It seems Mick Jagger skims the papers

The Rolling Stones had their latest concert in Chicago – Friday at Soldier Field. And it seems they did a touch of homework, in terms of localling up his stage patter.

The modern-day tour

For none other than Mick Jagger, whose freakishly huge lips are the band’s logo, not only welcomed new Mayor Lori Lightfoot, he also said he was “sorry” that Ed Burke couldn’t be amongst those in attendance at the first of two Stones’ concerts to be held in Chicago as part of their U.S. tour of 2019.

NOW IN SAYING, “I’m sorry Ed Burke couldn’t make it tonight,” was Jagger truly expressing some sort of desire that he would have wanted the city’s veteran alderman on hand?

Was he praising, or dissing, the alderman?

Just what was his point in even mentioning Burke? Personally, I’m inclined to think that anybody who shelled out the kind of cash charged for Rolling Stones concert tickets probably didn’t do so to hear anything of a political nature being said.

Jagger could have waved his hand at the crowd and shouted “Hello, Chicago!!!!!!” and been just as locally relevant in his commentary as he was in mentioning Burke’s persona.

SO FOR THOSE people who are claiming that Mick Jagger is taking a jab at our Chicago politics? I don’t see it!

As they once were

More likely, he checked out the Internet briefly for local happenings, and saw the Burke name prominently mentioned. Nothing more.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that Jagger’s more substantial Chicago commentary was when he happened to mention Friday that he’s never actually had an Italian beef sandwich – even though he’s been to Chicago dozens of times during the 55 years that the Rolling Stones have been a culturally-significant rock ‘n’ roll band.

BURKE: A lame Jagger joke?

Mick Jagger apparently has never got no Satisfaction from a beef sandwich – either “wet” or “dry.” Although the real question of significance to put to him would be to ask what kind of pizza he’d most enjoy.

DEEP-DISH OR thin, and also thin slices or the party-cut into squares? Then again, giving the “wrong” answer to that question would probably ensure many life-long Rolling Stones fans suddenly coming to the realization that the Beatles were better all along.

WALKER: Blew bad Blagojevich joke

Although maybe he has some sense of Chicago tucked away Under his Thumb – I still get my kicks out of that time many years ago that the Stones made an appearance at Chicago’s now-defunct Double Door club, and that then-Gov. George Ryan made a point of stopping by to see them.

Of course, Ryan was not yet amongst the roster of indicted gubernatoriales. So perhaps he would have been welcomed into the Rolling Stones’ realm of existence.

But if Jagger did give our politicos much thought, it likely was fleeting. Not likely to be repeated when they have their second Chicago concert of this tour come Tuesday (the one where Lightfoot says she WILL try to attend).

ALTHOUGH AT LEAST Jagger didn’t make the same gaffe that aging comedian Jimmie Walker once made about a decade ago while performing at the clubs that used to exist in Merrillville.

LIGHTFOOT: Will she take wife to concert Tuesday?

For Walker thought he’d be able to localize his comic patter with jokes about then-recently indicted Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Only he butchered the pronunciation so badly, he elicited mere groans. Perhaps he should have checked out the Blah-GOYA-vich pronouncer that Rod himself used to offer up,

While Blagojevich himself (a.k.a., 40892-424) was always the big Elvis fanatic who probably doesn’t view the hit “Jailhouse Rock” quite the same way he used to.

  -30-

Too little, too late for Preckwinkle?

I remember back to the 1998 election cycle for Illinois governor – the one in which Democrat Glenn Poshard had hopes that Southern Illinois would prevail over the rest of the state and make him governor.

It didn’t happen. Republican George Ryan took advantage of Chicago apathy toward Poshard along with solid voter bases in Republican parts of the state, to prevail on Election Day.

ALTHOUGH THERE WAS one point in time when the Poshard people felt optimistic. It was in the autumn when their operatives started spouting the word that a news development would become public in about two weeks – one that they insisted was so shocking and appalling that it would ensure a Poshard victory.

As I recall, it was about two weeks later that the public became aware of that accident involving an illicitly-licensed truck driver that resulted in the deaths of children.

Which later turned into a matter of Ryan’s political people accepting bribes and Ryan’s willingness to look the other way – so long as campaign donations kept coming in.

In short, the first hint of the stink that later would result in Ryan having to spend just over five years in federal prison.

NOT THAT IT made one bit of electoral difference. Because by that point in time, Poshard’s public perception amongst many voters was so low that there was nothing that could have revived him.

