How ugly can “America” be?

Three men are in federal custody in Denver, as officials say they suspect the trio was hatching a plot to try to shoot presidential hopeful Barack Obama while he gave his acceptance speech Thursday at the Democratic National Convention.

Now it is true that these three particular individuals (who currently only face unlawful use of weapons-type charges) were probably not a serious threat.

LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT officials say that while they had rifles and scopes for long-distance shooting, there was so much about their “plot” that was unplanned that it was highly unlikely they would have been able to get their act together in time to do anything harmful to Obama.

But the fact that white supremacists (the three in custody are being judged that largely because of the specific tattoos, including swastikas, they have on their bodies) would even concoct such a scheme is telling.

The ugly underside of “The American Way of Life” is exposed. And while I will admit that not everybody who has a problem with Obama because of his biracial background is prepared to try to kill him, perhaps it is time we quit trying to ignore the fact that race is an issue in this presidential campaign in a way it never has been in the past.

Reading through the often incoherent (and almost always anonymous) ramblings of the white supremacist movement creates a picture of pathetic men desperately eager to take up their firearms and use them on black people. These people want a racial war, and are looking for an excuse to claim they were attacked.

INSOFAR AS OBAMA is concerned, there are the generic rants that he needs to be killed, or pleas that someone should do it. Of course, these anonymous people make an effort to stop themselves before saying they would commit such an act.

Even those white supremacists who are able to accept the fact that Obama could win the general election see violence breaking out. The presence of a President Obama would infuriate them to the point of taking action.

Since so much of this is anonymous, it is easy to give credit to one of the few ramblings where the author had the nerve to put his name on his thoughts. That would be David Duke, the one-time Klansman-turned-Louisiana politico-turned activist on behalf of his race.

“Obama will be a clear signal for millions of our people,” Duke wrote earlier this summer on his personal website. “Obama is a visual aid for white Americans who just don’t get it yet that we have lost control of our country, and unless we get it back we are heading for complete annihilation as a people.”

NOW I’M NOT claiming that people who support Republican opponent John McCain are racist or white supremacist or any kind of “ist.” In fact, I would guess that the real racists have just as many problems with McCain as they do any other candidate.

Duke, in the same essay, says Obama is “not appreciably different” in his views than either Hillary R. Clinton or McCain, and, “no worse for us than any of the white sell-outs” who have been elected to political office in the past.

That also is why it did not surprise me to learn that the estranged wife of one of the Denver Trio claimed her husband was ‘apolitical” and probably didn’t even know the Democrats were gathering in Denver for their nominating convention.

He probably did have no interest in conventional electoral politics that comprise the real “American Way” of life. These would-be racists who are willing to use the imagery of the Nazi era in Germany are fascists as opposed to the concept of Democracy as anyone on this planet.

THESE ARE THE people whose only interest in politics and government is staging (in their wildest fantasies) some sort of armed coup de tat that allows them to impose themselves as Leader of the Universe, with their first order being the extermination of people unlike themselves.

It sounds like the plot of a half-wit video game. It would be laughable, if it weren’t so real.

There is an ugly streak that exists in this country. Now if it were just a matter of some pathetic twits wanting to live their lives in a cave isolated from the rest of us, it would be no problem. Permitting that IS the “American Way.”

It is when those people become a risk to the public safety that they must be dealt with as criminals. So I’m not particularly interested in hearing people claim that the three men in federal custody who were caught with riflescopes in Denver are being persecuted for their beliefs.

ALTHOUGH AFTER READING many racist rants off the Internet, I suspect the Denver Trio will not be regarded as martyrs for “the cause” as much as they will be subjected to derision from the supremacists for failing so badly to hatch a plot against Obama.

There was one part of Duke’s commentary that I think needs serious response.

He wrote that he believes Obama’s presence as a legitimate presidential candidate will cause white people to start thinking more blatantly about racial issues when they vote. “The minorities have long had this consciousness,” Duke wrote. “They have been voting in blocs for decades. Now, it is our turn.”

I don’t buy it, largely because of the example I have seen in Chicago where our local politics turned ugly and focused heavily on race (remember Council Wars?)

