EXTRA: Coffee, or milk?

Who’d have thought that girl scout cookies could be a subject for debate for hard-core Chicago political types?



MURPHY: Plugging the Girl Scouts?



Yet that seems to be the case, as the matter of those pastries peddled each year to help raise money for Girl Scouts of America programs managed to creep its way into the debate of the Cook County Board.

THE MATTER STARTED when county board member Joan Patricia Murphy of suburban Crestwood sponsored a resolution asking the county board to praise the Girl Scouts – who are getting recognition all over the place these days because the organization is 100 years old.

One full century of existence will even get a resolution from the Cook County Board, which was in a mood Tuesday to praise just about everything. (For the record, Murphy was not a Girl Scout – but her daughter was).

Anyway, such a resolution meant that many county board members felt the need to say something spirited about the Girl Scouts.

Even county board member Deborah Sims of the far South Side, who managed to find something sort of negative to say – she says she believes that the recipie was changed for the Peanut Butter sandwich cookies.

SHE SAYS THEY don’t taste the same as she remembers them from when she was younger, and she wishes the Girl Scouts would go back to making them the old way.

Leave it to county board member William Beavers of the South Side to feel compelled to disagree.

He says the cookies are still “delicious” and knows that for a fact because he had four of them for breakfast – along with his cup of coffee.

Have they really changed?

Which led to a one-on-one discussion between Beavers and Sims, with the latter pointing out to Beavers that the only way to truly enjoy a Girl Scout cookie is to dunk it in a cold glass of milk.

SO DOES THE presence of coffee somehow cover up potential flaws in Girl Scout cookies? Or do Chicago politicos have to become a batch of milk drinkers in order to appreciate the delicacy?

Which may be something that Beavers will want to savor now – particularly if federal prosecutors ultimately succeed in their case against him and make him a room-mate (so to speak) of our state’s “illustrious” former governor (one day left of freedom) who has indicated he will give us his “last words” on Wednesday.

Why do I suspect that the Sims/Beavers exchange about Girl Scout cookies will wind up being more significant than anything Rod Blagojevich has to say.

Maybe we should stuff a Girl Scout cookie in his mouth (a Samoa?) to shut him up.

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