Will 'dead kids' work for Preckwinkle … 

If anything, all it did was reduced the size of the landslide by which Ryan would have won. It may have caused many people to decide that a vote just wasn’t worth the time to take to cast in that election cycle.

So why am I bringing up this political history from some two decades ago?

Because it popped into my mind when I learned Wednesday that mayoral hopeful Toni Preckwinkle IS going to use the final five days of the election cycle to air campaign ads meant to devastate the electoral chances of a victory by Lori Lightfoot.

THE CAMPAIGN AD is meant to remind us of a fire on the city’s West Side – one in which four children were killed. How is this relevant?

… any better than they did for Poshard?

It was during a time when Lightfoot was on the city payroll as chief of staff of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Which means she was in charge of the 911 emergency dispatch system.

Which ultimately took the blame for the fact that firefighters were not properly sent to the fire scene in time to make a difference. The courts called for sanctions, particularly since they claimed city officials – including Lightfoot – were “shockingly lax” and “cavalier” in their attitude toward addressing the problem.

Or, as Preckwinkle has a narrator say in her advertising spot that we’re likely to hear a lot of in coming days, “With lives on the line, Lori Lightfoot didn’t bring in the light, she covered up the truth.”

TONI PRECKWINKLE IS resorting to trying to smear the blood of long-dead children on Lightfoot in hopes that it will shock and appall so many voters from jumping on the Lightfoot bandwagon – and perhaps shift back to supporting her desires to be mayor.

Will voters believe allegations against Lightfoot?

It just seems so much like the Poshard tactic; resorting to the images of dead children to try to make people appalled at the very idea of a “Mayor Lori” serving at City Hall. Or course, it didn’t work for Glenn. Which is why I’m skeptical it will serve Toni any better.

It may shock and appall some would-be voters into not casting a ballot for Lightfoot. But I can’t help but think that Preckwinkle has already sustained so much damage to her public image that there’s nothing to be done to revive her electoral chances.

If anything, use of such a tactic may merely convince some voters that both of these candidates are unworthy of our support. Could it make some of us wish that Bill Daley’s mayoral campaign could have prevailed and that we were voting for “Mayor Daley III” when our votes are tallied come Tuesday?

  -30-

New governor to live in Springfield, while family remains in Chicago

Excuse me for thinking it a non-issue in terms of recent reports that Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker says he intends to live in the Illinois capital city while serving in office.

PRITZKER: Moving to Springfield

The state does, after all, provide an official residence for the governor – the Executive Mansion, located one block away from the Capitol building in Springfield.

IN FACT, THE state in recent years performed significant renovations on the governor’s mansion, with some people going so far as to point out rather sarcastically that soon-to-be former Gov. Bruce Rauner kicked in some of his own money for the project, just to improve a house for his successor.

As though that makes the current governor the ultimate sucker!

But Pritzker says he’ll move to Springfield, although he admits his wife and two sons will remain in Chicago – they’re still in school and he doesn’t want to disrupt their lives, he says. Besides, the mansion is actually a series of formal ballrooms, with a private quarters on the top floor. Basically, it’s an over-glorified apartment.

Which is a fact I’m sure will manage to offend many of the people whom Pritzker was probably hoping to pacify with his residential announcement. Because there are people who are going to think anything short of the entire Pritzker family loading up the moving van to haul their belongings to Springfield is nothing more than a snub of the Illinois capital.

A Lincoln Park resident while governor

IT IS ONE of the laughable issues I recall from my days as a Springfield-based correspondent – downstate people convinced that everything had to be based downstate, and who resented those state agencies that maintained significant Chicago presences.

These are the people who were bothered by former Govs. James Thompson living with his wife and kid in a Lincoln Park neighborhood mansion, Rod Blagojevich eventually trying to run the entire state from a private office he maintained in his Ravenswood Manor neighborhood home, and Pat Quinn only occasionally staying in the mansion when not at home in the Austin neighborhood.

He rarely left Ravenswood Manor

Of course, even Jim Edgar wound up having a home in the Springfield suburbs (the “log house,” a home done up in a log cabin motif), while also maintaining an apartment in downtown Chicago for those days when his work brought him to the city.

If anything, George Ryan may have been the recent governor who made the best effort to get around the state – living in a Chicago apartment, the mansion in Springfield and spending weekends at his family home in Kankakee.

