Will Toomin be big enough judge to settle legal tiff tied to Jussie Smollett?

The aftermath of the criminal case once pending against actor Jussie Smollett almost seems like it is devolving into a version of the old playground game “Keep Away” – only it seems nobody wants to be deemed “it” and have to ultimately issue a ruling on the case’s legal merits.

MARTIN: Looking to avoid conflict

For Judge LeRoy Martin, Jr. (the son of one-time Chicago Police Superintendent LeRoy Martin) decided on Friday he wants another judge to have to decide on whether the case ultimately has to be resolved by a special prosecutor.

LEGAL OFFICIALS WHO are pushing for a special prosecutor are upset that the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office ultimately decided to drop the criminal charges against Smollett – who allegedly had hired a pair of men to stage a racially-motivated attack against him.

Those legal minds want to believe it is now the state’s attorney’s office that may have acted improperly, and may wind up being found to have engaged in some sort of illicit activity.

Or maybe not!

Perhaps it is that no judge wants to be put in a position where they could wind up having to preside over legal proceedings regarding their “Officer of the Court” colleagues?

ANYWAY, IT IS what led to the decision by Martin to back away from the case. For what it’s worth, the legal minds wanted Martin out because they note his own son, LeRoy III, is an assistant state’s attorney for Cook County.

TOOMIN: May have to resolve Smollett affair

Meaning it might wind up being even more of a conflict for Martin, the presiding judge over the Cook County court Criminal division, to ultimately have to issue an opinion on this matter.

Although the Chicago Sun-Times reported he doesn’t think it’s automatically a conflict. As he says, “the idea that a judge should recuse because they have a close family member working in the office, (the system) would literally grind to a halt.”

But he went ahead and recused himself anyway, saying he didn’t want the appearance of a conflict of interest to linger – which would wind up making this case even more of a legal scandal than it already is regarded as.

MARTIN MAY WELL have made one sensible decision with regards to the Smollett case – which is going to gain national attention regardless of how it turns out. That’s what happens when an actor gets busted in a way that he’s probably now best known for his arrest – rather than his acting ability.

FORT: Smollett case petty compared to Jeff

Martin says he wants Judge Michael Toomin to take over the case and ultimately make the decision as to whether a special prosecutor needs to be brought in to investigate the Cook County prosecutors who ultimately decided that Smollett didn’t do anything illegal.

No matter how fake or phony the police insist the whole affair was.

This case is going to become a nationally-known mess. Yet Toomin may well be the one judge in Cook County whose record is filled with so many “big” cases that this one will wind up being regarded as petty nonsense by comparison.

TOOMIN, WHO IS 81, is the judge who allowed a special prosecutor to ultimately handle the criminal case against R.J. Vanecko, the grandson and nephew of former Chicago mayors Richard J. and Richard M., who eventually had to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and wound up getting some jail time.

He’s also the judge who handed down a lengthy prison sentence for murder to Jeff Fort, the leader of the one-time South Side street gang El Rukn, who remains incarcerated on even harsher charges at a federal facility in Florence, Colo.

Then there was the case against Harry Aleman, who killed people for organized crime in Chicago and literally tried to bribe legal officials to get around a criminal conviction. With Toomin ultimately presiding over the trial that resulted in Aleman dying in prison.

SMOLLETT: Once a Mighty Duck

Just a few of the many cases Toomin has handled during nearly four decades as a criminal judge, and which could make him unintimidated at the notion of handling a case involving an actor best known for playing a musician on “Empire,” along with one of the kiddie hockey players from the old “The Mighty Ducks” (remember Emilio Estevez?) films.

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EXTRA: Just a thought about HW, Jr.

If we can have the return of country singer Hank Williams, Jr., to ESPN for "Monday Night Football" broadcasts as announced Monday even after his insipid comments six years ago comparing then-President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, then any kind of comeback is possible.

It's just a matter of time until the return of Kathy Griffin to her "D list." And in the meantime, we'll once again get to have the son of legendary singer Hank Williams ask, "Are you ready for some football?!!"

