Let’s just honor everybody with statues on the Illinois capitol grounds

The “Christmas Tree bill.” It was a phrase I always particularly detested from my days back when I covered the Illinois Statehouse scene.

Do we really need Thompson ...

The term applies to a piece of legislation that gets so many people adding on their pet projects to the original idea (usually completely unrelated) – in hopes that all the other things give political support to something that might not gain political favor if it stood all on their own.

WHAT I AWAYS hated about the phrase was the cutesiness of it; as though people were trying to legitimize the idea of piling on so many unrelated items onto one bill so to force approval of something that many might detest.

But that is the reality of our government – the concept that some people feel they’re entitled to “get” something for themselves in exchange for their political votes.

If you think about it too much, it really is greedy. As well as legitimizing some fairly worthless legislation.

This was the thought that crossed my mind when I read a recent report in the State Journal-Register newspaper of Springfield – one that told of efforts to pass a bill calling for various statues to be erected on the Capitol grounds. Technically, Christmas Tree bills relate to the state budget, so this isn’t one. But it certainly shares the spirit.

... or Harold Washington along ...

THE MEASURE STARTED out with the desire by some to have a statue set up to honor the memory of one-time President Ronald Reagan. He may have lived the bulk of his life in California (and served as a governor there before moving up to the federal level).

But Reagan was born in Dixon, Ill., lived one year of his childhood in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, and attended college in Eureka, Ill. – before leaving the Land of Lincoln for an adult life elsewhere. Let’s not forget his eventual wife, Nancy, was a Chicago native (and a student at the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park).

That has the ideologues amongst us determined to shove his memory down the throat of everybody. To enhance the chance that people wouldn’t vote against it for partisan reasons, there also was a suggestion that another statue be erected to the memory of Barack Obama – the one-time state senator from Hyde Park who eventually rose to the presidency.

... to get a Statehouse tribute to Obama ...

But that’s where the piling on started.

FOR IT SEEMS that some people tried suggesting a third statue – one for James R. Thompson, the man who served as Illinois governor (14 years) longer than anybody else.

That begat thoughts of honoring one-time Illinois State Federation of Labor president Reuben Soderstrom. Others tried throwing into the mix a statue of Harold Washington – a one-time state representative who eventually became Chicago’s first black mayor.

Thus far, it seems that the weight of so much bronze and/or marble is such that it is killing off the entire concept. But the legislator sponsoring the original bill told the Springfield newspaper says it’s natural to include a few extra people in the honors if it means he can get his original intent – which is to make us think of “the Gipper” himself as an Illinois native.

... or Ronald Reagan?

Even though you could argue that Reagan left us Illinoisans behind – unlike Obama, the Hawaii native, who came to us in Illinois and Chicago to achieve his greatness. Similar to Abraham Lincoln – who came to Illinois for an adult life that achieved intense success, which is why his statue on Capitol grounds occupies a prominent place up front.

BUT YOU JUST know the idea of an Obama statue solo would offend some, while others are bothered by the idea of ANY KIND of Reagan tribute.

It reminds me of when the General Assembly some two decades ago renamed a portion of Interstate 88 in the northwestern suburbs for Ronald Reagan. To get others whose memories of Reagan are less than favorable to go along, we got the renaming of the one-time Calumet Expressway for Bishop L.H. Ford. – head of the Church of God in Christ and a man of significance in certain South Side neighborhoods.

FORD: His freeway a Reagan toll road trade

Although as I remember it, even then the Legislature passed separate bills – with all the Reagan backers expected to go along and vote for Bishop Ford as well. Our state government, hard at work!

The end result being all these years of radio traffic reports every morning talking of the latest congestion on the Bishop Ford Freeway. And at least a few wiseacres responding with, “Who?”

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EXTRA: Shadow of blue dress mean-spirited, but hidden detail not unique

The quirky news story of the day on Monday consisted of the tale of the artist who painted the official portrait of former President Bill Clinton – it contains a shadow that the artist said was meant to represent the blue dress famously worn by White House intern/presidential mistress Monica Lewinsky.


A little hidden meaning of the shadow that supposedly hangs over the otherwise interesting tale of the Clinton administration, artist Nelson Shanks told the Philadelphia Daily News.


HE TOLD THE newspaper he deliberately put the shadow (which he says is supposed to be cast from a mannequin wearing the dress just outside of the painting’s view) because he wanted the “taint” of Lewinsky to be included in the portrait that is meant to illustrate Clinton forevermore.

Of course, he didn’t tell anybody about this intent at the time. It is only now, a decade after the portrait was completed and unveiled, that we get to learn this new, hidden meaning, which goes on top of the already-noted fact that Clinton was not depicted wearing his wedding ring in the portrait.

Which I’m presuming means that Shanks has long since been paid for his work, and it would next to impossible for the Clintons to put a stop order on the check. He gets away with this little tweak at the Clinton presidency.

That isn’t something I’m going to get too worked up over.

ALL POLITICAL PEOPLE like to try to have some hidden detail included in their official portraits – some hidden-meaning joke that only certain people get and that most people probably groan over when it is explained to them.

In Illinois, the official portrait of Gov. James R. Thompson depicts him wearing, amongst other things, an Elgin watch. He felt it necessary to include an Illinois-made product.

While former Gov. Jim Edgar is depicted standing in his office in front of a painting of the Lincoln/Douglas debate that took place in his home town of Charleston, Ill.

There also is a framed photograph depicted in the background – a headshot of his wife, Brenda. So we have a former Illinois first lady included in that official gubernatorial portrait by artist William T. Chambers.