A West Sider (Austin neighborhood)

MEANING HE’D MAKE a complete circle around Illinois every single week!

As for Pritzker, he’ll use the mansion as a job-related residence, although we probably should expect he’ll be making many back-and-forth trips between Chicago and Springfield.

Which will bother those who want to think Illinois centers around Springfield – even though I’d argue the realities of the modern world mean we probably should have governors who are mobile and traveling about the state. The idea that he’s supposed to sit behind a desk inside the Capitol and never leave Springfield would be evidence of a governor not doing his job.

RAUNER: Helped renovate the mansion

Just as it can be argued that having a governor like Blagojevich who would have preferred never to have left his house was evidence alone that the job was not being done properly back in his gubernatorial era.

WHAT AMAZES ME is that some people will be willing to make an issue of all this – either that the governor never spends time in Springfield, or else is there far too often and neglecting the rest of the state’s needs.

RYAN: Actually lived around Ill.

You’d think with all the issues, financial and social, that confront Illinois government these days, there’d be far more important things for people to concern them about.

But then again, some people will want to find something to gripe about – no matter what.

Just as they’ll want to move along to the other statewide constitutional officers, who are required by law to maintain a residence in Springfield – even though the state makes no provision for their own housing. Just think how they’d moan if the state budget also included provisions for, say, an Illinois attorney general mansion?

  -30-

Evidence of time’s passage; Gov. Ryan gets his dues, What about Blagojevich?

Some people are going to be determined to go to their deathbeds shrieking and screaming about how corrupt George Ryan was, how abhorrent his time as Illinois governor was, and how we can “never forget!” the wrongs he did upon us.

RYAN: To be included in Kankakee tribute

But time really has a way of making everything wither away with its passage.

I COULDN’T HELP but notice the officials in Kankakee who recently approved erection of a new memorial on the grounds of the county courthouse – it’s meant to pay tribute to the three local men who later went on to become governor of Illinois.

Those three will include Ryan – who managed to offend many conservative ideologues with his one-term performance as governor, but who committed acts while serving as Illinois secretary of state that eventually got him into legal trouble and resulted in him serving a six-year stint at the work camp that is part of the federal correctional center in Terre Haute, Ind.

The monument itself would actually be paid for by the Woman’s Club of Kankakee, but governmental approval was needed to put it on public property.

Some people locally are upset, but it seems a majority is more than willing to move on and accept the fact that Ryan served a term – and is one of the few local (from Kankakee) residents to ever be Illinois’ chief executive.

SMALL: When last time you heard his name?

AS FURTHER EVIDENCE that time passing manages to assuage everything and everyone, I haven’t heard anyone make mention of the fact that another person whose name will be on the monument – Len Small from 1921 to 1929 – also had legal issues during his time as governor.

Small actually went on trial for actions occurring when he was state treasurer (embezzlement, as in state funds were deposited into a phony bank account), but he was acquitted.

Although there were tales of how that acquittal came about solely because of jury tampering – as in several members of the Small jury later were given government jobs.

But that’s nearly a century ago. I’m sure all who could remember are long gone. And perhaps those still living are wondering if it’s their mind fizzling out.

SHAPIRO: Replaced a corrupt pol?

ALTHOUGH IF YOU want to get technical, the third person to be put on the Kankakee monument (Samuel Shapiro, from 1968-69) also could have a taint of scandal.

Not that Shapiro himself did anything suspect. But he was the man who finished out the gubernatorial term of Otto Kerner – who gave up his Executive Mansion post to become a federal judge. Which is what he was when federal prosecutors went after him on criminal charges.

Quite a colorful contribution of characters to Illinois’ story, even though if you listen to certain people, it is only the city of Chicago proper that contributes all of the taint to Illinois’ public reputation.

Yet now it will be reduced to a few lines of type etched into stone, one that most likely will merely give off the impression of three “local boys made good” that Kankakee residents of future years will look at for a second or two – before moving on to other pressing business of the future.

A THOUGHT THAT I’m sure will thoroughly offend those people determined to think of George Ryan as the guy who “set all the criminals free” when he took his acts that essentially abolished capital punishment in Illinois.

BLAGOJEVICH: Will his day EVER come?

Preferring to remember instead those secretary of state employees who essentially sold commercial driver’s licenses to the highest bidder; and tried justifying it on the grounds that Ryan put so much pressure on them to buy tickets to fundraising events that they needed the extra money.