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A-Rod won’t don pale hose during his lengthy baseball career; Chicago won’t get a last chance to “boo” him

It’s a trend that our very own Chicago White Sox like to take on – aging star ballplayers who wind up finishing their careers on the South Side of Chicago with such unmemorable stints that most fans quickly forget they ever played here.

 

He'll never wear White Sox pinstripes

To the degree that I often wondered if Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees was destined to become yet another ballplayer in this category – somebody who’d wind up finishing his career getting in a few games playing for the White Sox.

IT MAY BE the big difference in character between the Chicago White Sox and the crosstown competition, the Chicago Cubs.

For the Cubs have a history of letting young ballplayers go who later wind up with other ball clubs having careers making them worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. – pitchers Bruce Sutter and Greg Maddux, just to name a couple.

While the White Sox wind up being the aging dumping ground of guys like Ken Griffey, Jr., who when he was inducted earlier this summer into the Hall of Fame and people were going on-and-on about the highlights of his professional career, no one was thinking about the 41 games he played for the White Sox in 2008.

Then again, with a .260 batting average and only 3 home runs while wearing the black and white with pinstripes of the Sox, there wasn’t much to remember.

 

Just a few ballplayers ...

JUST LIKE STEVE Carlton or Roberto Alomar – who got into the Hall of Fame despite their lack of heroics in Chicago. Or Tom Seaver, who is a Hall of Famer whom many people barely remember as a White Sox.

It would have totally been in the ball club’s character to acquire Rodriguez, whom the Yankees have been eager to dispose of because he’s NOT of the quality any more that will make him a candidate for Hall of Fame induction.

 

... whose athletic demise and  final paycheck ...

He could be just like Jose Canseco, the aging slugger from the 1980s and early 1990s who ended his playing days in the early 21^st Century by hitting the last 16 of his 462 career home runs in Chicago.

He got to end his major league playing days by finally getting to see a Comiskey Park fireworks display in celebration of his own home runs, instead of just hearing the echoing of “boos” from fans p-oed that a Sox pitcher threw another stinker of a pitch that wound up deposited into the outfield seats.

... came while wearing "white" sox

THIS HONESTLY WAS what I always expected the end of baseball would be for Alex Rodriguez – an unceremonious attempt to stretch out his career for a few more ball games. With the confused catter-calls coming from the stands – generations of Sox fans booing and heckling him for playing for the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers and Yankees being muted because his hits finally benefitted the White Sox.

Although the reason it won’t happen is because Rodriguez announced Sunday he won’t play anymore following the Yankees’ ballgame Friday against the Tampa Bay Rays. He’ll get to finish out this season and next in some sort of unspecified role as a consultant.

Even Jose Canseco got a final farewell in Chicago

But his horrific play (batting only .204 this season and he didn’t even play back on July 4-6 when the Yankees made their only visit to Chicago this season) meant there weren’t many hits to be had.

As it turns out, Rodriguez’ Chicago finale turned out to be the final weekend of July 2015 when the Yankees played a three-game series at U.S. Cellular Field. The crowd reaction literally was a mess of people wanting to tell dumb steroid jokes and taunts mixed with Yankees fans still wishing to celebrate him – and one girl sitting behind me in the outfield seats making a point of wishing Rodriguez a “Happy Birthday.”

IT WILL BE intriguing how Rodriguez – the guy who lost the 2013 season to a suspension because of steroid-use allegations – gets remembered. Because with 696 home runs (as of Sunday), it makes him one of the all-time greats – ahead of Willie Mays (660) and not far behind Yankees immortal Babe Rush (714).

Not everyone heckled Rodriguez in Chicago

And certainly better than legitimate White Sox Hall of Famer Frank Thomas (521) or “is he, or isn’t he, a fraud” Cubs star Sammy Sosa (609). But some are going to be too eager to taint the Rodriguez memory with steroids, just as they have done with Sosa and many other ballplayers of recent years.

It makes me reminisce of the ballplayers of my childhood era – guys such as one-time Sox slugger Dick Allen.

