably the most shocking reason: The Illinois Constitution, while permitting the deployment of the Illinois National Guard to "enforce the laws, suppress insurrection or repel invasion," also names the governor as commander in chief. That would be the screw-loose Rod Blagojevich. Yikes.
Then again, why not? We've tried all the "root-cause" solutions, and now Blagojevich is jumping in with more: $150 million the state doesn't have for summer jobs programs, after-school programs and what-not programs. Mayor Richard M. Daley has appointed a study group, whose scholars will come up with "new" solutions, but if they do find just one, something that already hasn't been tried and whose failure can't be explained away by "lack of resources," then surely they'll be in line for the Nobel Peace Prize, and we'll all be grateful.
It's always the same old stuff. In trying to "address underlying and systemic causes of the at-risk population," we've filled the landscape with jobs, education, development, housing, incentives, community involvement and other programs, not that there's anything wrong with that, and, yes, there always can be more, and how unsafe would neighborhoods be without them, but . . .
In a twist on lyrics by the immortal Everly Brothers: "Programs, programs, all day long. Will my programs work out right or wrong?" Truth is, community activists can march until kingdom come, demanding they be "empowered to take back our neighborhoods," and little will happen. The media will dutifully show up to tape, we'll feel deep sympathy for the marchers' frustration and the punks will laugh it up.
If my neighborhood were being torn up the same way, I'd demand full deployment. Check points. IDs. Explanations of intent from assorted roving bands of punks. Stop and frisk to enforce the city's tough gun-control laws. The easily excitable and offended will scream that it amounts to a neighborhood lockdown, even a police state. OK, maybe it shouldn't be the National Guard. Maybe it should be something like the more aggressive policing (including constitutional traffic stops to ask, "What are you doing here?") that has significantly reduced homicides and other crimes in Berwyn.
But, I'll not accept the slander that the people struggling for safety in violent neighborhoods are so much different that they don't yearn for the peace and security that the rest of us enjoy, and which is the first and necessary condition for any of us to realize our potential.
They, like I do, want to be able to walk safely with their grandchildren, to shop, to not worry about a stray bullet ripping through the front window and to be unafraid of the violent consequences of so minor an offense as looking at someone funny. You wouldn't find me rushing to the usual media whiners about how the authorities are unfairly picking on our young men, because our young men—as well as our young women, children and grandparents—now would be safe. Or at least safer. For a change.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Ethanol not a real solution
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
When no one was looking, the "world food crisis" elbowed out "global climate change" as our planet's Numero Uno calamity.
As if that weren't bad enough, we now discover that the two are connected; with this attempt to fix the climate by shifting away from fossil fuels to more "eco-friendly" renewable fuels, we have ended up starving people in Africa and Asia.
Seems like we can hardly settle on one cataclysm before another one demands our attention.
Food riots have broken out around the world; grain-producing countries have banned exports to feed their own people; food prices in the U.S. and around the world have gone through the roof. The UN—its usual bold self—created a task force to study the matter.
What shall we do, what shall we do? We can start by yanking the idiotic and elephantine government aid given to ethanol production, today's biofuel of choice. Farmland previously planted with corn for food and feedstock for cattle now is planted with corn for ethanol. The 15 percent of total corn acreage that in 2005 went into ethanol production has rocketed to an expected 33 percent this year as farmers abandon wheat and other grains to cash in. Naturally, the increasing scarcity of wheat—the staff of life—has driven up its price. And because the U.S. is the world's breadbasket, those higher prices and shortages rebound throughout the world. Just how much ethanol is at fault is an unsettled point of contention, with farmers and ethanol producers whining to Congress, "don't blame us." But a study by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that biofuels—principally ethanol—have accounted for a quarter to a third of the recent food price increases.
Some experts saw this coming several years ago, but their warnings were drowned out by the simple-minded bleating of Greens. Just say "oil alternative" to a Green, and salivating follows, whether it is solar, thermal, wind or biomass power. And because it isn't the hated oil, some Greens blithely toss in other alleged benefits, such as reducing pollution and solving global warming. Jason Hill, a University of Minnesota ecologist, disagrees. "If we convert every corn kernel grown today in the U.S. to ethanol," he said, "we offset just 12 percent of our gasoline use."
Still, the duty, nay the moral obligation, to toss big money into ethanol research and production somehow has fallen to the government (read taxpayers). In subsidies, more than $8 billion annually.
Perhaps more important, the government has created a market—a false market—for ethanol by ordering that huge quantities be produced and added to our gasoline. Pay higher taxes, so that you can pay higher gas prices, chump. Greens have been remarkably quiescent about this debate, finding themselves in a fix. Do they favor costly, renewable energy at the expense of hungry Third World nations? Or do they abandon their knee-jerk advocacy of a popular but jejune energy solution?
The two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, stand on the side of the knee-jerk and big agribusiness solution: continue to pour more subsidies into ethanol production and oppose with high tariffs Brazilian imports of cheaper ethanol made from sugar. President Bush also is sticking by his support of big favors for the ethanol industry.
The pending $286 billion farm bill, which under usual circumstances is an unconscionable giveaway to agribusiness, makes only an infinitesimal, token cut in ethanol subsidies. Only the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, has the guts to stand against the powerful farm and ethanol lobbies.
"I oppose subsidies," he said. "Not just ethanol subsidies. Subsidies."
If only our politicians in Illinois, one of the largest corn-growing and ethanol-producing states, had the same courage to stand up against the big business special interests. Instead of selling us out to them.
Chicago Tribune
When no one was looking, the "world food crisis" elbowed out "global climate change" as our planet's Numero Uno calamity.
As if that weren't bad enough, we now discover that the two are connected; with this attempt to fix the climate by shifting away from fossil fuels to more "eco-friendly" renewable fuels, we have ended up starving people in Africa and Asia.
Seems like we can hardly settle on one cataclysm before another one demands our attention.
Food riots have broken out around the world; grain-producing countries have banned exports to feed their own people; food prices in the U.S. and around the world have gone through the roof. The UN—its usual bold self—created a task force to study the matter.
What shall we do, what shall we do? We can start by yanking the idiotic and elephantine government aid given to ethanol production, today's biofuel of choice. Farmland previously planted with corn for food and feedstock for cattle now is planted with corn for ethanol. The 15 percent of total corn acreage that in 2005 went into ethanol production has rocketed to an expected 33 percent this year as farmers abandon wheat and other grains to cash in. Naturally, the increasing scarcity of wheat—the staff of life—has driven up its price. And because the U.S. is the world's breadbasket, those higher prices and shortages rebound throughout the world. Just how much ethanol is at fault is an unsettled point of contention, with farmers and ethanol producers whining to Congress, "don't blame us." But a study by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that biofuels—principally ethanol—have accounted for a quarter to a third of the recent food price increases.
Some experts saw this coming several years ago, but their warnings were drowned out by the simple-minded bleating of Greens. Just say "oil alternative" to a Green, and salivating follows, whether it is solar, thermal, wind or biomass power. And because it isn't the hated oil, some Greens blithely toss in other alleged benefits, such as reducing pollution and solving global warming. Jason Hill, a University of Minnesota ecologist, disagrees. "If we convert every corn kernel grown today in the U.S. to ethanol," he said, "we offset just 12 percent of our gasoline use."
Still, the duty, nay the moral obligation, to toss big money into ethanol research and production somehow has fallen to the government (read taxpayers). In subsidies, more than $8 billion annually.
Perhaps more important, the government has created a market—a false market—for ethanol by ordering that huge quantities be produced and added to our gasoline. Pay higher taxes, so that you can pay higher gas prices, chump. Greens have been remarkably quiescent about this debate, finding themselves in a fix. Do they favor costly, renewable energy at the expense of hungry Third World nations? Or do they abandon their knee-jerk advocacy of a popular but jejune energy solution?
The two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, stand on the side of the knee-jerk and big agribusiness solution: continue to pour more subsidies into ethanol production and oppose with high tariffs Brazilian imports of cheaper ethanol made from sugar. President Bush also is sticking by his support of big favors for the ethanol industry.
The pending $286 billion farm bill, which under usual circumstances is an unconscionable giveaway to agribusiness, makes only an infinitesimal, token cut in ethanol subsidies. Only the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, has the guts to stand against the powerful farm and ethanol lobbies.
"I oppose subsidies," he said. "Not just ethanol subsidies. Subsidies."
If only our politicians in Illinois, one of the largest corn-growing and ethanol-producing states, had the same courage to stand up against the big business special interests. Instead of selling us out to them.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Catholics can open priesthood, gain souls
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
My guess is that the American Catholic Church would see a resurgence beyond imagining if it welcomed women and the married into the priesthood. No one expected that Pope Benedict XVI on his recent visit to the United States would announce that he was overturning the centuries-long church tradition that closed the Catholic priesthood to women and married men. But some of the faithful can't be blamed for hoping that the change will come in their lifetimes.
I hope that the pope has returned to the Vatican with some lasting impressions of the American Catholic Church: its tremendous vitality despite the disturbing loss of clergy over the last several decades, and the yearning of the laity for an even more invigorated church that an upsurge in the number of priests would bring to it.
There are reasons against a change in the policy. One invokes Christ's intent, which he demonstrated by his own chaste and single life and the inclusion of men only among his apostles and at the Last Supper. We have to rely on interpreting his intent because it is not recorded, as far as I know, that he said with encyclical-like clarity that only men and single people could serve as priests.