Perhaps it all will be forgotten someday, except for certain people who make a point of memorizing the details of every bit of trivia they can burn into their brains.

Just one point to ponder – will this ultimately become the outcome for Rod Blagojevich? Or is his “f---ing golden” line significant enough to warrant him a sense of eternal political infamy?

  -30-

Rauner wants to undo Illinois’ death penalty reforms to get himself votes

I think former Gov. George Ryan deserves praise for the way he effectively ended capital punishment in Illinois, and former Gov. Pat Quinn ought to get credit for formally ending the practice of committing homicide in the name of “Justice” in our state.

Is Gov. Bruce Rauner really trying to undo ...

But I also realize there are some people living in this state who have ideological hang-ups that cause them to despise the notion that we in Illinois no longer puts people to death as a form of criminal punishment. Which is what I suspect is Gov. Bruce Rauner’s motivation for actions Monday meant to try to bring back capital punishment.

RAUNER WANTS THE people who ridiculously think he’s some form of social liberal to actually be inclined to vote for him come Nov. 6 – instead of desperately searching for a third-party gubernatorial candidate.

Because the way things are shaping up, the number of people who’d be willing to vote for Bruce will wind up being smaller than the Democrats who will eagerly vote for J.B. Pritzker for governor out of the idea of snatching back the post from the GOP.

Rauner stirred up the death penalty pot on Monday when he used his amendatory veto powers to alter a bill that was intended to impose various restrictions on firearms ownership.

That measure included an extension of a three-day waiting period for someone to actually obtain the firearm they want to buy, a ban on bump stocks and trigger cranks that turn regular firearms into higher-powered weapons of destruction and allowing judges to issue restraining orders to disarm people considered dangerous.

... the actions of Pat Quinn ... 

ALL ARE IDEAS the conservative ideologues hate because they see them as restrictions on what they want to believe is a Constitutionally-issued right of all people to own firearms.

So Rauner will score bonus points with the ideologues if his politicking manages to make a mess of this proposal that was approved this spring by the General Assembly.

And if, by chance, Rauner were to actually get the state Legislature to accept his addition of a capital crimes statute for people convicted of murder against multiple people and against police officers, he’d be giving the ideologues something they fantasize about.

Which is why we’re now going to go through a partisan political mess in the near future over what will become of this measure that was one of several the Democratic-run Legislature approved as a reaction to incidents of mass violence occurring across the nation.

... and George Ryan, or just trying  ...

IT MAY BE the big ideological difference between the political partisans – the more liberal-minded want measures they think will reduce the violence, while the conservative-leaning amongst us want to have tougher penalties for those who commit such acts.

Like I already wrote, I supported the past measures that eliminated capital punishment in Illinois. Largely because it became blatantly obvious that our system was more than capable of issuing ultimate (and irrevocable) penalty to people who didn’t commit the crime.

Rauner claims he’s going to get around this by requiring cases where the death penalty is sought to be held to the standard of “guilty beyond all doubt,” rather than the “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” legal standard that is required for a criminal conviction for any other offense.

Which sounds cute. It sounds nice. But it is a ridiculous notion to think we can achieve. For as long as we have human involvement in the criminal justice system, there are going to be screw-ups.

THERE’S JUST NO way we can ever have an absolute truth within our system. Anybody who says we can is either lying to us or is seriously delusional. Neither of which ought to be trusted.

... to Dump Madigan! come November?

So if I view this effort as a political maneuver by Rauner, it makes sense.

He’s tossing out some rhetoric meant to appease the ideologues inclined to think he’s wrong on abortion, immigration and equality for gay people, hoping that it might get them to vote for him.

And if in the process, he manages to derail a firearms-related bill that they despise they’ll love him – even if, in the end, they wind up sitting on their hands and doing nothing come Election Day.

  -30-

An encore in corrections for ‘Fast Eddie” would be a unique outcome

Perhaps it was intended that Edward R. Vrdolyak have his life in the public eye end in a way unlike just about everyone else.
 

VRDOLYAK: Back in the public eye

A return trip to prison, if that is what ultimately occurs, would be something unheard of.

BECAUSE USUALLY WHEN someone on the Chicago political scene gets into legal trouble and winds up with a criminal conviction and prison time, upon their release they manage to fade away and we don’t really hear much about them again.

Just think – how many of us know off the top of our heads whatever became of Larry Bloom or Miriam Santos.