 

He who took a Most Valuable Player title while representing the South Side and was critical of artificial turf by saying, “If a cow can’t eat it, I won’t play on it.” You just don’t get ballplayers like that these days.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Maybe the White Sox will wind up having Ichiro Suzuki on their roster some time in the near future. The Miami Marlins outfielder clinched his position in baseball immortality by getting his 3,000th base hit (a triple Sunday off Colorado Rockies pitcher Chris Rusin) playing in the U.S. major leagues (he has another 1,200 or so hit from playing professionally in Japan). Which means he's now an aging ballplayer whose past his prime and whose best years (with the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees) are most definitely in the past -- perfect for a stint at 35th and Bill Veeck Drive! For what it's worth, Suzuki made his only visit to Chicago this season last week when the Marlins lost three games to the Chicago Cubs, although the White Sox will be in Miami for a weekend series beginning Friday.

EXTRA: Sosa hits lucky 7, lives to endure another year of Hall skepticism

In terms of enshrinement to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., one-time Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa got his behind beaten yet again.

Some three-quarters of the 440 sportswriters who cast ballots would have had to support Sosa for him to be inducted. Only 7 percent of them actually believed all those home runs he hit (608 – of which nearly 300 came during a six-year span that made Babe Ruth look like a fat man with little girl legs if you listen to Seinfeld's take on George Steinbrenner) were legit enough to warrant their support.

BUT IT IS enough to comply with Hall of Fame rules to keep Sosa on the ballot for yet another year.

So the debate over whether there was anything legitimate about Sammy Sosa and the stretch of popularity the Cubs gained during that era at the turn of the 20^th to the 21^st centuries will continue for yet another year.

Which I’m sure is quite an ordeal for Sammy himself. As much as his ego loves every bit of public attention he can get, he wants to be loved – not derided by the fans he once thought would think of him as the new “Mr. Cub” to replace the now-late Ernie Banks.

Personally, my own hostility toward Sammy Sosa has declined significantly from the days he hit all those home runs and Cubs fans tried to use him as the image that proved the superiority of their favored franchise.

I FIND THE more that Cubs fans now want to bad-mouth Sammy, I’m inclined to support him. Particularly since it seems that Cubs fans wish they could erase him from the team’s collective memory. Something they should never be permitted to do.

Besides, I wasn’t kidding when I made the Babe Ruth comparison. From 1998-2003, he hit so many home runs (including three seasons of 60 or more, which no one else has ever done) that you literally have to go back to Ruth at his peak in the 1920s in order to find someone better.

No matter what you think of the whole steroid issue and whether Sosa’s sudden loss of a command of the English language was just a cover-up for drug use, those home runs were still hit.

You can’t ignore them. They’re forevermore in the record books.

ALTHOUGH I FIND it interesting to see there will be a slight Chicago presence this summer in Cooperstown when Hall of Fame induction ceremonies take place.

Ken Griffey, Jr., will be remembered primarily as a Seattle Mariners great who also got to play for the Cincinnati Reds team that his father, Ken Sr., had once been a crucial member of.

But toward the end of his career, Griffey donned the number 17 jersey of the Chicago White Sox and got in a few games on the Sout’ Side.

Just like Steve Carlton and Tom Seaver, to name a couple of other Hall of Famers who included the White Sox on their career roster so as to get a few more games in the big leagues.

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ML King on a bubble gum card? Would we really remember him otherwise?

It was a moment from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” – with Schroeder saying he chose music by Beethoven for the Christmas pageant, only to be questioned by Lucy Van Pelt.

Let's hope these aren't the only reasons ...

“Beethoven wasn’t so great,” she said. “He never got his picture on bubble gum cards, did he? Have you ever seen his picture on a bubble gum card? Hmmmm! How can you say someone is great who’s never had his picture on bubble gum cards?”

SO I SUPPOSE it is fortunate for the memory of Martin Luther King that Topps Chewing Gum, Co., has – in recent years – come up with alternative sets of trading cards that focus on historical figures.