YET NO AFRICAN-American public official since Harold Washington has had to endure the blatantly hostile attitudes of white Chicago, largely because we got to see firsthand that a “black mayor” was not a radical concept that would drive the city into bankruptcy. It also helps that a lot of white people think back to the things they said and did back then, and now wonder how they could have been so ridiculous.

It was an embarrassing era that many in the Second City would not want to repeat.

I have wondered to myself if a President Obama is a sign that the nation is going to go through the same experience in the upcoming decade. Will Obama get such a hostile reaction from Congressional opponents that people will look back on the Bill Clinton years by comparison as an era of bipartisan cooperation?

Will we later look back and realize how ridiculous it all is?

IF SO, THEN maybe there is a benefit, although I will feel sorry for Obama himself, since it would mean subjecting himself to an ordeal unlike anything ever experienced before.

I must confess, however, to seeing one semi-humorous element concerning the Denver Trio – their timing.

They were arrested on Monday, the same day that potential first lady Michelle Obama spoke about her husband to the Democratic National Convention in what was perceived by some pundits as an attempt to revise the strident public image they were eager to give her.

Having to be reminded of the racial attitudes of the past on the same day she spoke was yet more anecdotal evidence that Michelle was not being absurd when she said earlier this year during a campaign event in Wisconsin that the positive response her husband’s campaign received made her “proud” for the first time in her adult life to be an American.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: These two commentaries provide a sampler of some of the types of hostile rhetoric (http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/06/11/president-obama-many-white-supremacists-are-celebrating/) that exists on the Internet from white supremacists concerning Barack Obama. Following the links and digging deeper will take you into a (http://fitnessfortheoccasion.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/obama-the-white-supremacist-backlash/) world that will (at the very least) give you an intense headache.

Three men are in federal custody, even though the wife of one insists her (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1126388,fbi082608.article) estranged husband was “apolitical.”

There’s a very good reason I always call political conventions “pep rallies”

For me, the essence of what a presidential nominating convention is all about can be personified by the performance of actor Edward James Olmos when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention of 1996.

You remember that convention – the first held in Chicago since the police riot-filled political bash of 1968 and since late mayor Richard J. Daley declared after the 1972 convention (the year that the Chicago delegates were dumped for a more liberal collection of officials led by Rev. Jesse Jackson) that he would NEVER again allow the Democrats to use his city for their preeminent political event.

SINCE IT WAS a foregone conclusion that the Democrats were going to give Bill Clinton a chance at a second term in office, the real story that year was less about the politics and more about the Second City. Would some Abbie Hoffman pretender try to spark some trouble with protests?

It didn’t happen. The convention itself was fairly uneventful (most people remember Vice President Al Gore’s speech, where he stood stiff as a board, then told the crowd of Democratic partisans that that was his take on the Macarena dance craze).

Self-deprecation. That is what Chicago ’96 is remembered for by many.

But not by me.

I WAS A reporter-type for United Press International at that convention, and on the first day I was on the United Center floor with hundreds of other delegates when one of the first speakers was Olmos.

He gave a brief speech about the need of the Democratic Party to take into account the needs of the United States’ growing Latino population.

Actually, I should say he TRIED to give a brief speech.

What he actually did was worked himself into a frenzy unsuccessfully trying to gain the attention of the crowd of Democratic delegates. Most of the delegates were ignoring Olmos, either milling around the floor of the United Center or engaging in their own little conversations throughout the arena.

“LISTEN TO ME!!!,” he would screech repeatedly, while trying to accentuate his speech with a shrill, piercing whistle.

It didn’t work. Nobody cared about anything that was being said that early in the show. After all, knowledgeable political people knew that the only people who were worth listening to were the ones who got speaking slots in prime time (which is the punch line behind Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s repeated jokes that he will speak at the convention hall men’s room at 4:30 a.m.).

The sad part was that nobody let Olmos in on this fact. He thought he was going to say something legitimate to inspire the nation. It didn’t happen.