The fact that he gathered mostly men around him as his disciples might have had something to do with the culture of his times: Men ran just about everything.
So, does Christ intend to carry on that system because it was the custom 2,000 years ago? Consider: If he and his disciples customarily traveled only by donkey and fishing boat, would it be right to assume that he meant that priests today could only travel by donkeys and fishing boats? Are we to assume that Christ intended that the chemical makeup of chromosomes would determine who was qualified enough to bring more souls to him through the priesthood?
On its face, it seems ludicrous. Why should he limit the spread of the faith and redemption in such a superficial way? Why should he leave more than half of the faithful out of this glorious and blessed work? Some might argue that (1) priests are special and therefore (2) they must be men. The logical connection between the two statements leads one through tangled thickets of illogic.
Before Benedict became pope he was quoted as saying about expanding the priesthood by accepting women and married priests: "The first question . . . is: Are there true believers? And then comes the second question: Are priests coming from them?"
Quality over quantity, as it were. Except for two problems. The first is shocking in its assumption: If the test for priesthood is "true belief," how can it be said that male true believers outnumber female true believers? If anything, from my observations, the reverse is the case. Second, as the priest who gave the homily in my parish said last week (while making a different point), sometimes numbers do count. The more priests, the more people coming to know Christ. How can gender differences be more important than that?
Ministering to the faithful is a high calling, and you cannot so easily dismiss the argument that you get better priests if they are not diverted by concerns of family and flesh. Chastity is a great virtue, testing one's discipline and elevating one's holiness. What greater surrender is there than devoting yourself wholly and completely to the priestly vocation? But, those virtues are as equally available to women as they are to men. Women, even married couples, can choose to be chaste. Those who wish to achieve this special higher level of holiness flowing from the chaste and single life are free to do so, voluntarily. Their holiness or their effectiveness is in no way diminished by opening the priesthood to those who have been joined in the sacrament of marriage and whose oneness has been celebrated in the blessed act of sexuality.
It is hard for me to imagine a God who would say it is more important to limit who will be priests based on genetic makeup than it is to bring as many souls as possible to eternal salvation. Why would he do so?
Some would argue that opening the door to women and the married would send the priesthood down a slippery slope. But that slope is not more slippery than the one the single, male priesthood has brought us.
Chicago Tribune
My guess is that the American Catholic Church would see a resurgence beyond imagining if it welcomed women and the married into the priesthood. No one expected that Pope Benedict XVI on his recent visit to the United States would announce that he was overturning the centuries-long church tradition that closed the Catholic priesthood to women and married men. But some of the faithful can't be blamed for hoping that the change will come in their lifetimes.
I hope that the pope has returned to the Vatican with some lasting impressions of the American Catholic Church: its tremendous vitality despite the disturbing loss of clergy over the last several decades, and the yearning of the laity for an even more invigorated church that an upsurge in the number of priests would bring to it.
There are reasons against a change in the policy. One invokes Christ's intent, which he demonstrated by his own chaste and single life and the inclusion of men only among his apostles and at the Last Supper. We have to rely on interpreting his intent because it is not recorded, as far as I know, that he said with encyclical-like clarity that only men and single people could serve as priests.
The fact that he gathered mostly men around him as his disciples might have had something to do with the culture of his times: Men ran just about everything.
So, does Christ intend to carry on that system because it was the custom 2,000 years ago? Consider: If he and his disciples customarily traveled only by donkey and fishing boat, would it be right to assume that he meant that priests today could only travel by donkeys and fishing boats? Are we to assume that Christ intended that the chemical makeup of chromosomes would determine who was qualified enough to bring more souls to him through the priesthood?
On its face, it seems ludicrous. Why should he limit the spread of the faith and redemption in such a superficial way? Why should he leave more than half of the faithful out of this glorious and blessed work? Some might argue that (1) priests are special and therefore (2) they must be men. The logical connection between the two statements leads one through tangled thickets of illogic.
Before Benedict became pope he was quoted as saying about expanding the priesthood by accepting women and married priests: "The first question . . . is: Are there true believers? And then comes the second question: Are priests coming from them?"
Quality over quantity, as it were. Except for two problems. The first is shocking in its assumption: If the test for priesthood is "true belief," how can it be said that male true believers outnumber female true believers? If anything, from my observations, the reverse is the case. Second, as the priest who gave the homily in my parish said last week (while making a different point), sometimes numbers do count. The more priests, the more people coming to know Christ. How can gender differences be more important than that?
Ministering to the faithful is a high calling, and you cannot so easily dismiss the argument that you get better priests if they are not diverted by concerns of family and flesh. Chastity is a great virtue, testing one's discipline and elevating one's holiness. What greater surrender is there than devoting yourself wholly and completely to the priestly vocation? But, those virtues are as equally available to women as they are to men. Women, even married couples, can choose to be chaste. Those who wish to achieve this special higher level of holiness flowing from the chaste and single life are free to do so, voluntarily. Their holiness or their effectiveness is in no way diminished by opening the priesthood to those who have been joined in the sacrament of marriage and whose oneness has been celebrated in the blessed act of sexuality.
It is hard for me to imagine a God who would say it is more important to limit who will be priests based on genetic makeup than it is to bring as many souls as possible to eternal salvation. Why would he do so?
Some would argue that opening the door to women and the married would send the priesthood down a slippery slope. But that slope is not more slippery than the one the single, male priesthood has brought us.
Monday, April 21, 2008
$100 million for museum?
Think what that cash could do for schools
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Maybe we're asking the wrong question when we debate whether the $100 million Chicago Children's Museum should be built in Grant Park.
A better question is: Why is anyone spending $100 million on a children's museum in the first place?
When the civic good hearts go about raising the $100 million in private money for the controversial museum in Grant Park, they should ask themselves: Isn't there a better way to help the children? The answer is: Yes there is. Especially when Chicago's children have a crying need for better schools. Think of what $100 million could do by duplicating the demonstrable successes of, say, Marva Collins Preparatory School on the South Side.
The assumption that a children's museum is a good way to spend $100 million shouldn't go unchallenged. Yet, whether it is wise to pour all that money into a children's museum has been completely overshadowed by whether it should go into Grant Park or elsewhere. As far as I'm concerned it should go elsewhere; the proponents haven't made the case for plunking it into a lakefront park, since it has nothing to do with the lakefront or a park.
When it comes to which is the superior benefit—superb schools for hundreds more Chicago kids that $100 million could buy, or a fancy place where kids occasionally can go to turn knobs, mold clay and have an "educational experience"—the schools win hands down. Not that there's anything wrong with turning knobs and molding clay. However, there are things called priorities. Putting scarce resources where they will do the most good. Cost effectiveness. The greater good. You get the idea. I wish the museum backers would too. Take the $100 million and create some alternative, private schools. Or help support those that already are changing the lives of poor kids, kids from broken homes, kids afflicted with bad teachers or victimized by unmotivated and violent classmates. The kids that Mayor Richard M. Daley keeps talking about when he declares that the museum must go into Grant Park.
If we had more schools, such as L.E.A.R.N. Charter School, maybe we would have fewer shootings and killings, including one that started with a shove in the hallway of one of city's scary public schools. Or, maybe more high school graduates. One reason that we're not getting such schools is that parents are denied the publicly funded vouchers that they can use to choose where to send their children. Why? Because the interests of public school workers and their unions, the political system and the established order of things forbid it. What could a school such as Chicago Jesuit Academy do with $100 million? The West Side school has made life better for young men of "modest means" with its small classes, longer class day and longer school year. Its "wish list" includes library books, baseball mitts and even a three-hole paper punch for the office. L.E.A.R.N. Charter School, formerly the Lawndale Community School, is so successful at educating the disadvantaged that it gets 1,000 applications for a couple of hundred slots from parents hungry to give their children a better opportunity. San Miguel independent middle schools are in the Back of the Yards neighborhood and in the Austin neighborhood. Cristo Rey Jesuit High School serves Pilsen. The list goes on, and I'm sorry that I'm leaving a bunch off. There are others employing both innovative and traditional methods to change lives. The schools are the city's bread upon the water, whose benefits are returned to our community in many and unexpected ways.
For the sake of discussion, let's assume that $100 million, wisely invested, earns a 10 percent return, or $10 million annually. Chicago Jesuit Academy says it takes about $12,000 to educate one student for a year. That $100 million could create an endowment that would educate 833 students a year.
True, that doesn't sound like much when we're talking about hundreds of thousands of kids caught in the school system. But that's 833 more every year saved from the depredations of the city's school system. And if 833 isn't enough, then the civic-minded should raise another $100 million. Unfortunately, that kind of cash isn't fungible. It's harder to raise $100 million when donors know it would quietly disappear into desperate inner-city schools, instead of being on display in Chicago's front yard as a concrete and steel monument to their egos.
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Maybe we're asking the wrong question when we debate whether the $100 million Chicago Children's Museum should be built in Grant Park.
A better question is: Why is anyone spending $100 million on a children's museum in the first place?
When the civic good hearts go about raising the $100 million in private money for the controversial museum in Grant Park, they should ask themselves: Isn't there a better way to help the children? The answer is: Yes there is. Especially when Chicago's children have a crying need for better schools. Think of what $100 million could do by duplicating the demonstrable successes of, say, Marva Collins Preparatory School on the South Side.