So King – whose birthday anniversary last week is officially celebrated with a federal holiday occurring Monday – can claim to have been on a bubble gum card.

Otherwise, I wonder if we’d be getting an argument from some quarters of our society who would want to claim that King just wasn’t that great. I really believe that our society’s memory is so short that many people don’t have a clue as to what King was truly about!

For all I know, some may think King is just a college. Or maybe just a street in a part of town they NEVER set foot in.

FOR ALL THE platitudes that will be spewed at various ceremonies on Monday, who’s to say how many of those people will even come close to describing what the real man was like.

Personally, I know that I will be working as a reporter-type person in covering a King Day rally where the keynote speaker is one of the same South Side preacher-types who last year was trying to stir up African-American state legislators into voting against the gay marriage concept.

... Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered

Although I also understand that one of King’s very own daughters has been public in her view that King’s “dream” of equality for all might not necessarily extend to gay people.

It seems like just about anybody will use the King image if they can spin it to whatever particular cause they might personally prefer. Which means many of us don’t have a clue about reality.

I SUSPECT THAT the King image has become one that most people don’t comprehend beyond the oft-quoted phrase “I have a dream,” as in the speech that we all remembered last August because it had been some 50 years since all those people congregated on the National Mall in Washington to hear him speak.

A speech that many school-children in black neighborhood-based schools get to memorize as part of youth King Day celebrations, but which others might not know beyond that date.

Two others turned from man to myth

It may well be a good thing that there hasn’t been a significant cinematic production of King’s life – yes, I’m aware of the made-for-TV miniseries that starred Paul Winfield. Otherwise the public truly would be confused, and likely would think of the actor first whenever hearing the name, “King.”

Think I’m kidding?

TAKE THE LIFE of civil rights activist Malcolm X (who also has become a community college in Chicago). For how many people has the whole image of the 1960s Black Muslim leader been reduced to the image of actor Denzel Washington saying, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us!”

Perhaps it is a good thing that film director Oliver Stone said recently that he’s dropping out of being involved in a King film that may have wound up starring Jamie Foxx. It could turned out to be more like Stone’s “JFK” with conspiracy theories more than Foxx’ “Ray,” about the life of rhythm ‘n’ blues musician Ray Charles.

What is this southpaw's card worth?

The significance of King may well be that he provides us a barometer just how much our racial viewpoints have changed. He went through his life having many in our society seriously using labels such as “Communist” to describe his thoughts.

Now, only the most ridiculous amongst us would think such a thing – although some now shift such thoughts toward Barack Obama. Some nonsense will never fully leave; but it will wither away to the point where will be like a century-old carving in stone – it will be hard to read and figure out what was actually meant.

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Some people should pipe down before they make fools of themselves

Let me state up-front that I’m not mocking Paul McKinley because he did time in prison.

McKINLEY: The GOP nominee

Personally, I can find something admirable about the man who, despite having done significant time in prison for burglary, armed robbery and aggravated battery convictions, has managed to win the Republican Party’s nomination for the Illinois Second Congressional District.

HE GOES ABOUT now trying to use himself as an example to young people of how NOT to behave. “Don’t be like me,” might as well be his motto. It is a noble goal. And I don’t doubt that some people are able to make something significant of themselves after enduring incarceration.

A criminal conviction ought not to be an automatic exclusion from a future life.

But I do get a thrill, a chuckle, a serious laugh from the thought of those conservative ideologues who like to bash and rant and rage and who were prepared to go through the next few weeks trashing Democratic congressional nominee Robin Kelly as a “corrupt Chicago Machine pol” replacing another pol who’s supposedly/probably/most likely on his way to prison.

Only to know that their preferred political party is the one that managed to come up with the convicted felon on the ballot; and one whose actual criminal activities debatably were worse than those of Mel Reynolds – whose own bid for political office/redemption ended in failure on Tuesday.

HECK, JESSE JACKSON, Jr.’s use of campaign money to buy himself a load of celebrity memorabilia to decorate his office comes across as petty by comparison to crimes that got decades of time in prison as punishment.