But it seems there’s no way the man known during his time as “Fast Eddie” was going to fade away like that – even though he has been retired for roughly the past decade and probably wishes he weren’t thought about so much anymore.

Vrdolyak was the son of Croatian immigrants from the East Side neighborhood down at Chicago’s far Southeastern corner (where Indiana is a next door neighbor and the smells of the oil refinery in Whiting often waft across the state line) who was elected to the City Council in 1971 and achieved his political peak in the mid-1980s.

HE WAS THE man who realized that many Chicagoans were hostile to the idea of Harold Washington being elected mayor in 1983 – which he used to justify his own blatant resistance to anything the city’s first black mayor tried to achieve. He also banded together 28 other alderman into a caucus that was openly defiant.

 

Someday to be sequel to this headline?

For those of you too young to remember "Council Wars" as we laughingly referred to it back then, think of the way Congress has treated the Barack Obama presidency, only much less polite.

The “Vrdolyak 29” is how it was publicly known, the group that for more than two years did everything it could to make Washington look ridiculous. It took a court-ordered redistricting of City Council ward boundaries to break this up and give the mayor some sort of control over the city.

All I know is that locally in his home neighborhood, there are those people who remain grateful that Vrdolyak kept THAT MAYOR from doing more harm (in their minds) than was actually achieved.

 

Will Harold's backers be able to control laughs?

IN OTHER PARTS of Chicago, there are those people who remain eternally peeved (to put it mildly) that Vrdolyak existed. They were the ones who privately cheered back when the feds got a criminal conviction against him and he wound up serving 10 months in prison (briefly being a fellow inmate with former Gov. George Ryan at the work camp connected to the Terre Haute Correctional Center).

That should have been the end of the Vrdolyak story. But it isn’t. For it seems the feds have come up with a new indictment – criminal charges related to payment for legal work he never actually did and speculation that he didn’t make payments to the Internal Revenue Service that were owed for someone else.

Vrdolyak’s attorneys are saying the money was actually paid into a special account and theoretically are still sitting there waiting for the IRS to come collecting. Not that the IRS is buying such an excuse.

Vrdolyak is now facing charges (for which he will make his first court appearance two days before Thanksgiving) for which he could face up to an eight-year prison term. An encore performance in the Bureau of Prisons! A political recidivist.

THAT WOULD GIVE Vrdolyak a unique niche in our political culture. Off the top of my head, former alderman Ambrosio Medrano is the only return case I can think of.

 

MEDRANO: Also doing a sequel to serving time

The alderman is now serving a 10 ½-year prison sentence for a deal involving bribes connected to a contract for selling bandages to Stroger Hospital, which came after he had already served prison time – just over two years for his role in the Operation Silver Shovel investigation at City Hall back in the mid-1990s.

But if a return to prison is meant to be Vrdolyak’s fate (his backers can’t believe that any charge is being sought for actions so old), that would be quite the outcome for the man who once defied Harold Washington, saying famously, “It’s a racial thing, don’t kid yourself,...We’re fighting to keep the city the way it is.”

Which is why some people now will take great pleasure if it turns out that a 78-year-old man like Vrdolyak winds up ending his life sitting in a cell somewhere.

  -30-

‘Junior’ may be home again by week’s end. But will it be D.C., or So. Shore?

Sometime Thursday, federal inmate Jesse Jackson, Jr., will be released from the prison camp near Montgomery, Ala., where he has been held since last spring; and I’m sure his thoughts and prayers are focused on how quickly he can return to home.

Technically, Jackson remains in federal custody through Sept. 20, although his release to a halfway house in the District of Columbia is part of the process by which all federal inmates become re-accustomed to life outside of prison walls.

AND YES, I realize that Jackson was being held in a camp that was part of an air force base, but the imagery remains.

But the trick is going to be to decide whether Jackson can be determined to be such a non-threat to the society at large that it would be a waste of time to have him actually stay at the halfway house.

It’s a very real possibility.

Remember back when former Gov. George Ryan was released from the work camp that was attached to the federal prison near Terre Haute, Ind.? He reported to a halfway house on the West Side, and it was found within six hours that he didn’t need to be there.

HE WOUND UP spending that first night of “freedom” really free at his home near Kankakee. It’s very possible that depending on how late in the day you actually read this commentary, Jackson himself could be on his way home.

The only question being, “Which home?” The house he has in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington? Or the house in the South Shore neighborhood that gave him the address that enabled him to be a part of the Illinois congressional delegation for all those years?