The assumption that a children's museum is a good way to spend $100 million shouldn't go unchallenged. Yet, whether it is wise to pour all that money into a children's museum has been completely overshadowed by whether it should go into Grant Park or elsewhere. As far as I'm concerned it should go elsewhere; the proponents haven't made the case for plunking it into a lakefront park, since it has nothing to do with the lakefront or a park.
When it comes to which is the superior benefit—superb schools for hundreds more Chicago kids that $100 million could buy, or a fancy place where kids occasionally can go to turn knobs, mold clay and have an "educational experience"—the schools win hands down. Not that there's anything wrong with turning knobs and molding clay. However, there are things called priorities. Putting scarce resources where they will do the most good. Cost effectiveness. The greater good. You get the idea. I wish the museum backers would too. Take the $100 million and create some alternative, private schools. Or help support those that already are changing the lives of poor kids, kids from broken homes, kids afflicted with bad teachers or victimized by unmotivated and violent classmates. The kids that Mayor Richard M. Daley keeps talking about when he declares that the museum must go into Grant Park.
If we had more schools, such as L.E.A.R.N. Charter School, maybe we would have fewer shootings and killings, including one that started with a shove in the hallway of one of city's scary public schools. Or, maybe more high school graduates. One reason that we're not getting such schools is that parents are denied the publicly funded vouchers that they can use to choose where to send their children. Why? Because the interests of public school workers and their unions, the political system and the established order of things forbid it. What could a school such as Chicago Jesuit Academy do with $100 million? The West Side school has made life better for young men of "modest means" with its small classes, longer class day and longer school year. Its "wish list" includes library books, baseball mitts and even a three-hole paper punch for the office. L.E.A.R.N. Charter School, formerly the Lawndale Community School, is so successful at educating the disadvantaged that it gets 1,000 applications for a couple of hundred slots from parents hungry to give their children a better opportunity. San Miguel independent middle schools are in the Back of the Yards neighborhood and in the Austin neighborhood. Cristo Rey Jesuit High School serves Pilsen. The list goes on, and I'm sorry that I'm leaving a bunch off. There are others employing both innovative and traditional methods to change lives. The schools are the city's bread upon the water, whose benefits are returned to our community in many and unexpected ways.
For the sake of discussion, let's assume that $100 million, wisely invested, earns a 10 percent return, or $10 million annually. Chicago Jesuit Academy says it takes about $12,000 to educate one student for a year. That $100 million could create an endowment that would educate 833 students a year.
True, that doesn't sound like much when we're talking about hundreds of thousands of kids caught in the school system. But that's 833 more every year saved from the depredations of the city's school system. And if 833 isn't enough, then the civic-minded should raise another $100 million. Unfortunately, that kind of cash isn't fungible. It's harder to raise $100 million when donors know it would quietly disappear into desperate inner-city schools, instead of being on display in Chicago's front yard as a concrete and steel monument to their egos.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Illinois’ Surrender to the Herd
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Proving that you can never glance away from Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Illinois Legislature and remain safe from a sneak attack, they have just passed a law requiring Illinois to turn its presidential electoral votes over to the rest of the country.
That’s not how supporters of the National Popular Vote bill would describe the new law, but that’s precisely what they’ve done. Under it, Illinois promises to award its 21 Electoral College votes in the presidential election to the candidate that wins the popular vote nationwide. So, if the voters of Illinois choose a Democrat to be president, but the nation’s popular vote goes to the Republican candidate (perish the thought), the state’s electoral votes will go to the Republican.
Perhaps that scenario seems too remote to Democrats who run the state; but the fact is that it could turn Illinois into a red state from blue.
If this isn’t the most harebrained scheme to ooze out of the governor’s office and the Legislature....Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Same old China
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Wow, when was the last time the people of San Francisco—"the gentle people with flowers in their hair"—turned out to protest in such numbers the actions of a commie country?
Chicago Tribune
Wow, when was the last time the people of San Francisco—"the gentle people with flowers in their hair"—turned out to protest in such numbers the actions of a commie country?
I don't keep track, but there they were last week, thousands fussing over how Red (as it used to be called) China is oppressing Tibet and adding to the miseries of Darfur. Even in Chicago there were protests.
Protests of communist dictatorships are, like the Cold War, gone but not forgotten. The flame of anti-communism burns brightly only in isolated spots, such as in south Miami, where expatriate (and free) Cubans keep hope alive for democracy and liberty in their country.
China, we're repeatedly told, wants to showcase itself to the world during this summer's Olympics, but the protesters are wounding the country's pride, and we'll be sorry for that. To which democratic nations can rightfully respond: Tough. You want to emerge from the shadows as a member of the civilized world, then become more democratic, as many of us are doing.
My only gripe with the protesters is that they are mostly focused on the suffering that China causes outside, not inside, its borders: the suppression of Tibet and its Sudan dealings that contribute to the genocide in Darfur. Those are big, bad things, but let's not overlook the tyrannical rule that the communist regime imposes on the more than 1 billion of its own people. Human Rights Watch points to abuses that are just the result of its hosting of the Olympics: media and Internet censorship, extrajudicial house arrests and sentences of government critics for the "subversive" crime of criticizing the government, abuses of migrant construction workers and forced evictions of homeowners and tenants.Recently, the group said, "leading human rights advocate Hu Jia was given a 3½-year sentence for criticizing the Chinese government in the context of the Games. Previously, Yang Chunlin received a 5-year sentence for having begun a petition titled, 'We want human rights, not the Olympics.' "
This isn't the progress that the International Olympic Committee had in mind when it awarded the Games to China. By exposing China to the currents of freedom brought to its shores by the international community, the IOC hoped Beijing would moderate its behavior. Nice try.
By blessing China with the Games, the IOC ignored a long history of suppression of religion, association, protest and other rights. "Ordinary citizens face immense obstacles to accessing justice, in particular over issues such as illegal land seizures, forced evictions, environmental pollution, unpaid wages, corruption and abuse of power by local officials, a situation that fuels rising social unrest across the country," Human Rights Watch said. The result has been growing citizen protests and their suppression across the landscape.
But large protests, some involving as many as 10,000 people, were reported last year in almost all of China's 34 provinces. "In speeches and articles top security officials acknowledged the heightening of social conflicts but remained defiant toward greater independence of the judiciary, blaming 'hostile' or 'enemy forces' for trying to use the nation's legal system to undermine and westernize China. A string of lawyers defending human rights cases [has] been suspended or disbarred under a yearly licensing system that acts as a general deterrent to taking cases viewed as 'sensitive' by the authorities."
And we are not even getting into the deadly quashing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests or forced abortions.
The IOC's awarding of the Games to China is itself a violation of the second of the six "fundamental principles of Olympism," which is "to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."
In light of China's abysmal failure to honor that principle, the IOC should be honor-bound to withdraw its sponsorship of the Games. Of course, that would be incredibly naive, considering all the billions of dollars at stake; about as naive as hoping that a grossly commercialized athletic event would convince China to change its ways.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The Children’s (Museum) Crusade
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Lois Wille looked like a deer caught in a car’s headlights.
Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Lois Wille looked like a deer caught in a car’s headlights.
Wille, an icon in the lakefront preservation community, had just announced at a press conference her support of the proposed controversial move of the Chicago Children’s Museum to Grant Park.
Rich Samuels, a reporter for WTTW Channel 11’s Chicago Tonight, had asked if she was “selling out.” Pause. “Selling out?” Wille asked. I’m trying to remember her exact response, as I was taken aback as much as she appeared to be. Her answer, as I recall, was calm and reasonable, even persuasive for someone (me) who has opposed the move. Certainly reasonable enough to wonder where the “sell out” question came from.
Wille’s credentials are unrivaled:Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Recall them all
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Who woulda thought anyone would have taken me seriously last October when I suggested that Illinois voters should be enabled to dump incompetent, dishonest and otherwise dreadful public officials by a “recall” referendum?
Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Who woulda thought anyone would have taken me seriously last October when I suggested that Illinois voters should be enabled to dump incompetent, dishonest and otherwise dreadful public officials by a “recall” referendum?
The idea was so, well, California-like, where voters in 2003 recalled the bumbling Gov. Gray Davis. And it so unlike Chicago and Illinois, where such a reform would be regarded as just another useless goo-goo (good-government) gesture.
But here comes the Illinois House, advancing with remarkable ease legislation that would allow voters to dispose unceremoniously of the governor, members of the General Assembly and executive branch officers elected statewide, such as the attorney general and secretary of state.
Last week, the House voted 80–25 (!) to tack onto the legislation an amendment that would exempt circuit, appellate and supreme court judges from recall. Such a wide margin of approval signals, according to the conventional wisdom, that the House will approve the legislation and pass it on to the Senate, where it has a less certain future.
But as one of the earliest advocates of the Illinois recall, I suspect political gamesmanship. If the House, and its Speaker, Rep. Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) was really serious, it would have added one other amendment:
Include local and county officials in the recall.
Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Monday, April 07, 2008
It's time to let Wright go
By Denniis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
When will it end?
It has been about a month since Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s rant against whites and America jarred our consciousness, but some people still can't resist using it for their own purposes. We've heard just about enough from politicians, commentators and others of all sides who are trying to squeeze every opportunity for self-promotion from the controversy.