Supposedly, Kelly was going to be tarred and feathered with rhetoric related to the fact that after leaving the Illinois General Assembly, she was chief of staff to Illinois Treasurer Alexi Gianoulias – whose own bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 2010 got smeared with the fact that the Broadway Bank his father founded went under financially.

I even recall the speculation that the bank loaned money for real estate projects to a man with mob ties and criminal convictions, although Giannoulias claimed he had nothing to do with those loans and no one ever came up with evidence to the contrary.

Yet to the ideologues who don’t really care about fact to support their partisan rants, they will now lambaste anyone associated with Giannoulias as “corrupt.”

INCLUDING KELLY. TAKE the Chicago Daily Observer website – which never misses a chance to leave the partisan spin out of its efforts to tell us the “news” of the day.

They gave us the blurb Wednesday morning that read, “Robin Kelly, former Chief of Staff to failed bank owner Alexi Giannoulias, has continued the Democrat tradition of putting dicier members of the dicey Chicago political establishment in the 2^nd Congressional District.”

That was the extent of their morning-after Election Day report, other than to then take a couple of paragraphs from the Chicago Tribune to give us the fact that Kelly won the Democratic primary the night before.

To people who really want to perceive the world that way, they deserve to have to be associated with McKinley’s record (he was paroled in 1997, and the bulk of his arrests since then for misbehaving as part of political protests have resulted in dropped charges) – which will make any of their attempts to talk about political corruption sound cheap and tinny by comparison.

THIS ELECTION WILL be the political mismatch along the lines of when then-Mayor Richard M. Daley had to run against Ray Wardingley (a.k.a., Spanky the Clown).

Not that we won’t hear nonsense talk being spewed during the general election portion of this campaign cycle.

For McKinley is the candidate who is in love with the phrase “corrupt Chicago machine.” The appearances I saw him make at select campaign forums during the primary season literally devolved him into working that phrase into the answer he gave to just about every question.

What does he think of a proposed pipeline from Canada through the United States that would pass through western Illinois? “I’m convinced that the corruption of the city of Chicago will find a way to divert the pipeline and steal away every dime,” he retorted.

NOT EXACTLY A man who’s going to be bashful, or all that concerned with the truth. Although it will go far in explaining why voter turnout likely will stink even more for the April 9 elections than they did on Tuesday.

There’s only so much nonsense-talk our minds can consume before we all just tune it out!

  -30-

Fate of the non-singing Jacksons

I’m wondering if right about now, Sandi Jackson is regretting those remarks she made about how she’d keep the aldermanic office furniture for herself if her preference for an aldermanic replacement were not honored by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

SANDI JACKSON: Blame of her own?

For it seems that the federal prosecutors who are hoping to make names for themselves at the expense of now-former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., are just as eager to prosecute his spouse.

THE REPORTS CAME out on Friday about how the former Congressman has signed a deal by which he will cooperate with federal prosecutors – in exchange for that cooperation being taken into consideration when the time comes that he pleads “guilty” to criminal charges and is sentenced to a prison term.

The charges, that contend he misused money that was donated to his political campaigns to cover personal expenses, could result in a prison term of up to five years – if he were not cooperative.

A judge yet to be determined will have to decide how much Jackson’s cooperation is worth in terms of time reduced from that five-year standard.

The reports coming out from the Chicago Sun-Times and WMAQ-TV on Friday were sparse on details.

BUT THE ONE thing that did come out is that Jackson’s focus in recent weeks has been in trying to persuade federal prosecutors that his wife was not involved in any of the activity that the modern-day G-men say is illegal.

Trying to protect his wife, he’d say. Although the Internet is already filling up with anonymous comments (some racially tinged) that Jackson sold his wife out in order to knock some time off his own potential for a prison term.

JACKSON: Now owned by the federal govt.?

In that context, Sandi Jackson’s comment that the furniture used for the Seventh Ward offices (centered around the South Shore neighborhood) was hers somehow just plays all too well into the hands of the people who are all too eager to see anyone named “Jackson” go down for the count.