Will Jesse, Jr., return to his South Side roots? Or find that a change of scenery is best for him to be capable of building a new life for himself. He did just turn 50 a couple of weeks ago, and is still capable of doing something significant to build his reputation.

Even though I’m sure there are certain ideologue crackpots who will only be satisfied if Jackson were to become a destitute bum. Of course, then they’d rant about him existing off the public welfare rolls.

SOME PEOPLE ARE just determined to be miserable to deal with! Like the ones who, I’m sure, are now ranting that Jackson should not be free anytime soon – even though his “criminal” offense wound up being the use of campaign funds to purchase assorted memorabilia to decorate the office.

Which makes me wonder about the ongoing mess that soon-to-be former Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., faces. He being the guy who spent significant sums to re-decorate his own Capitol Hill space – is there something about interior decorating that attracts the suspicion of “the feds” to warrant indictment, conviction and incarceration?

It will be intriguing to see how the new Jackson comes to be.

While he had a political career of some significance with big dreams that fell short (“Mayor Jackson?”) of becoming reality, I don’t doubt he could come back to achieve some goals that could wind up topping his political significance.

OF COURSE, HE has to get through this ordeal first. Regardless of where he calls “home,” he’s likely to have to wear one of those funky ankle bracelets during the summer months so as to further demean him.

Then, sometime in mid-October, spouse Sandi (the former alderman who got busted for signing the income tax returns that allegedly tried legitimizing Jackson’s actions) will have to do her few months in prison – followed up by her own stint in a halfway house/home confinement.

When the Jacksons are finally (sometime late in 2016) finally able to get on with their lives, there is another benefit. Perhaps then we’ll be able to get over our public obsession over this case.

All of us will be a lot better off when that day comes.

  -30-

Must we relive death penalty fight?

Illinois does not have a valid capital crimes statute any longer – our state officials abolished the death penalty a few years go after years of evidence indicating how flawed it was.

PORTER: Did he really do it, after all?

But it seems we still have some people determined to fight for the cause of putting people to death so as to satisfy someone else’s need for “vengeance!”

OR AT LEAST that’s the reaction I got in my gut when I read reports earlier this week that said former Cook County state’s attorney Richard Devine prosecuted an innocent man for a crime for which the state had previously sentenced the real “killer” to death.

The only problem is that this particular case is that of Anthony Porter – who for a short stretch was an international figure in the death penalty debate.

Porter served 16 years of his life in the Illinois Department of Corrections under a death sentence – and at one point was just a few hours away from actually facing execution by lethal injection.

But that execution was put on hold, and Porter was eventually released from prison due to clemency from now-former Gov. George Ryan. In fact, it was Porter’s case that supposedly motivated Ryan to think that Illinois’ death penalty system was too flawed to be kept on the books.

IT CAUSED RYAN to impose the moratorium on executions that remained through the time when the General Assembly finally voted to abolish the death penalty AND Gov. Pat Quinn signed that change into Illinois law!

Porter’s evidence of his innocence included the work of students of a now-former Northwestern University professor, who in working with private investigators got another man to say he committed the crime for which Porter was convicted.

And they got him to say it on videotape, which is what made the story so intriguing (and easy) for television to pick up on. Television stations everywhere picked up the story. That caused Devine to decide not to resist fighting to keep Porter in prison, and to go along with a prosecution of the man on videotape.

He ultimately pleaded guilty and received a lengthy prison sentence, for which he still is incarcerated – although the Chicago Sun-Times reported he could be up for parole in 2017.

BUT THE SUN-TIMES’ report focused on the fact that now-retired prosecutor Thomas Epach, Jr., is saying he wonders if the man now in prison is truly innocent, and if Porter really did do the crime for which he has been exonerated for the past 15 years.

I’ll be the first to admit that back when David Protess’ students showed their video confession publicly (I was a reporter-type back then, and I remember the death penalty fiasco in Illinois all too well), my gut reaction was to wonder, “How do we know he’s telling the truth?”

But nobody else seemed to be concerned. That question seemed to get swept aside in the storm over whether Illinois was too sloppy in prosecuting capital offenses that we couldn’t be assured the convictions were legitimate.

Although now, Epach is trying to argue the same point, saying in an affidavit, “It is my opinion that it was highly unusual, if not unprecedented, to make a decision to release an individual convicted of murder, based upon the broadcast of a video, the reliability and authenticity of which had not been thoroughly investigated and established.”