These people in attendance at the convention knew that the rest of the rhetoric was nothing more than an excuse to make it appear as though the political parties are putting on complete shows to properly display their presidential nominees.

FOR THAT, ULTIMATELY, is what the presidential nominating conventions have become – a show.

In private, political party officials will be the first to admit that the primary purpose of the nominating conventions these days is to get all the delegates (who are mostly party leaders in the counties across the country) excited enough to care about winning the “Big Game” (a.k.a., the Nov. 4 elections for president).

It’s really little more than a bunch of speeches to the party faithful from the “coach” telling the “team” to win “the big game” – think the cinematic version of Knute Rockne telling Notre Dame’s gridders to, “win one for the Gipper.” Both events are about equally as legitimate.

All these local political bigwigs whose names mean absolutely nothing outside of their home counties get their chance to travel to some far-off city and live it up in semi-luxurious hotels, while also partying it up at special late-night events (I still remember in 1996, the Democrats from California held an event at Buddy Guy’s Legends blues club that was closed to anybody from outside of California).

FOR THE PEOPLE who come from the home states of Minnesota (for the GOP) or Colorado (for the Democrats), they get a chance to puff up their chests and let their egos run amok that their home gets to be shown off to the political geeks from across the U.S. of A.

All of this is done in the name of getting the party faithful enthused enough about the presidential candidates that they go back home and get their neighbors worked up into a frenzy as well.

Now how much of this is really news? Not much, I’ll admit.

Newsgathering organizations tend to be willing to spend some money to cover this “event” because it creates the perception that they are covering something of great public significance.

IT IS ONE of the few times that television stations will be willing to devote significant airtime to broadcasting the nominating conventions live. Various publications will make a point of having several reporter-types grind out as much copy as they can every day – so as to create the appearance that they gave “thorough” coverage to the “historic” event.

Yet the simple fact is that August will end with Barack Obama officially chosen by Democrats as the nominee for president. A couple of weeks later, the Republicans will follow suit and officially crush any hopes that Mike Huckabee had of becoming president, when they nominate John McCain.

In all likelihood, both men will have made their choices for vice presidential running mates just before their respective conventions.

So that is somewhat newsworthy, in that the would-be second-in-commands will get their first significant public exposure at the conventions. But that only becomes real news if one of the running mates succumbs to the innate ability of saying something stupid.

THAT IS ABOUT the only chance that real news will be made in Denver or St. Paul, unless a Rob Lowe wannabe decides to show up in either city and pull off something equally as scandalous as the actor’s behavior in 1988 with underage girls at the Democratic convention in Atlanta.

In fact, I’d argue that the “real” news related to the nominating conventions doesn’t affect the world of politics as much as it does the world of professional sports – specifically, that of baseball.

The Minnesota Twins, who are engaged in a tight pennant race with the Chicago White Sox and who have a tradition of playing significantly better in their home stadium in Minneapolis than they do on the road, are being forced into a 14-day/14-game road trip at the end of August/beginning of September.

Baseball schedulers shifted so many Twins games to the road at that time of year so that officials in the Twin Cities could focus on preparing for the convention. Twins game grounds will not be subjected to fighting their way through the throngs of Republicans who will converge on St. Paul to express their “man crush” for John McCain.

IF IT TURNS out that the White Sox manage to beat out the Twins for the division title this season by only a game or two, having so many late-season road games will certainly be a factor.

In that case, then perhaps Obama (who is a White Sox fan) ought to give a bit of thanks to the GOP bigwigs for staging their McCain pep rally in such a way as to muck up the Twins’ chances.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Slate media critic Jack Shafer may be a cantankerous sort, but he’s not wrong (http://www.slate.com/id/2197433/) when he writes that the news media would be better off letting C-SPAN handle the actual broadcasting of the presidential nominating conventions.

The real news of 2008 for Democrats could be if the Clintons (Hillary & Bill) manage to outshine (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5579194&page=1) Barack Obama at his coronation, er, uh, nomination.

Are the political parties going too far to try to control the expression of opposition thought (http://www.examiner.com/x-536-Civil-Liberties-Examiner~y2008m8d13-Security-restrictions-for-Republican-convention-under-fire) at the nominating conventions?