Particularly if it is someone who’s the namesake son of the long-time civil rights leader. The only thing that would make them more happy is if it were the reverend himself facing a federal investigation and the possibility of prosecution and incarceration.

I FIND MYSELF skeptical whenever political corruption cases come about because there’s always the possibility that they turn into nothing more than excuses for partisan political prosecution.

The people who get most worked up and do their best to stoke the heat of the political fire are those who didn’t like what the candidates stood for. Prison becomes their ideal of what an opposition candidate should face.

And the reason for the incarceration ultimately does not matter too much!

Now personally, I don’t know if Jackson’s conduct (or that of his wife) rises to the level of criminal behavior.

IT CONSISTS OF activity that Jackson really doesn’t deny doing. His “defense” is ultimately going to come down to something along the lines of “I didn’t know that was illegal.”

Which means it comes down to a matter of perception, and degree. Although I do realize that in recent years, there have been changes in federal law to prohibit actions that once were perfectly legal.

We’re going to read a lot in coming months about that “$40,000” Rolex watch – which makes me wonder if it would be less offensive if it were just a cheap, $10 Timex knockoff.

DALEY: Would he be beloved today?

Things that Richard J. Daley once did without giving it a second thought now likely would get an assistant U.S. attorney all worked up – putting himself into career overdrive in terms of thinking about how much of a public boost he can get from taking down a “big” political name.

WHICH IS THE real reason why we don’t hear all too often about small-town political corruption. Who’d care? It takes something along the scale of that public official in Dixon, Ill., to gain any news coverage.

It also is something we should keep in mind when we regard the Jacksons in coming months. Just how different is their conduct from the many other public officials who toil away in obscure posts whose very low-key nature makes it possible for them to do questionable things without many people looking!

  -30-

EXTRA: Impeach Obama?!? I fully expect the effort, and a headache

As I write this, the sounds of Ray Charles are echoing throughout the McCormick Place convention center, and President Barack Obama is preparing to find the diplomatic way of giving a raspberry to the campaign of Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

OBAMA: Still the prez, w/ same enemies



But I’m also sure that there are other people who are preparing to make Obama’s political life miserable – perhaps they want him to regret that he ever had presidential aspirations.

FOR I DON’T doubt that some people in our society are p’o-ed at the idea that they voted against him in both 2008 and 2012 – and he still managed to win both election cycles.

It doesn’t help that the breakdown of our Congress won’t change. Democratic Party partisans will still control the U.S. Senate, while Republicans will keep the U.S. House of Representatives.

I never seriously thought we were going to get the return of “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,” but current House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, made it clear he’s “not going to budge one inch” on issues.

Which means the second Obama presidential term has the potential to be just as much of a partisan pissing match as the past two years has been.

DESPITE THE FACT that we will now have Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., because his Republican opponent engaged in stupid talk when it came to talk about rape (while trying to appeal to the people who believe abortion ought to be a criminal act), the basic hostility of our political scene on the federal government level hasn’t really changed much!

So we’ll probably get the initiative in the House of Representatives to repeal health care reform, along with a lot of other partisan cheap shots.

I really believe the more hard-core of the ideologues will try to come up with grounds for impeachment hearings, although I’m not going to speculate what kind of partisan tripe they will claim the president did that would make his removal from office a necessity to preserve our republic.

They’ll probably go in the history books as being regarded about as ridiculous as the impeachment effort was against Bill Clinton some 14 years ago. But being ridiculous has never prevented political people from doing something in the past.

SO THE NEXT two years are likely to be more of the past two years.

Although the new line of rhetoric will focus on the popular vote. CBS News just went through a whole diatribe not long ago about how Romney at that moment was leading Obama by nearly 1 million votes (my mind imagines actor Mike Myers’ “Dr. Evil” character saying that figure), although later admitting that the gap was closing.

Will we get the rhetorical nonsense from conservative ideologues about how Obama doesn’t deserve to be president? Don’t bring up 2000 or George W. Bush. Consistency has never been important to political blow-hards.

So what thoughts do I have in these moments before Obama preaches to his choir at the McCormick Place?