Even calls for calm and "sacred conversations" seem to add to racial animosities. The latest came in Wright's own church, Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side.
There, leaders of the National Council of Churches gathered Thursday to "affirm this denomination and this congregation," said Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the group's general secretary. It's time, the leaders said, to leave the church alone and to stand up to the threats that some of its members say they have received. Well and good.
Rev. John H. Thomas, national president of the United Church of Christ, said of the sacred conversation about race that the group urged, "That does not mean that our language is always going to be gentle and quiet and graceful, because racism is not gentle and quiet and graceful." Thomas apparently didn't catch the irony that Wright's rant was rough, loud and graceless and could be subject to charges of racism.
Can't we all just shut up?
Apparently not, so here's my two cents: This isn't about Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democratic presidential candidate who was a regular congregant at Trinity and an admirer of Wright. Obama's Philadelphia speech disowning Wright's abhorrent words, but not the man or the congregation, was brilliant, perhaps reminiscent of some of King's best. Obama put into context how Wright reflected an older generation who grew up in an age of Jim Crow and whose outrage at the injustices still boils over. And unlike the many who keep throwing stones at each other across the racial divide so they can continue to leach whatever opportunities they can for themselves from inflaming racial animosities, Obama did something powerful and useful: He declared that we have made significant progress in race relations, and that we can continue to do so. And for progress to continue, Obama himself said, the kind of rhetoric that Wright wallowed in must stop. That's what I call audacious hope.
Just what did Wright do? It's impossible for me to judge the entire "context" in which Wright's comments were made, but Obama is in a position to do so, and he found Wright's comments abhorrent. My own thought was amazement that a man of God would use the pulpit to call on God to assign a nation (or at least the white portion of it) to eternal damnation. Simply put, it was a curse, and in some denominations, a curse still is a sin.
Using a pulpit to curse a group of people is the heaviest kind of stuff, even when "taken out of context." I'll resort to a cliche to illustrate: Suppose Cardinal Francis George had similarly used his pulpit, shouting "God damn America," as Wright did? Suppose George, from the pulpit, accused black America of, well, whatever? There would be little discussion about the context of his statements. The debate would be about the appropriateness of using a sacred space to spit out such odious thoughts. Well, the explanation goes, Wright was carrying on King's tradition of "translating faith into action," of preaching the social gospel. That's weak gruel, but if you want to persist in the deception that Wright is some kind of prophet whose role is to discomfort and anger, so be it.
But, to me, Wright's remarks haven't been as bothersome as the reaction to them—the endless justification and rationalization for words meant to inflame anti-white and anti-American passions. No matter what you say about context, the words themselves were "hateful." At least those are my thoughts, which I admit will themselves cause offense, and, unfortunately, keep the debate going.
But it's time to let it go. All of us. It's time to end the accusations that whites or blacks don't "get it." It's time to end the imputations that deep within us all lurks dark shadows of racism. This won't be the last time that America will scratch the scab of its racist history and draw blood. But it is time to give it a chance to heal.
Chicago Tribune
When will it end?
It has been about a month since Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s rant against whites and America jarred our consciousness, but some people still can't resist using it for their own purposes. We've heard just about enough from politicians, commentators and others of all sides who are trying to squeeze every opportunity for self-promotion from the controversy.
Even calls for calm and "sacred conversations" seem to add to racial animosities. The latest came in Wright's own church, Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side.
There, leaders of the National Council of Churches gathered Thursday to "affirm this denomination and this congregation," said Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the group's general secretary. It's time, the leaders said, to leave the church alone and to stand up to the threats that some of its members say they have received. Well and good.
Rev. John H. Thomas, national president of the United Church of Christ, said of the sacred conversation about race that the group urged, "That does not mean that our language is always going to be gentle and quiet and graceful, because racism is not gentle and quiet and graceful." Thomas apparently didn't catch the irony that Wright's rant was rough, loud and graceless and could be subject to charges of racism.
Can't we all just shut up?
Apparently not, so here's my two cents: This isn't about Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democratic presidential candidate who was a regular congregant at Trinity and an admirer of Wright. Obama's Philadelphia speech disowning Wright's abhorrent words, but not the man or the congregation, was brilliant, perhaps reminiscent of some of King's best. Obama put into context how Wright reflected an older generation who grew up in an age of Jim Crow and whose outrage at the injustices still boils over. And unlike the many who keep throwing stones at each other across the racial divide so they can continue to leach whatever opportunities they can for themselves from inflaming racial animosities, Obama did something powerful and useful: He declared that we have made significant progress in race relations, and that we can continue to do so. And for progress to continue, Obama himself said, the kind of rhetoric that Wright wallowed in must stop. That's what I call audacious hope.
Just what did Wright do? It's impossible for me to judge the entire "context" in which Wright's comments were made, but Obama is in a position to do so, and he found Wright's comments abhorrent. My own thought was amazement that a man of God would use the pulpit to call on God to assign a nation (or at least the white portion of it) to eternal damnation. Simply put, it was a curse, and in some denominations, a curse still is a sin.
Using a pulpit to curse a group of people is the heaviest kind of stuff, even when "taken out of context." I'll resort to a cliche to illustrate: Suppose Cardinal Francis George had similarly used his pulpit, shouting "God damn America," as Wright did? Suppose George, from the pulpit, accused black America of, well, whatever? There would be little discussion about the context of his statements. The debate would be about the appropriateness of using a sacred space to spit out such odious thoughts. Well, the explanation goes, Wright was carrying on King's tradition of "translating faith into action," of preaching the social gospel. That's weak gruel, but if you want to persist in the deception that Wright is some kind of prophet whose role is to discomfort and anger, so be it.
But, to me, Wright's remarks haven't been as bothersome as the reaction to them—the endless justification and rationalization for words meant to inflame anti-white and anti-American passions. No matter what you say about context, the words themselves were "hateful." At least those are my thoughts, which I admit will themselves cause offense, and, unfortunately, keep the debate going.
But it's time to let it go. All of us. It's time to end the accusations that whites or blacks don't "get it." It's time to end the imputations that deep within us all lurks dark shadows of racism. This won't be the last time that America will scratch the scab of its racist history and draw blood. But it is time to give it a chance to heal.
It
By Denniis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
When will it end?
It has been about a month since Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s rant against whites and America jarred our consciousness, but some people still can't resist using it for their own purposes. We've heard just about enough from politicians, commentators and others of all sides who are trying to squeeze every opportunity for self-promotion from the controversy.
Even calls for calm and "sacred conversations" seem to add to racial animosities. The latest came in Wright's own church, Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side.
There, leaders of the National Council of Churches gathered Thursday to "affirm this denomination and this congregation," said Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the group's general secretary. It's time, the leaders said, to leave the church alone and to stand up to the threats that some of its members say they have received. Well and good.
Rev. John H. Thomas, national president of the United Church of Christ, said of the sacred conversation about race that the group urged, "That does not mean that our language is always going to be gentle and quiet and graceful, because racism is not gentle and quiet and graceful." Thomas apparently didn't catch the irony that Wright's rant was rough, loud and graceless and could be subject to charges of racism.
Can't we all just shut up?
Apparently not, so here's my two cents: This isn't about Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democratic presidential candidate who was a regular congregant at Trinity and an admirer of Wright. Obama's Philadelphia speech disowning Wright's abhorrent words, but not the man or the congregation, was brilliant, perhaps reminiscent of some of King's best. Obama put into context how Wright reflected an older generation who grew up in an age of Jim Crow and whose outrage at the injustices still boils over. And unlike the many who keep throwing stones at each other across the racial divide so they can continue to leach whatever opportunities they can for themselves from inflaming racial animosities, Obama did something powerful and useful: He declared that we have made significant progress in race relations, and that we can continue to do so. And for progress to continue, Obama himself said, the kind of rhetoric that Wright wallowed in must stop. That's what I call audacious hope.
Just what did Wright do? It's impossible for me to judge the entire "context" in which Wright's comments were made, but Obama is in a position to do so, and he found Wright's comments abhorrent. My own thought was amazement that a man of God would use the pulpit to call on God to assign a nation (or at least the white portion of it) to eternal damnation. Simply put, it was a curse, and in some denominations, a curse still is a sin.
Using a pulpit to curse a group of people is the heaviest kind of stuff, even when "taken out of context." I'll resort to a cliche to illustrate: Suppose Cardinal Francis George had similarly used his pulpit, shouting "God damn America," as Wright did? Suppose George, from the pulpit, accused black America of, well, whatever? There would be little discussion about the context of his statements. The debate would be about the appropriateness of using a sacred space to spit out such odious thoughts. Well, the explanation goes, Wright was carrying on King's tradition of "translating faith into action," of preaching the social gospel. That's weak gruel, but if you want to persist in the deception that Wright is some kind of prophet whose role is to discomfort and anger, so be it.
But, to me, Wright's remarks haven't been as bothersome as the reaction to them—the endless justification and rationalization for words meant to inflame anti-white and anti-American passions. No matter what you say about context, the words themselves were "hateful." At least those are my thoughts, which I admit will themselves cause offense, and, unfortunately, keep the debate going.
But it's time to let it go. All of us. It's time to end the accusations that whites or blacks don't "get it." It's time to end the imputations that deep within us all lurks dark shadows of racism. This won't be the last time that America will scratch the scab of its racist history and draw blood. But it is time to give it a chance to heal.