BOTH OF THOSE portraits are on display at the Statehouse in Springfield, although there still is a vacancy for where the official Rod Blagojevich gubernatorial portrait should be. My guess is that serving time in federal prison in Colorado doesn’t leave him time to pose, and we may never get that view.

We’ll have to wait and see what portrait Pat Quinn comes up with, and what kind of hidden aspects of his life get included in such an oil painting.

It likely won’t be anything as nasty as what Clinton’s official portrait in the National Portrait Gallery gives us. After all, how many other artists describe their subjects as “the most famous liar of all time” as Shanks did to Clinton?

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You’d think it was still 20th Century by composition of immigration forum

“House Speaker” J. Dennis Hastert. “Governors” James R. Thompson and Jim Edgar.

Those were the “big names” for a political forum held Tuesday by the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition to try to persuade people that it’s good for our economy to revise the federal immigration laws so as to make sense of our policy.

SOMEHOW, I SUSPECT this collection from Illinois’ political past didn’t do a thing to persuade the ideologues of our society how their allegedly hardline approach to immigration (it’s actually more bigoted than anything else) reform is harming us. For all I know, the forum was regarded as a RINO-fest, and nothing more!

Then again, that is the real partisan split within the allegedly grand old party that is keeping so many issues bottled up politically.

Check out this weblog’s sister site, the South Chicagoan, for a more detailed account of what occurred at the Chicago Club. And whether or not anybody was listening to the men who are now nothing more than oil portraits hanging from musty political halls.

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Wrigley Field a battleground, but that’s not really new politically-speaking

I have found it amusing in recent weeks to hear the political rhetoric related to Wrigley Field.

Government officials want to help the Chicago Cubs with the overhaul of their 98-year-old building that would be required for the ball club to keep playing there for another few decades.

Will a renovated Wrigley resemble this by much?

YET NOBODY WANTS to appear to be helping.

Which is why we get the rhetoric from Mayor Rahm Emanuel such as, “I will not put my money in their field so they can take their money and invest around the field.”

Implying that the real money to be made is not by operating a ball club and staging ball games, but instead running the taverns and souvenir shops that peddle to the people who feel compelled to watch a ball game live – instead of on television.

Part of what I find funny about that line is Emanuel’s description of “my” money, when it is really city taxpayer dollars at work. Emanuel may be the chief executive of Chicago city government, but he works for us.

EMANUEL: Fighting for No. Side like ...

BUT WHAT I really find amusing is the fact that certain things never really change.

Because getting government involved in sports is really more about government than sports. The Cubs are having to do business with our government, just like any other entity.

Only the Cubs, like any other sports franchise, has a certain cachet they can feed off of. There are people who would be very ticked off if the ball club were not to continue to stage its games at Clark and Addison streets as they have every year since 1916.

They would be more than willing to take it out on Emanuel come 2015, or any year in the future that he were to try to run for another political post; just in case there is any truth to the rumor mill that has Emanuel seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. president in ’16 – which is more likely to be the year that Wrigley Field reaches its 100^th anniversary without having a single winning World Series team.

WASHINGTON: ... fought for Sout' Side.

EMANUEL KNOWS THAT fact, too. He may not care much personally for baseball. But he knows that being perceived as the North Side mayor who let the North Side’s baseball club of choice get away would condemn him politically.

It was the same back in the mid-1980s when it became obvious that Comiskey Park (opened in 1910, and never as well-maintained as Wrigley Field) was seeing its final days.

If the ball club had had its wishes, the Chicago White Sox would be the team of DuPage County, or just about any location other than 35^th Street and Shields Avenue.

But that was where the political people of Chicago wanted the team to stay (Cubs to the north, Sox to the south, Bears in Soldier Field and the Bulls/Blackhawks combo on Madison Street).

THEN-MAYOR HAROLD Washington was just as South Side-oriented as Emanuel is to the North Side. The Hyde Park resident knew that the Sox couldn’t be allowed to leave the city.

I’m sure he also knew that if they did leave, he’d be the one who got the blame from his critics – including the descendants of the South Side Irish who were always looking for something, anything, to blame on him.

He was the one who ensured that talk of a new stadium centered around the lots located across the street from the old ball park – whose eventual price tag of about $160 million is about one-third of the estimated $500 million renovation cost for Wrigley.

Even though the city’s finances were such that they didn’t have the money to think of constructing such a facility themselves, it was Washington who made sure that state officials (including then-Gov. James R. Thompson) didn’t think of trying to shift the team to a new Chicago-area location.



How will a Wrigley political fight compare to the Battle to replace Comiskey, circa '88?



WHICH MIGHT HAVE actually made it an easier sell politically across the state – particularly to those rural political people who root for the St. Louis Cardinals, cared less about the South Side, and would have taken a perverse pleasure in turning the White Sox into the equivalent of the St. Louis Browns – and eliminating Chicago’s baseball status as a two-team town.



Somehow, I have a feeling we’re not going to get the drama of ’88 – when the White Sox political battle came down to the final seconds in the Illinois House and where some political whiners still insist that the deadline for approving a deal was blown.

Any deal to renovate Wrigley Field to ensure that the grandstand and its upper deck don’t come tumbling down on the fans in the middle of a Cubs/Houston Astros game will likely get rammed through with Emanuel’s “unique” brand of “political diplomacy.” He’s already going around saying a deal is in its “final stages,” despite disagreements elsewhere about that characterization.

Then again, such a moment might be preferable in the sense that it would put those fans out of their misery of watching such dreadful-quality baseball. Although maybe we could arrange for politicians to be attending that ballgame. In which case, we’d be doing society a favor.

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