Which dies first - Sun-Times or Trib?

When the Chicago Sun-Times recently renewed the contract of prominent sports columnist Jay Mariotti, many sports fans were upset at the thought of having to endure three more years of Mariotti’s often-acidic prose – particularly when it relates to the concept of Jerry Reinsdorf.

Yet my first reaction was to express a sense of wonder at the thought that the Sun-Times thinks it will still be publishing three years from now. Mariotti himself has said it is a guaranteed contract (he gets his money regardless of what happens to the newspaper), and the company’s CEO, Cyrus Freidheim Jr., has said there is enough money on hand to ensure the paper lasts another two or three years with the business status quo.

BEYOND THAT, HE’S promising nothing, unless serious changes take place in the current economic situation.

I bring this up because whenever people talk about dying newspapers and the concept of dueling newssheets becoming antiquated, they automatically assume it is the Sun-Times that will someday die off.

Long Live the Chicago Tribune! Col. McCormick’s newssheet of isolationism that tried to create the concept of “Chicagoland” as a separate nation apart from the elitist east coast will be the ultimate winner of the Great Chicago Newspaper War.

That is, unless it manages to die first.

Which of these newspaper nameplates will have a longer life?

IT IS WHAT I wonder every time I hear news accounts of business problems within Tribune Co. and the need for CEO Sam Zell to sell off yet more assets and let go more staff on the various newspapers he now owns. Officials let it be known Tuesday that about 60 Chicago Tribune editorial staffers will lose their jobs later this summer.

Most recently, the Los Angeles Times let about 250 people go, including about 150 members of the editorial staff who were producing the detailed product that allowed the newspaper to have dreams of being one of the best in the country (in reality, it falls short of the New York Times or Washington Post, as does the Tribune itself).

I keep hearing talk of the need for serious change within a year’s time if there is to be a long-term future for the Chicago Tribune and its sister newspapers. I couldn’t help but notice the Sun-Times earlier this year reporting that the Tribune Co. could default on its debts by the end of 2008.

So is it possible that the bloat of Tribune Co. will crush the Chicago Tribune, thereby leaving the Sun-Times as the newspaper war winner by default? It is no more ridiculous than the situations in Denver or Detroit, where recent accounts indicate the likelihood that the Detroit News and Rocky Mountain News will someday soon be the equivalent of Chicago Today – just a memory.

I’M SURE ANYBODY affiliated directly with Tribune Co. will snicker upon reading this and say I’m being ridiculous. They will claim the Tribune has so many editorial advantages over the Sun-Times that it can’t be expected to die.

Some will even cite as an advantage the recent scaling back and redesign of the Orlando Sentinel (a Tribune sister newspaper). Officials have said the Chicago Tribune will undergo a similar alteration at summer’s end.

A scaled back Tribune (seriously, they are talking about fewer pages, which they think will significantly reduce their printing costs) will be able to cope with the current economic situation and survive, while also still providing a forum for some of the detailed reporting on international and domestic events that the Tribune often offers.

The problem is one of perception. How many Tribune readers will be willing to accept a scaled-back product? It could be a case where a slimmer newspaper scares off the people who have been loyal readers to date, while doing nothing to attract the people who are not now (and maybe never will) read anything printed with ink on paper.

BY COMPARISON, THE Sun-Times has always been a scaled-back product.

Its readers often cite its smaller size as an advantage. Admittedly, it is an easier newspaper to read while riding a commuter train or as a passenger in a carpool (I hope nobody is trying to read while driving that car).

Chicago newspaper readers could have an easier time accepting a scrawny Sun-Times than they would a slimmer Tribune.

That actually is the problem with newspapers as a medium for disseminating the news – we readers expect more substance from a newspaper than we demand from a broadcast news program or even a website devoted to offering news and commentary.

WEBSITES CAN BE considered complete if they cover one issue particularly well, yet a newspaper is expected to provide the same detailed coverage of that issue along with detailed accounts of many other issues that are totally unrelated.

Municipal government, local business, culture, athletics. What website can cover City Hall, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the White Sox equally as well as any newsprint publication?