Chicago Tribune
When will it end?
It has been about a month since Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s rant against whites and America jarred our consciousness, but some people still can't resist using it for their own purposes. We've heard just about enough from politicians, commentators and others of all sides who are trying to squeeze every opportunity for self-promotion from the controversy.
Even calls for calm and "sacred conversations" seem to add to racial animosities. The latest came in Wright's own church, Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side.
There, leaders of the National Council of Churches gathered Thursday to "affirm this denomination and this congregation," said Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the group's general secretary. It's time, the leaders said, to leave the church alone and to stand up to the threats that some of its members say they have received. Well and good.
Rev. John H. Thomas, national president of the United Church of Christ, said of the sacred conversation about race that the group urged, "That does not mean that our language is always going to be gentle and quiet and graceful, because racism is not gentle and quiet and graceful." Thomas apparently didn't catch the irony that Wright's rant was rough, loud and graceless and could be subject to charges of racism.
Can't we all just shut up?
Apparently not, so here's my two cents: This isn't about Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democratic presidential candidate who was a regular congregant at Trinity and an admirer of Wright. Obama's Philadelphia speech disowning Wright's abhorrent words, but not the man or the congregation, was brilliant, perhaps reminiscent of some of King's best. Obama put into context how Wright reflected an older generation who grew up in an age of Jim Crow and whose outrage at the injustices still boils over. And unlike the many who keep throwing stones at each other across the racial divide so they can continue to leach whatever opportunities they can for themselves from inflaming racial animosities, Obama did something powerful and useful: He declared that we have made significant progress in race relations, and that we can continue to do so. And for progress to continue, Obama himself said, the kind of rhetoric that Wright wallowed in must stop. That's what I call audacious hope.
Just what did Wright do? It's impossible for me to judge the entire "context" in which Wright's comments were made, but Obama is in a position to do so, and he found Wright's comments abhorrent. My own thought was amazement that a man of God would use the pulpit to call on God to assign a nation (or at least the white portion of it) to eternal damnation. Simply put, it was a curse, and in some denominations, a curse still is a sin.
Using a pulpit to curse a group of people is the heaviest kind of stuff, even when "taken out of context." I'll resort to a cliche to illustrate: Suppose Cardinal Francis George had similarly used his pulpit, shouting "God damn America," as Wright did? Suppose George, from the pulpit, accused black America of, well, whatever? There would be little discussion about the context of his statements. The debate would be about the appropriateness of using a sacred space to spit out such odious thoughts. Well, the explanation goes, Wright was carrying on King's tradition of "translating faith into action," of preaching the social gospel. That's weak gruel, but if you want to persist in the deception that Wright is some kind of prophet whose role is to discomfort and anger, so be it.
But, to me, Wright's remarks haven't been as bothersome as the reaction to them—the endless justification and rationalization for words meant to inflame anti-white and anti-American passions. No matter what you say about context, the words themselves were "hateful." At least those are my thoughts, which I admit will themselves cause offense, and, unfortunately, keep the debate going.
But it's time to let it go. All of us. It's time to end the accusations that whites or blacks don't "get it." It's time to end the imputations that deep within us all lurks dark shadows of racism. This won't be the last time that America will scratch the scab of its racist history and draw blood. But it is time to give it a chance to heal.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Plumbing Gasoline Prices
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Perfectly reasonable people can’t be blamed if they suspect that Big Oil is jazzing gasoline prices.
Gasoline inventories are reportedly at a 15-year high, which, according to the laws of supply and demand, should mean that prices ought to be sinking. Instead, the national average retail price of regular gasoline has risen to a record $3.29 a gallon, which is 23 percent higher than last year, the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report said last week.
On an anecdotal level, it’s hard to imagine that someone isn’t taking advantage of the situation when, as I saw on the Indiana Toll Road last week, one oasis was selling regular grade gas for $3.70 a gallon when other stations along the highway were selling it for a more modest (?!) $3.35.
And so, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming last week called top oil company executives to account. Explain to us, again, why prices are...
Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Perfectly reasonable people can’t be blamed if they suspect that Big Oil is jazzing gasoline prices.
Gasoline inventories are reportedly at a 15-year high, which, according to the laws of supply and demand, should mean that prices ought to be sinking. Instead, the national average retail price of regular gasoline has risen to a record $3.29 a gallon, which is 23 percent higher than last year, the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report said last week.
On an anecdotal level, it’s hard to imagine that someone isn’t taking advantage of the situation when, as I saw on the Indiana Toll Road last week, one oasis was selling regular grade gas for $3.70 a gallon when other stations along the highway were selling it for a more modest (?!) $3.35.
And so, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming last week called top oil company executives to account. Explain to us, again, why prices are...
Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer
Secede from Cook County
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Why didn't someone tell us sooner that we could free ourselves from the clutches of Cook County?
Yes, it's legally possible, but practically impossible, for suburban townships to secede from the county and its oppressive taxes, bloated payrolls, insider dealings and pathetic leadership. Still, it might be worth the effort. After all, if you can't beat them, leave them.
Several Palatine government officials, pushed to the limit by the county's recent sales tax increase, which may send shoppers scooting across the county line into adjacent Lake County, are discussing secession as something more than a stunt. Lost business and lost sales tax revenues are the price that the village and its businesses may pay for Cook County's budgetary dereliction and other mischief.
State Sen. Matt Murphy and state Rep. Suzanne Bassi, both Palatine Republicans, have introduced legislation that would make it easier for townships to liberate themselves from the chokehold of Cook County President Todd Stroger and his County Board toadies. Under the legislation, the signatures of 10 percent of the voters in a township would force the township government to hold a secession referendum. If a majority of voters agree, it's bye-bye Todd. Other townships could follow.
But under current law, voters throughout Cook County would have to approve the disconnection, which is about as likely as the fresh scent of virtue wafting down Chicago City Hall corridors.
Indeed, chances aren't much better for the General Assembly passing this legislation. It has been consigned to the rules committees of both houses, the usual resting places for orphaned bills. Even if it came to a vote, you won't find many lawmakers around the state who would be prepared to upset the established political order by making it easier for indignant voters to carve up the existing government infrastructure.
But as dismal as the outlook for this legislation is, it's even more remote that Stroger and the County Board will reform themselves. Or that the county electorate—content to be lambs shepherded by scoundrels—will actually force reform.
In his splendid book "Grafters and Goo Goos: Corruption and Reform in Chicago, 1833-2003," veteran political observer James L. Merriner shed some light on the likelihood of such an earthshaking event. It was as far back as 1877, when a do-gooder group called the Citizens Association wondered what its role should be after it achieved the seemingly impossible—the reform of the city's fire protection program. (Astonishingly, just six years after Chicago's Great Fire, City Hall graft, corruption, indifference and incompetence threatened to leave the city vulnerable to another great fire, a thought so horrifying that even the foes of reform couldn't stop it.) So, basking in the warmth of fire protection reform, association President Murray Nelson suggested, "Should an honest board of the commissioners be elected, then possibly the association would be of no more service to the city."
The association, like other reformers, is long gone, but the County Board survives as it was, its insider members laughing up their sleeves at the futility of suckers who think everything should be on the legit. Steeled by such invulnerability, they hardly pause to pass outta-sight budgets and taxes.
Believing that he can throw any insult at taxpayers without consequence, Stroger commits one outrage after another—a big raise for a relative here, a job for a pal there.
With great prescience, reformer Nelson noted, "Reformers won't stay mad for more than six months," a truth that gives Stroger and his cronies every benefit of time. I've never been one to believe that tinkering with the form of government will ensure reform. So, I'm not convinced that a bunch of disgruntled townships dropping out of Cook County will ensure good government. But there comes a point—America's founding fathers once arrived at that place—when the imperative of restructuring existing governmental institutions becomes manifest. Without trying, we'll never know what a secession movement can accomplish. And even if all a secession movement accomplishes is to cause a few rashes at the County Building, it's worth the effort.
Chicago Tribune
Why didn't someone tell us sooner that we could free ourselves from the clutches of Cook County?
Yes, it's legally possible, but practically impossible, for suburban townships to secede from the county and its oppressive taxes, bloated payrolls, insider dealings and pathetic leadership. Still, it might be worth the effort. After all, if you can't beat them, leave them.
Several Palatine government officials, pushed to the limit by the county's recent sales tax increase, which may send shoppers scooting across the county line into adjacent Lake County, are discussing secession as something more than a stunt. Lost business and lost sales tax revenues are the price that the village and its businesses may pay for Cook County's budgetary dereliction and other mischief.
State Sen. Matt Murphy and state Rep. Suzanne Bassi, both Palatine Republicans, have introduced legislation that would make it easier for townships to liberate themselves from the chokehold of Cook County President Todd Stroger and his County Board toadies. Under the legislation, the signatures of 10 percent of the voters in a township would force the township government to hold a secession referendum. If a majority of voters agree, it's bye-bye Todd. Other townships could follow.
But under current law, voters throughout Cook County would have to approve the disconnection, which is about as likely as the fresh scent of virtue wafting down Chicago City Hall corridors.
Indeed, chances aren't much better for the General Assembly passing this legislation. It has been consigned to the rules committees of both houses, the usual resting places for orphaned bills. Even if it came to a vote, you won't find many lawmakers around the state who would be prepared to upset the established political order by making it easier for indignant voters to carve up the existing government infrastructure.