WHICH MIGHT BE a legitimate point if he had forcefully brought it up back then.

Now? It comes across as someone’s last-ditch effort to find a wrench to throw into the gears.

Does anyone think we can somehow undo the abolishment of the death penalty? Particularly since after all these years, it has come down to the ultimate “he said/she said” argument that a prosecutor usually would denounce if it were made against them!

Are we supposed to put an asterisk (*) next to Porter’s name on the list of Illinois Death Row inmates of the 1990s who wound up having to be released from prison alive, rather than in a cheap casket?

THIS IS ONE fight that is best left in the past. Otherwise, we might as well show down the whole criminal justice system – if we come to the conclusion that none of its verdicts can be trusted; regardless of which way they come down.

Let the “law and order” types mull over that concept, for awhile.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: Remember the "Ford Heights Four," another set of Death Row inmates who wound up being exonerated for the crimes they were accused of? The Chicago Tribune tells us their lives aren't exactly free of stigma, despite the freedom they have now had for nearly two decades.

Some people wish Ryan, Blagojevich could just fade off into the sunset

Some people are just determined not to wither away into anonymity – no matter how much the ideologically-inclined of our society desire it.

RYAN: Beginning 'elder' statesman niche

Because I’m not as bothered as some by the fact that our former governors George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich both popped back into the news columns in recent days.

I ACTUALLY FOUND Ryan’s weekend appearance at the South Side church that calls Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., its pastor to be intriguing in the way that George H. was capable of calling on international ties that usually wouldn't be associated with a state official to get something done.

And as for Blagojevich’s attorneys appearing in court on Friday to argue the merits of why his convictions should be overturned (or at the very least, his 14-year prison sentence should be lessened), well, that’s part of the legal process.

He gets to appeal. For those who’d rather not allow him the opportunity to challenge the merits of his conviction, I’d argue that’s an “un-American” thought to have.

I make such a statement because I notice that the Internet commentary on both of these stories is so overwhelmingly negative. People use the anonymity of such comments to make racist comments about Ryan, while claiming that one-time first lady Patti Blagojevich and the attorneys all ought to be silenced.

REGARDLESS OF WHAT one thinks of the gubernatorial stints of both of these men, such attitudes may be more despicable than anything either man did. And let’s not forget that Blagojevich is in the early years of serving that 14-year sentence.

While Ryan wound up doing six-plus years in a federal Bureau of Prisons work camp for his acts.

In the case of Ryan, he made what is being considered his first public appearance since being released from prison earlier this year.

BLAGOJEVICH: "Free Milorod?"

It was a memorial service on the South Side for one-time activist and South Africa President Nelson Mandela, and Ryan recalled the time he got to meet with the man.

ACCORDING TO THE Chicago Sun-Times, Mandela’s minions initially rejected Ryan on the grounds that he was not a national leader or other world-renowned figure.

But Ryan did make that trip back in the autumn of 1999 to Cuba and had met with Fidel Castro. Which meant that Ryan’s people were able to contact Castro’s people, who then contacted Mandela’s people to put in a good word.

That resulted in the initial meeting, and the fact that later when Ryan was seriously contemplating clearing Death Row of its 160-some inmates because Illinois’ capital crimes statutes were so flawed, Mandela was able to get through directly to the governor to put in his thoughts (which were in line with doing away with the death penalty).

Let’s be honest. That is a key part of why many of Ryan’s critics oppose him. Internet comments were more than willing to tie Ryan to Castro, the Mandela that was considered a “Communist” and the Bobby Rush of the Black Panther Party of old.

AN UNPLEASANT REMINDER that some people in our society are determined to live in their own little world, and wish they could force the rest of us to live in it with them – under their subjugation.

Those same people were upset that Blagojevich is able to appeal his case – in which arguments were heard before a Court of Appeals panel on Friday.

Some got all worked up over the fact that some judges on the panel were more than willing to ask questions implying that perhaps the sentence was excessive. Or that maybe the former governor’s conduct wasn’t really criminal – and that politics itself isn’t automatically bribery.

Personally, I’m inclined to think those questions came from judges who wanted to see if the attorneys would come up with a pompous or otherwise-stupid statement that would then be used to reject Blagojevich’s desire for freedom sometime before he turns 67.