Any worthwhile newspaper had better be capable of doing them all well. Any paper that can’t do it isn’t worth my 50 (or 75) cents. In fact, it has me wondering if the Tribune on Sundays is worth the $1.99 they started charging last week.

I think my brother put it best when he said, “I’d better at least get 20 cents worth of better comics.”

WHICH NEWSPAPER DIES first will have nothing to do with the merits of what they are publishing, unless it becomes an issue that they are publishing so little that they are not worth reading at all.

Both of the Chicago metro newspapers come up with stories that are worth knowing about in order to fully comprehend the way things operate in the Second City. Personally, I wouldn’t trust any one newspaper to give me a full account of what is happening (and too many websites are so limited in their focus that they can’t be trusted by themselves to cover the world either).

There are times I wonder if Chicago would be better off if the old Daily News were still a newspaper (and not just the inspiration for the name of a Chicago-based website), giving us a third voice that tries to cover the entire metro region.

That ultimately is the problem if either the Tribune or Sun-Times dies off. It is true that the various suburban daily newspapers will continue to exist. They often do a more thorough job of covering their particular segment of the metropolitan area than either of the two downtown Chicago-based newspapers.

BUT THERE’S ALSO the problem that those papers can develop such a tunnel vision in thinking their particular region exists all by itself without ties to the rest of Chicago. They can miss the significance of issues that only a metro newspaper can capture.

Regardless of which newspaper goes first (and I would be thoroughly shocked if both were still publishing 10 years from now, even though back in the late 1980s I thought the Sun-Times wouldn’t live long enough to see the 21st Century), Chicago will lose something significant. At the very least, one of these papers won't get the joy of covering an Olympic games staged in its own home city.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Tribune Co. has its own (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=85840) financial problems that make the U.S. government look well managed.

Is this news account just an example of Sun-Times braggadocio (http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/couriernews/business/1011276,CST-FIN-suntimes18w.article), or are things really that bad (http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=30111) at the World's Greatest Newspaper?

Is The Detroit News (http://crainsdetroit.com/article/20080707/SUB/807070321/1069) destined for the journalistic scrapheap?

Is the Rocky Mountain News really doomed because it doesn’t contain the word “Denver” (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/01/milstead-media-meltdown-tests-two-newspaper-town/?printer=1/) in its title? Or will the Denver Post’s (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2008/07/rocky_mountain_news_david_mils.php) lagging circulation bring it down?

Super delegate 'theft' an Obama concern

If I were in Barack Obama’s position these days, I’d be less worried about the upcoming primary elections and focusing my attention on keeping my super-delegates happy.

Those super-delegates are the party big-wigs in states across the country, and it is plainly obvious that they are going to be the ones who ultimately decide who gets the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in the 2008 elections.

I WILL GO so far as to predict that Obama’s presidential campaign will win May 20 in Oregon and June 3 in South Dakota, while opponent Hillary R. Clinton will win Tuesday in West Virginia, May 20 in Kentucky and June 3 in Montana.

About the only questionable remaining primary is the one scheduled for June 1 in Puerto Rico. Political amateurs presume Hillary’s “Hispanic love” will get her the victory, but anyone who carefully notices the results of Latino voters in other states will note there is a difference in the views of Mexican-American voters and Puerto Ricans who cast ballots.

The former group is the basis of Clinton’s large Latino voter majorities in most states, while Puerto Ricans who live on the mainland have shown slight support for Obama. There’s also the fact that one of the biggest Puerto Rican politicos in this country is Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has been an Obama supporter since the beginning of the campaign.

But the last three paragraphs are really nothing more than political trivia. It doesn’t matter who wins what state. Whether I turn out to be 100 percent correct (or wrong) in my predictions doesn’t matter.

NEITHER OBAMA NOR Clinton will get enough of the pledged type of delegates to win the nomination. The party powers that be are going to be the ones who decide who gets to run for president this year, and they will do so the last week of August in Denver – even though the primaries come to an end in early June.