But as dismal as the outlook for this legislation is, it's even more remote that Stroger and the County Board will reform themselves. Or that the county electorate—content to be lambs shepherded by scoundrels—will actually force reform.
In his splendid book "Grafters and Goo Goos: Corruption and Reform in Chicago, 1833-2003," veteran political observer James L. Merriner shed some light on the likelihood of such an earthshaking event. It was as far back as 1877, when a do-gooder group called the Citizens Association wondered what its role should be after it achieved the seemingly impossible—the reform of the city's fire protection program. (Astonishingly, just six years after Chicago's Great Fire, City Hall graft, corruption, indifference and incompetence threatened to leave the city vulnerable to another great fire, a thought so horrifying that even the foes of reform couldn't stop it.) So, basking in the warmth of fire protection reform, association President Murray Nelson suggested, "Should an honest board of the commissioners be elected, then possibly the association would be of no more service to the city."
The association, like other reformers, is long gone, but the County Board survives as it was, its insider members laughing up their sleeves at the futility of suckers who think everything should be on the legit. Steeled by such invulnerability, they hardly pause to pass outta-sight budgets and taxes.
Believing that he can throw any insult at taxpayers without consequence, Stroger commits one outrage after another—a big raise for a relative here, a job for a pal there.
With great prescience, reformer Nelson noted, "Reformers won't stay mad for more than six months," a truth that gives Stroger and his cronies every benefit of time. I've never been one to believe that tinkering with the form of government will ensure reform. So, I'm not convinced that a bunch of disgruntled townships dropping out of Cook County will ensure good government. But there comes a point—America's founding fathers once arrived at that place—when the imperative of restructuring existing governmental institutions becomes manifest. Without trying, we'll never know what a secession movement can accomplish. And even if all a secession movement accomplishes is to cause a few rashes at the County Building, it's worth the effort.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Deafening Racket of Regulatory Boards
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Whatever the outcome of the Tony Rezko trail, it has had one salutary effect: The uselessness of another government bureaucracy is on full display
Chicago Daily Observer
Whatever the outcome of the Tony Rezko trail, it has had one salutary effect: The uselessness of another government bureaucracy is on full display
I’m referring to the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which was created in 1974 with the misguided notion that health care costs could be controlled by government clamping down on hospital construction.
Rezko is charged with stocking the board with an acquiescent majority, which he used to try to engineer board decisions for kickbacks. At Rezko’s instructions, according to testimony in the trial, that board approved a new hospital in Crystal Lake, even though state health experts said the Crystal Lake hospital wasn’t needed. Expertise has a way in Chicago and Illinois of collapsing in the face of hurricanes fueled by greed and corruption.
Read more at the Chicago Daily ObserverMonday, March 24, 2008
Something's fishy about pork debate
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
You've got to hand it to Sen. Dick Durbin. When everyone is blasting the "earmarking" of federal funds for favored local projects, the Illinois Democrat defends the practice.
At least he's honest about it, unlike so many others who say they oppose earmarks, while soaking them up like bread dabbed in gravy. Take our favorite son and presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, who says he'll get rid of them—partially at least—yet he basks in the warm gratitude of Illinois interests that are the lucky recipients of the federal loot. Obama, on his campaign Web site, touts his promise to "slash earmarks to no greater than year 2001 levels."
Wonderful.
Yet Taxpayers for Common Sense shows him sponsoring $3.3 million in earmarks in 2008. Counting earmarks he sponsored with other senators, the total comes to $98.6 million. On a list of 2007 earmarks that he disclosed was a $1 million request for the University of Chicago Medical Center, where his wife, Michelle, is a vice president. Obama told the Tribune editorial board that the university is "a major constituency of ours," so he didn't think he should "recuse" himself. Still, he said, the earmark is "probably something that we should have been passed on to . . . Durbin."
Undoubtedly, Durbin would have grabbed at the opportunity, and that tweaked the interest of Durbin's Republican rival in the November general election, Steve Sauerberg. In a statement, Sauerberg compared the pass-off to Durbin to "laundering" earmarks for Obama's family. (While Sauerberg condemned the "corrupt earmark culture in Washington," he oddly criticized Durbin for not bringing home enough bacon, i.e. earmarks, for Illinois.)
Durbin declares his love of earmarks to be above board, proudly announcing "every" project he wins for Illinois. "The Senate passed substantial reforms relative to earmarks last year," he notes on his Web site, explaining why he's against more restrictions on earmarks. "Those changes made the process more open and transparent, and they hold senators accountable for every dime of spending they push for. Openness, honesty and transparency are what's needed—not an arbitrary end to the process."
Durbin, on his own and with others, last year sponsored more than $380 million in earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. If you look at Durbin's and Obama's lists, you'll find no Alaskan bridges to nowhere. No museums honoring Woodstock or Lawrence Welk. What you'll find is aid to women's shelters, intersection improvements, senior centers, as well as job-producing contracts to defense contractors, university research centers and the like.
For every project, there's someone who thinks that it is a good idea. Yet earmarks are bad. They distort priorities, for one thing, by shoving through the legislative process individual projects that might not be as worthy as others that are more thoroughly vetted. Generally, earmarks are a zero-sum game because each one does not necessarily increase the budget, but diverts money from some other project. Some earmarks are snuck into legislation without thorough hearings and debate. They are an invitation to corruption, serving as payback to special interests for campaign contributions.
But the more you look into the debate about earmarks, the more it looks like funny business. Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton were among a very few Democrats who recently voted for a one-year freeze on earmarks, putting themselves on record as good guys. Yet, they and everyone else knew that the proposal didn't have a chance of passage, so their votes were mere showboating.
The funny business is bipartisan: President Bush has promised to veto any appropriation that comes to him larded with earmarks, yet his own budget proposal, Democrats say, is full of earmarks.
Despite all the fighting over earmarks, there seems to be little agreement on their exact definition; each expert group of earmark watchers differs on their numbers and costs. So when Obama says he will reduce the level of earmarks to the 2001 level, it could mean, well, who knows?
We all can agree, however, that earmarks have increased despite promises to dramatically reduce them. The $14.8 billion worth of earmarks in 2007 spending bills is less than the record set in 2005. But in 2008, they're back on the way up, at $18.3 billion. Which leads to the question: Are there really enough politicians willing to seriously take on earmarks to do anything about them?
Chicago Tribune
You've got to hand it to Sen. Dick Durbin. When everyone is blasting the "earmarking" of federal funds for favored local projects, the Illinois Democrat defends the practice.
At least he's honest about it, unlike so many others who say they oppose earmarks, while soaking them up like bread dabbed in gravy. Take our favorite son and presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, who says he'll get rid of them—partially at least—yet he basks in the warm gratitude of Illinois interests that are the lucky recipients of the federal loot. Obama, on his campaign Web site, touts his promise to "slash earmarks to no greater than year 2001 levels."
Wonderful.
Yet Taxpayers for Common Sense shows him sponsoring $3.3 million in earmarks in 2008. Counting earmarks he sponsored with other senators, the total comes to $98.6 million. On a list of 2007 earmarks that he disclosed was a $1 million request for the University of Chicago Medical Center, where his wife, Michelle, is a vice president. Obama told the Tribune editorial board that the university is "a major constituency of ours," so he didn't think he should "recuse" himself. Still, he said, the earmark is "probably something that we should have been passed on to . . . Durbin."
Undoubtedly, Durbin would have grabbed at the opportunity, and that tweaked the interest of Durbin's Republican rival in the November general election, Steve Sauerberg. In a statement, Sauerberg compared the pass-off to Durbin to "laundering" earmarks for Obama's family. (While Sauerberg condemned the "corrupt earmark culture in Washington," he oddly criticized Durbin for not bringing home enough bacon, i.e. earmarks, for Illinois.)
Durbin declares his love of earmarks to be above board, proudly announcing "every" project he wins for Illinois. "The Senate passed substantial reforms relative to earmarks last year," he notes on his Web site, explaining why he's against more restrictions on earmarks. "Those changes made the process more open and transparent, and they hold senators accountable for every dime of spending they push for. Openness, honesty and transparency are what's needed—not an arbitrary end to the process."
Durbin, on his own and with others, last year sponsored more than $380 million in earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. If you look at Durbin's and Obama's lists, you'll find no Alaskan bridges to nowhere. No museums honoring Woodstock or Lawrence Welk. What you'll find is aid to women's shelters, intersection improvements, senior centers, as well as job-producing contracts to defense contractors, university research centers and the like.
For every project, there's someone who thinks that it is a good idea. Yet earmarks are bad. They distort priorities, for one thing, by shoving through the legislative process individual projects that might not be as worthy as others that are more thoroughly vetted. Generally, earmarks are a zero-sum game because each one does not necessarily increase the budget, but diverts money from some other project. Some earmarks are snuck into legislation without thorough hearings and debate. They are an invitation to corruption, serving as payback to special interests for campaign contributions.
But the more you look into the debate about earmarks, the more it looks like funny business. Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton were among a very few Democrats who recently voted for a one-year freeze on earmarks, putting themselves on record as good guys. Yet, they and everyone else knew that the proposal didn't have a chance of passage, so their votes were mere showboating.
The funny business is bipartisan: President Bush has promised to veto any appropriation that comes to him larded with earmarks, yet his own budget proposal, Democrats say, is full of earmarks.