TYLENOL. WE NEED to stock up on it in significant qualities for the next few years.

Because all the psycho-babble we’re going to hear emanating from Washington is going to give us a serious migraine headache!

  -30-

SMITH: Confident, for now



EDITOR’S NOTE: Just to give some of you more of a headache. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., got 63 percent of the vote – although if it had been up to the Kankakee County portion of the district, Brian Woodworth would have won (he took 61 percent of the vote there). And if that’s not enough mental pain, consider that Derrick Smith (the expelled state representative from the West Side) was leading with 62 percent of the vote. He’s back (at least until his indictment becomes a criminal conviction)!

Jesse, Jr., coming back. Or is he?

Some political observers are getting all worked up over the situation affecting Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., who may well go through the campaign cycle without making a single appearance.

JACKSON: Should he stay, or go?



His aides say he “sounds fine” when they talk to him via telephone from Chicago to his house in the District of Columbia – where he has been staying since his release from the Mayo Clinic.

BUT WE DON’T really know anything firsthand – as in any observations we could make for ourselves or any words from his own mouth.

It has some people claiming he ought to resign. It has others saying we ought to give serious thought to voting for any of the three people wishing to challenge him in the Nov. 6 elections (although one of those people is not actually on the ballot – fans of the Rev. Anthony Williams will have to write him in).

We’re hearing a lot of rhetoric about how some sort of scam is being pulled on the public – either in the form of putting a member of Congress in place who isn’t capable of serving, OR setting up some sort of bait-and-switch in which the political powers-that-be will replace Jackson AFTER Election Day!

Anything is possible in the political world.

BUT I HAVE to confess that my reaction to the rhetoric being spewed is to wonder why people are getting so worked up. They’re going to stress themselves out over something that they really can’t impact.

Perhaps if they had put such effort into the primary election cycle, they might have been able to give some support to Debbie Halvorson – the former member of Congress who wanted to have a political comeback by challenging Jackson.

HALVORSON: We took a pass



She could have been a credible alternative – unlike any of the people now facing Jackson on a general election ballot.

I wonder if we’d be worse off if we had a “Rep. Anthony Williams,” a member of Congress who has run a half-dozen campaigns under every political party viable – and is now a write-in largely because no party really wants much to do with him.

FORMER POLITICAL SCIENCE professor Brian Woodworth of Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais may be more out-of-touch with the Far South Side that comprises the bulk of the Illinois Second Congressional District as the people who live down around Kankakee will claim that Jackson is with their home area.

And as for Marcus Lewis, a political independent? I wonder if he might be the only one worth taking seriously. He works for the U.S. Postal Service – which means he may have a clue on what a bungled bureaucratic mess our federal government is capable of being.

I can’t say that I think any of these people (even the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday couldn’t bring itself to endorse any of them) warrants a vote over Jackson – which may well be a matter of voting to let the Democratic Party organizations in Cook, Will and Kankakee counties decide who should represent the district in Congress until said date that a special election can be held.

A financial waste such an election would be, particularly since the congressional term is only two years. Come 2014, we’ll be picking yet again.

I’M NOT TRYING to be a Jackson apologist. I wish I had a better handle on what his condition truly is, and if he himself is capable of serving his own term.

JACKSON: The next Stroger, if not careful

I’d hope that the Jackson camp (which is rumored to be considering putting his wife, Sandi – the 7^th Ward alderman – in the post if Jesse, Jr., really steps down) recalls how badly such a maneuver backfired when Todd Stroger ascended to replace father John as president of the Cook County Board. Does Sandi want to be thought of as lowly as many of us regard Todd these days?

But I also keep in mind that much of the rhetoric we’re hearing being spewed these days is coming from people with their own partisan agendas. Remember early on the speculation that all this talk of Jackson being ill was really just a cover for him undergoing treatment for alcoholism or some sort of drug addiction – if not both?

The man who was diagnosed as suffering from a bipolar disorder may still be the target of a lot of political trash talk. Giving in to such trash winds up degrading us all.

  -30-