I do not expect Clinton to drop out of the race. She has dipped into the fortune her and former President Bill Clinton have amassed through advances on book deals and the speaking engagements the potential first gentleman can charge for his time these days.

She is going to spend the rest of the spring trying to win every single delegate she can take.

Then, while many of us will have thoughts of summer vacations, Hillary will focus her attention on delegate “theft.”

SOME OF THE super-delegates have gone so far as to declare which Democrat they would support for president, but we need to remember there is nothing that legally binds them to such a declaration.

There is no reason why Clinton can’t approach those people who have talked up Obama and try to persuade them to back her instead. In some cases, she may very well appeal to past political favors – and may go so far as to twist some arms (so to speak) to force people to back away from their previous talk in support of Obama.

For some people whom she has denounced, Clinton may very well offer an “amnesty” of sorts – vote for Hillary and your treasonous talk of the past few months might be forgiven.

Who knows? Maybe even New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will be forgiven if, in mid-July, he were to publicly say he suffered from a bout of springtime stupidity, and now sees the error of his ways and backs Hillary Clinton instead of Obama.

WITH SUCH PRESSURE ahead, it is no wonder that the super delegates who have yet to announce their preference (including Chicago’s very own Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.) are going out of their way to be extremely close-mouthed.

A little bit of pressure from reporter-types asking them who they support is preferable to the hard-core press Clinton would put on them, if they came out publicly for Obama.

This is a campaign that will go down to the final days. Ultimately, the only thing from a super-delegate that will matter is how he or she casts a vote on that day during the Democratic National Convention when the role call of the states is taken.

Obama is going to have to baby-sit his super-delegates all throughout the summer to ensure there are not significant numbers of individuals who experience “changes of heart” and decide to change their minds.

NOW SOME PEOPLE might think I am over-reacting. Hillary Clinton would NEVER stoop so low as to try to steal super-delegates. It’s not like she would dig into past favors or perhaps dredge up some negative information about individuals to pressure them into changing their minds.

Yeah, right. That’s exactly what I expect to happen.

This is the person who has dug up the GOP playbook and started off many of the negative attacks that the campaign of John McCain will perfect in the autumn months, should Obama become the Democratic nominee for president.

Of course, we shouldn’t follow into the trap of thinking of Obama as “St. Barack.” If the primary season ends in early June with Obama having only a slight delegate lead and a couple hundred super-delegates refusing to say anything until the last minute, I expect he will make his own appeals to the Clinton-supporting super delegates – trying to see if he can get some of them to change their mind and back him come the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

THIS IS POWER politics at work, and Obama is capable of playing hardball as much as any other politico. If he weren’t capable of doing it, he never would have gotten elected in the world of Chicago politics.

This is, after all, the man who won his first bid for the Illinois Senate by getting the incumbent senator from his home district kicked off the ballot for filing inadequate nominating petitions – thereby allowing him to run unopposed.

Alice Palmer might very well have had flawed nominating petitions (not enough valid signatures of support). But a true “goo goo” (good government type) would have talked of allowing “the voters” to decide, and would not have had the nerve to use a technicality to ensure his electoral victory in 1996.

IT WOULDN’T SURPRISE me if Team Obama were, at this very moment, searching the books related to election law, trying to find some way to legally force Clinton into backing down, because he knows she isn’t going to quit any other way.

Basically, he’s looking to do her in, before she can do him in.

That is the level of politics to which the ’08 presidential primary has declined – and it also is the reason that this is one of the few election cycles of our lifetimes that will be remembered by historians.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Here is a weblog devoted to keeping track of how many delegates and super delegates (http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/) each Democratic presidential candidate has. This site is going to continue to change throughout the summer months.

Hillary R. Clinton must be making the American people happy. The latest Gallup Organization poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/107029/Most-Democrats-Eager-Either-Candidate-Drop.aspx) shows three-fifths of the people surveyed do not want her to drop out of the primary election.

For those who think super delegates will overrule the will of the American people, it is important (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/14/superdelegates/index.html) to realize that the mood of the Democratic Party is split fairly evenly between Clinton and Barack Obama. Super delegates will be asked to break what essentially is a tie between the two.