Despite all the fighting over earmarks, there seems to be little agreement on their exact definition; each expert group of earmark watchers differs on their numbers and costs. So when Obama says he will reduce the level of earmarks to the 2001 level, it could mean, well, who knows?
We all can agree, however, that earmarks have increased despite promises to dramatically reduce them. The $14.8 billion worth of earmarks in 2007 spending bills is less than the record set in 2005. But in 2008, they're back on the way up, at $18.3 billion. Which leads to the question: Are there really enough politicians willing to seriously take on earmarks to do anything about them?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Barack Obama’s speech was brilliant
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Today’s Philadelphia Speech, as it may become known, is a milepost in American race relations, approaching the significance of the “I have a dream speech” delivered in 1963 by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Just about everything Obama said in the speech was exactly right.
Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Today’s Philadelphia Speech, as it may become known, is a milepost in American race relations, approaching the significance of the “I have a dream speech” delivered in 1963 by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Just about everything Obama said in the speech was exactly right.
The carefully crafted speech is a landmark because it is was built around the premise that America can change.
“The profound mistake of Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society,” Obama said. “It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old—is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.
“But what we know—what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”
This is no small acknowledgment. Recognition of great progress is something that both “sides” need to hear. It must echo through black churches that are enslaved on a plantation of never-ending recriminations against past wrongs. It needs to be understood and not ridiculed by the gaggle of bug-eyed, conservative talk show hosts.
Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Monday, March 17, 2008
Illinois GOP's failures are so stunning that party must be rebuilt
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Jim Oberweis perhaps should quit now as the Republican candidate in the 14th Congressional District -- former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's district -- before he sets some kind of record for most congressional elections lost in a single year.
If Oberweis stays in the race and loses, it will be the fifth time in as many tries that he has failed to get elected to a major office. Oberweis' ego has embarrassed the party enough; another loss in November to Bill Foster, who beat Oberweis in the traditionally Republican district in the the March 8 special election, likely will cement that seat firmly in the Democratic camp for many years.
Then again, perhaps Oberweis shouldn't withdraw, since the likelihood is great that party officials would replace him with someone even worse. Someone such as Alan Keyes, the guy who party leaders brought in from the outside to run for U.S. senator after the primary's winner, Jack Ryan, was forced to withdraw when operatives in his own party outed him for allegedly taking his wife to sex clubs. That's old history, of course.
The more recent history is the surprise that many suburban voters in the Cook County GOP primary got when they looked at their ballots and found a bunch of blank spaces because no Republican was running for county office, except for state's attorney (Tony Peraica). Some voters found no GOP legislative candidate or judge on their ballots. It has become so bad that Republicans couldn't even find the usual sacrificial lambs to maintain the pretense of the party's existence.
Most amazingly, the moldering Republican Party hasn't leveraged to its advantage the fact the Democrats are almost exclusively responsible (exception, see below) for our corrupt, bungling and tax-sucking state and local governments. Todd Stroger, Rod Blagojevich, the Democratic-controlled House and Senate, the entire Cook County government.
How many opportunities do Republicans need to be handed before they cash in on the totality of malfeasances, misfeasances and nonfeasances committed by Democrats? The problem, of course, is that too many "Republicans" have themselves cashed in by signing on to the various Democratic feasances. It's hard for Republicans to define themselves as the party of reform when many of the party's "leaders" are on their backs waiting for their tummies to be scratched by Democrats. No amount of rhetoric will convince reform-hungry voters -- I assume some exist -- that Republicans are serious until the corporate and civic bigwigs passionately and publicly cut their ties with the likes of Mayor Richard Daley.
But wouldn't that be suicide? Isn't that the way we get things done around here? Yeah, sure. Just look and see how well everything is working. Governments mired in corruption that hits every taxpayer in the wallet. Governments confiscating more and more taxes to finance their buddy systems. Governments unable to efficiently provide basic services. Racking up record deficits. Dodging their creditors. Yes, you guys in the corporate and civic corner offices, this is a government that works. It's so wonderful, I'm sure you'd like to mimic it in your own operations.
Obviously, it takes more than being not-Democrat to successfully run for office. Which is why Republicans have to begin finding a way to enunciate what they are for. Republicans have been at each other's throats for too long, for whatever reason. It's a cliche to say that Republicans have to stand for something, but it's true. Republicans here stand for nothing. The only passionate ideas are found in the nooks occupied by the ideologically pure, whose causes individually aren't enough to add up to a successful campaign. Republicans need to pick something they are fierce about. They can start by finding out what they agree on.
But having ideas is no good unless you've got good candidates and an organization. E-mail correspondent Steven put it well: "I arrived recently in Illinois after 17 years in the Boston area. I was active, politically. The Illinois [Republican] Party is impenetrable to the newcomer. ... No reaching out; no organization; no desire. All of the worst that can befall a state party. This is a mess."
It's time for the proven failures who are running the party to, if not step aside, then build a major league farm system. That means support the promising, bright and honest young candidates with money, organization and enthusiasm.
Finally, it's time to recruit Democrats with a conscience into the Republican cause. These would be the Democrats who are fed up with corruption, higher taxes and waste. There are still a few Democrats around like that. Aren't there?
Chicago Tribune
Jim Oberweis perhaps should quit now as the Republican candidate in the 14th Congressional District -- former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's district -- before he sets some kind of record for most congressional elections lost in a single year.
If Oberweis stays in the race and loses, it will be the fifth time in as many tries that he has failed to get elected to a major office. Oberweis' ego has embarrassed the party enough; another loss in November to Bill Foster, who beat Oberweis in the traditionally Republican district in the the March 8 special election, likely will cement that seat firmly in the Democratic camp for many years.
Then again, perhaps Oberweis shouldn't withdraw, since the likelihood is great that party officials would replace him with someone even worse. Someone such as Alan Keyes, the guy who party leaders brought in from the outside to run for U.S. senator after the primary's winner, Jack Ryan, was forced to withdraw when operatives in his own party outed him for allegedly taking his wife to sex clubs. That's old history, of course.
The more recent history is the surprise that many suburban voters in the Cook County GOP primary got when they looked at their ballots and found a bunch of blank spaces because no Republican was running for county office, except for state's attorney (Tony Peraica). Some voters found no GOP legislative candidate or judge on their ballots. It has become so bad that Republicans couldn't even find the usual sacrificial lambs to maintain the pretense of the party's existence.
Most amazingly, the moldering Republican Party hasn't leveraged to its advantage the fact the Democrats are almost exclusively responsible (exception, see below) for our corrupt, bungling and tax-sucking state and local governments. Todd Stroger, Rod Blagojevich, the Democratic-controlled House and Senate, the entire Cook County government.
How many opportunities do Republicans need to be handed before they cash in on the totality of malfeasances, misfeasances and nonfeasances committed by Democrats? The problem, of course, is that too many "Republicans" have themselves cashed in by signing on to the various Democratic feasances. It's hard for Republicans to define themselves as the party of reform when many of the party's "leaders" are on their backs waiting for their tummies to be scratched by Democrats. No amount of rhetoric will convince reform-hungry voters -- I assume some exist -- that Republicans are serious until the corporate and civic bigwigs passionately and publicly cut their ties with the likes of Mayor Richard Daley.
But wouldn't that be suicide? Isn't that the way we get things done around here? Yeah, sure. Just look and see how well everything is working. Governments mired in corruption that hits every taxpayer in the wallet. Governments confiscating more and more taxes to finance their buddy systems. Governments unable to efficiently provide basic services. Racking up record deficits. Dodging their creditors. Yes, you guys in the corporate and civic corner offices, this is a government that works. It's so wonderful, I'm sure you'd like to mimic it in your own operations.
Obviously, it takes more than being not-Democrat to successfully run for office. Which is why Republicans have to begin finding a way to enunciate what they are for. Republicans have been at each other's throats for too long, for whatever reason. It's a cliche to say that Republicans have to stand for something, but it's true. Republicans here stand for nothing. The only passionate ideas are found in the nooks occupied by the ideologically pure, whose causes individually aren't enough to add up to a successful campaign. Republicans need to pick something they are fierce about. They can start by finding out what they agree on.
But having ideas is no good unless you've got good candidates and an organization. E-mail correspondent Steven put it well: "I arrived recently in Illinois after 17 years in the Boston area. I was active, politically. The Illinois [Republican] Party is impenetrable to the newcomer. ... No reaching out; no organization; no desire. All of the worst that can befall a state party. This is a mess."
It's time for the proven failures who are running the party to, if not step aside, then build a major league farm system. That means support the promising, bright and honest young candidates with money, organization and enthusiasm.
Finally, it's time to recruit Democrats with a conscience into the Republican cause. These would be the Democrats who are fed up with corruption, higher taxes and waste. There are still a few Democrats around like that. Aren't there?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Why the GOP lost Hastert's seat
By Dennis Byrne
RealClearPolitics
This will come as news to Washington politicians and pundits, but the Republicans lost former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's seat not because it represents a political sea change, as Democrats would have it.
Nor should they buy the Republican explanations that it was some kind of fluke.
Truth is, the loss of the historically Republican district has virtually no national meaning. It is a measure of the moribundity of the Illinoisʼ Republican Party, whose national consequences seem not to be fully appreciated by the GOPʼs national proprietors. The once proud and powerful party of the late senators Everett McKinley Dirksen and Charles Percy, and more recently former Gov. Big Jim Thompson, has sunken to such depths it didn't even bother to field token candidates in the populous Cook County.