BUT SOME PEOPLE are just determined to rant and rage that their desires to go overboard on Blagojevich aren’t being blindly followed.

Blagojevich may wind up spending more time in prison (even if he gets the sentenced lessened slightly). But we’re going to have to accept that Ryan is destined to become that political elder statesman with a colorful past (just like one-time Congressman Dan Rostenkowski).

This was just the first of many such public appearances he’s likely to make.

Which means I need to stock up on Tylenol for the Internet-induced comments I’m going to have to endure as a result.

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EXTRA: We're focused on No. 16. But what would Lincoln (really) think?

Perhaps it is appropriate that Illinois is the 16^th governmental entity in the United States to pass into law a measure that permits gay couples the same option to be in a legal marriage as anyone else.

Pols wish they were Lincoln, but would he want them?

For Abraham Lincoln – the public official whom many political people like to emulate themselves after – was the 16^th president of our nation.

AND GOV. PAT Quinn couldn’t help but try to bring some Lincolnesque atmosphere into play when he performed the ceremonies that made the law effective in Illinois – come June 1.

Quinn had a desk that once belonged to Lincoln set up for him at the UIC Forum, and he used it to actually sign the bill into law.

Supposedly, Lincoln used the desk when he wrote one of his inaugural addresses. Perhaps people can fantasize that he used it while writing the Gettysburg Address whose memory we have been celebrating in recent weeks.

It’s probably a cheap piece of furniture that meant little to Lincoln personally. But it isn’t unusual for politicians from Illinois to try trotting out Lincoln artifacts in hopes it gives them more credibility.

I RECALL WHEN then-Secretary of State George Ryan conducted a drawing in 1991 (that wound up giving the Republican Party’s operatives control over the redistrict process for that decade). Ryan came up with a glass bowl that supposedly once belonged to Lincoln.

Perhaps it was once a bowl containing some pieces of fruit in the Lincoln home living room. But it gained an aura not otherwise worthy of 1840s glassware.

Other politicians have produced stove-pipe hats that supposedly were once worn by Lincoln – hoping it would bolster the significance of their actions.

QUINN: Wanted Lincoln-esque aura

So Quinn dredging up a Lincoln desk? We should have expected it.

THAT DOESN’T MEAN, however, that we should think of Wednesday’s actions as being all that more important. It had enough significance that we followed in the path of Iowa and Minnesota – but seem to be far ahead of Indiana when it comes to the gay marriage issue.

In the latter state, the conservative ideologues are determined to take a stance on behalf of Hoosierdom – they’re pushing for an amendment to the Indiana state Constitution that would specify marriages for gay couples would NOT be legitimate.

Based on the reporting coming out of Indianapolis, it seems like the GOP leaders wish this issue would go away. They’re not about to do anything to follow in the lead of Illinois – and may well be the last Midwestern U.S. state to get with the program on this issue.

But will they be dragged all the way the other way?

IT WOULD REINFORCE the belief I have (as a result of personal observation throughout the years) that there are those within the GOP who are ashamed that their political party was once commonly known as the “Party of Lincoln.”

Yet I also think that when Democratic Party operatives try to spew talk that if Lincoln were alive today, he’d be a Dem! Even though I found it interesting to hear Newton Minow Wednesday on the "Chicago Tonight" program that John F. Kennedy himself wanted to visit Lincoln's Springfield home the first time he ever visited the capital city in 1956.

A Dem tie? That may be too much of a stretch. Yet I can’t help but think he’d be appalled on some level on the idea that the political party he helped to create (Lincoln was the first Republican ever elected president) has gone so far the opposite direction.

KENNEDY: Respected the Lincoln mood

Would he be shaking his head in shame? Would he feel empathy for gay people that he appeared to feel for black people – even if there is rhetorical evidence he considered them too different to ever fit in with the masses of this nation?

IT MAKES ME wonder. Lincoln in his lifetime was a member of the Whig Party who converted to Republicanism. The idea of political change was in him – even if the Dems on Wednesday tried to play off his image as being one of them.

Could he well be the leader of a legitimate third party if he were around in the 21^st Century? One that would show the Tea Party types to be a batch of dinks too wrapped up in themselves to acknowledge the greater good?

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm not sure I really think Wednesday's bill-signing ceremony was "historic" in nature. But the Catholic ritual of exorcism that took place in Springfield, Ill., would be considered comical -- if not for the fact that it feeds into the hateful beliefs that ought to be exorcised from our society.