Real more at RealClearPolitics
RealClearPolitics
This will come as news to Washington politicians and pundits, but the Republicans lost former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's seat not because it represents a political sea change, as Democrats would have it.
Nor should they buy the Republican explanations that it was some kind of fluke.
Truth is, the loss of the historically Republican district has virtually no national meaning. It is a measure of the moribundity of the Illinoisʼ Republican Party, whose national consequences seem not to be fully appreciated by the GOPʼs national proprietors. The once proud and powerful party of the late senators Everett McKinley Dirksen and Charles Percy, and more recently former Gov. Big Jim Thompson, has sunken to such depths it didn't even bother to field token candidates in the populous Cook County.
Real more at RealClearPolitics
Monday, March 10, 2008
Rumbling you hear is haggling over more freight trains
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
If dozens of freight trains were blasting through your neighborhood every day, you'd probably complain too.
And so, folks in a ring of outer suburbs, from Waukegan, down through Barrington, Elgin and Joliet, and over to Gary, are beefing about a proposal to turn an underused railroad bypass around Chicago into something of a freight superhighway. But in the usual game of winners and losers, Chicago and inner suburbs are cheering because they see the plan as deliverance from the same trains that now rumble through their neighborhoods.
The project also has broader implications for the region's economic health and its pre-eminence as the nation's transportation hub. This could turn into a contentious and important regional fight.
Under the bypass proposal, Canadian National Railway would buy the 198-mile Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Co. for about $300 million. It would spend another $100 million on upgrades to allow roughly 20 trains a day -- compared with today's four or so -- to avoid the delays caused by wending through the city's maze of freight yards, switches and crossovers. Chicago's railroad pioneers as far back as the 19th Century knew that they had created problems when they made Chicago the nation's rail hub, with lines from all over the country terminating here but few passing around. So a group of 21 railroads in 1888 built the EJ&E railroad as a bypass.
After the CN and the EJ&E announced the planned buyout in September, communities along the route began mobilizing in protest of the noise, pollution, traffic backups at grade crossings and other blights. A group called Barrington Communities Against CN Rail Congestion wants the railroad to pay for building viaducts -- at a cost of $1.5 billion -- at 30 of the line's 133 grade crossings. The railroad says it would contribute its "fair share" for three or four bridges, but that state and federal taxpayers should pay most.
DuPage County won't sell an acre of its forest preserve land the CN says it needs for switching improvements. Metra wants to know how the project will affect its long-planned construction of suburb-to-suburb commuter service along the EJ&E route and whether its service on existing lines that cross the EJ&E route will be hurt.
Further, would the plan affect CREATE? That's an ongoing $1.5 billion public-private partnership designed to speed freight and passenger trains through Chicago, instead of around it. The partnership also would build new viaducts to eliminate the unnerving traffic delays at 25 of its 180 grade crossings. The railroads' share of the six-year project is about $212 million; the rest is supposed to be the government's. But Chicago Metropolis 2020, a leading civic group, notes that assured project funding is short by about $1.2 billion, and at its current pace, CREATE won't be done for at least 25 years. Notably, CN's bypass plans are not limited by similar constraints because the railroad will fund the entire project.
So, here come more questions. Will the new bypass threaten prospective funding for CREATE? Will the railroads funding CREATE have full interchange access to the bypass? Will the bypass have unimpeded access to existing and new "intermodal" yards on the South Side where freight containers are swapped between trucks and rail cars? Maybe it's not a sign of things to come, but a CN spokesman said other railroads could not become a part of the bypass deal.
Answers will come from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, a regulatory agency that reviews proposed mergers and settles railroad disputes, but only after an environmental impact study is completed, which could take three years.
As dry as these issues sound, the stakes -- in terms of employment and the region's economy -- are high. Edward Hamberger, head of the Association of American Railroads, notes that one-third of America's rail and truck cargo moves to, from or through the Chicago area.
"Chicago is by far the busiest rail freight gateway in the United States," he said in a statement, "[handling] more than 37,500 rail freight cars every day. Twenty years from now that's expected to increase to 67,000 cars a day."
As usual, the temptation is to paint the issues as black and white. Instead, it is a classic example of how making public policy is difficult because it requires compromise. Someone's going to hear more train whistles, others fewer. The CN may have to become more attuned to its impact on families; impacted communities may have to moderate their demands. But with the prospect that rail traffic must double here in 25 years, it's suicide for us to view this as the usual zero-sum game.
Chicago Tribune
If dozens of freight trains were blasting through your neighborhood every day, you'd probably complain too.
And so, folks in a ring of outer suburbs, from Waukegan, down through Barrington, Elgin and Joliet, and over to Gary, are beefing about a proposal to turn an underused railroad bypass around Chicago into something of a freight superhighway. But in the usual game of winners and losers, Chicago and inner suburbs are cheering because they see the plan as deliverance from the same trains that now rumble through their neighborhoods.
The project also has broader implications for the region's economic health and its pre-eminence as the nation's transportation hub. This could turn into a contentious and important regional fight.
Under the bypass proposal, Canadian National Railway would buy the 198-mile Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Co. for about $300 million. It would spend another $100 million on upgrades to allow roughly 20 trains a day -- compared with today's four or so -- to avoid the delays caused by wending through the city's maze of freight yards, switches and crossovers. Chicago's railroad pioneers as far back as the 19th Century knew that they had created problems when they made Chicago the nation's rail hub, with lines from all over the country terminating here but few passing around. So a group of 21 railroads in 1888 built the EJ&E railroad as a bypass.
After the CN and the EJ&E announced the planned buyout in September, communities along the route began mobilizing in protest of the noise, pollution, traffic backups at grade crossings and other blights. A group called Barrington Communities Against CN Rail Congestion wants the railroad to pay for building viaducts -- at a cost of $1.5 billion -- at 30 of the line's 133 grade crossings. The railroad says it would contribute its "fair share" for three or four bridges, but that state and federal taxpayers should pay most.
DuPage County won't sell an acre of its forest preserve land the CN says it needs for switching improvements. Metra wants to know how the project will affect its long-planned construction of suburb-to-suburb commuter service along the EJ&E route and whether its service on existing lines that cross the EJ&E route will be hurt.
Further, would the plan affect CREATE? That's an ongoing $1.5 billion public-private partnership designed to speed freight and passenger trains through Chicago, instead of around it. The partnership also would build new viaducts to eliminate the unnerving traffic delays at 25 of its 180 grade crossings. The railroads' share of the six-year project is about $212 million; the rest is supposed to be the government's. But Chicago Metropolis 2020, a leading civic group, notes that assured project funding is short by about $1.2 billion, and at its current pace, CREATE won't be done for at least 25 years. Notably, CN's bypass plans are not limited by similar constraints because the railroad will fund the entire project.
So, here come more questions. Will the new bypass threaten prospective funding for CREATE? Will the railroads funding CREATE have full interchange access to the bypass? Will the bypass have unimpeded access to existing and new "intermodal" yards on the South Side where freight containers are swapped between trucks and rail cars? Maybe it's not a sign of things to come, but a CN spokesman said other railroads could not become a part of the bypass deal.
Answers will come from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, a regulatory agency that reviews proposed mergers and settles railroad disputes, but only after an environmental impact study is completed, which could take three years.
As dry as these issues sound, the stakes -- in terms of employment and the region's economy -- are high. Edward Hamberger, head of the Association of American Railroads, notes that one-third of America's rail and truck cargo moves to, from or through the Chicago area.
"Chicago is by far the busiest rail freight gateway in the United States," he said in a statement, "[handling] more than 37,500 rail freight cars every day. Twenty years from now that's expected to increase to 67,000 cars a day."
As usual, the temptation is to paint the issues as black and white. Instead, it is a classic example of how making public policy is difficult because it requires compromise. Someone's going to hear more train whistles, others fewer. The CN may have to become more attuned to its impact on families; impacted communities may have to moderate their demands. But with the prospect that rail traffic must double here in 25 years, it's suicide for us to view this as the usual zero-sum game.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Saturday with Foster and Oberweis
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer
Republicans might as well bid former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat good-bye, and the nation finally will notice the utter dismal, if not dead, shape of the state GOP.
Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Chicago Daily Observer
Republicans might as well bid former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat good-bye, and the nation finally will notice the utter dismal, if not dead, shape of the state GOP.
Even if the Republicans hold on to Hastert’s seat in a close call, it will be a clear sign that the state party is beyond resuscitation.
Hastert’s 14th congressional district, which runs from west suburban Chicago almost to the Iowa state line, long has been a GOP stronghold, but in a Saturday [March 8] special election it could go to the Democrats thanks to a series of dreadful Republican failures:
• An ugly primary battle that split the district’s GOP voters into bitter factions, certain to dampen party turnout.
• A comatose state Republican party...Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer
Monday, March 03, 2008
Obama's got the details; they're a disaster
Obama rejects the criticism that he's dealing in generalities; he says he does have a detailed plan for ending the war in Iraq. Fair enough. Let's check out the details.
Read it in the Chicago Daily Observer
Read it in the Chicago Daily Observer
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.
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.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Ban anonymous sources in campaign stories
By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens
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
Monday, February 18, 2008
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.
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.
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