Reynolds ‘done w/ America?’ I thought Chicago was “done” w/ Mel long ago

One-time member of Congress from Chicago Mel Reynolds, the man who more than two decades ago made the phrases “peach panties” and “did I win the Lotto?” words worth snickering at, has added a new one to the lexicon of ridiculous things spoken by political people.

REYNOLDS: From Congress to incarceration

Reynolds, who back in 1995 was found guilty of having sex with an underage girl, was sentenced to prison this week on charges he went four years without filing income tax returns.

HIS REACTION TO getting a six-month prison term?

“I’m done with America,” he said, even though he admitted his sentence was far less than the just-over two years of prison time prosecutors sought, and that it is assured he’ll be free before year’s end.

Reynolds says that after he serves his time and is released, he plans to leave this country and live the rest of his life in an African nation. Possibly South Africa, where it turns out one of his daughters has resided for several years.

Reynolds, in talking with reporter-type people following his sentencing at the Dirksen Building federal courthouse, made it clear he thinks he’s the one being victimized – just another black man being constantly hounded by law enforcement and being sent off to prison just because he’s tried to make something of his life aside from menial labor.

NOW I DON’T doubt that there are elements of our society that do seek to keep black people from accomplishing much; or making any success they do achieve as difficult to do so as possible.

There may even be some who are taking a perverse pleasure at the thought that Reynolds – who served two terms in the House of Representatives from Chicago’s far South Side and surrounding suburbs in the early-to-mid-1990s – is now on his third term of incarceration.

But I can’t help but think that most people who heard of Reynolds’ fate on Thursday got their snicker from what they perceive as the man’s awfully-high perception of his self-importance.

Reynolds is “done with America?” I think it’s more accurate to say that America, particularly that segment of the nation that is Chicago, is “done” with Mel. To the point where most of us haven’t thought about him in ages – and may have even been a little shocked to learn the man is still around.

I SUSPECT WE’LL get over the idea of a Mel-less society, particularly since even the people who were supposed to be his strongest supporters were never that thrilled with the man.

Reynolds was a product of the 1992 election cycle that gave us Bill Clinton as president. There also was Gus Savage in Congress, and his oft-outspoken ways that provoked the sensibilities of non-black people (to be honest, he didn’t care what they thought) created a gap for a challenger.

Which was Mel, a Mississippi-born and Chicago-raised man who got a chance to attend Harvard University and also was a Rhodes Scholar.

I remember that many black people were apathetic about Reynolds, largely because of the perception that Mel thought he was better than everybody else. Which created conditions that – when he got into legal troubles – too many were more than willing to laugh at him and enjoy his misery.

AS FAR AS an Africa-residing Reynolds is concerned, my reaction is to wonder which nation would actually accept him. One of Reynolds’ more recent predicaments was an arrest in Zimbabwe – which makes me think that no matter where he goes, he’s going to manage to tick people off and be harassed by the local officials.

Some people just bring out the worst.

Although there may well be one other bit of significance to the Mel Reynolds saga. The man who once had the whole wide world at his grasp will have lost it all and wind up living off of his daughter.

For his sake, he’d better stay on her good side, since he might not have any other friends left.

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One’s heroic stance is another’s ‘subversion’ as we all see it

It’s all a matter of perspective, the way we view certain actions. The nincompoop acts of some people come off as rational in others’ mindsets.
 

Isn't the military in and of itself a political statement?

The things some people see sense in get denounced as acts of subversion by others – to the point where I think the things people complain about probably say more about the individuals doing the ranting than they do about the people who supposedly did wrong.

IN MY MIND, I already can hear the rants of those people who will take offense to President Barack Obama (just because he’s Obama is their real reason) and the fact that he’s going to make an official visit to Hiroshima in Japan.

That, of course, is one of only two cities that ever actually got “nuked” as U.S. military personnel, at the direction of commander in chief Harry S. Truman, went ahead and used the atomic bomb.

That act brought about the end of the Second World War, and I’m not about to entertain a debate over whether use of the bomb was appropriate. It happened is about all that really matters.

But I’m sure Obama’s critics are going to complain that he shouldn’t be taking part in any ceremony that might view the Japanese residents of Hiroshima or Nagasaki in a favorable light – one that would give credence to the Japanese perspective of the Second World War that they were the ultimate victims because they were the targets of the atomic bomb.

WHICH AS I see it, is about as ridiculous a perspective as those who try to claim the U.S. civil war was solely about the concept of state’s rights and a tyrannical U.S. nation overstepping of bounds against what is mildly referred to as the Southern way of life.

I’m already braced for the hostility that will be spewed, probably all too similar to those people who are complaining about the black female cadets from the military academy at West Point who claim the photograph of them with clenched fists was a statement of solidarity with the subversive elements of the Black Lives Matter movement.

 

OBAMA: On verge of offending ideologues yet again?

Although if you change “Black Lives Matter” to “Black Panther Party” then it shows the argument hasn’t changed one bit during the past decades. Some people are determined to believe the Anglo approach to our society truly is the only one appropriate.

Which probably also means the rest of us ought to accept that we don’t really belong in this nation and ought to leave. Even though I’m positive I ain’t going nowhere, and I doubt many others are planning to leave as well.

THEN, OF COURSE, there’s the plight of Mel Reynolds, the one-time member of Congress who is being held in jail in Kankakee County because of the pending charges against him that he went several years without filing income tax returns.

That’s the argument federal prosecutors plan to make against him. Although Reynolds says he now plans to plead guilty. Not because he admits he did anything wrong. He wants to view himself as the victim because his incarceration restricts the amount of time he can spend with an attorney preparing his defense.

I’m sure in Mel’s mind, he’s undergoing an ordeal that would make Ghandi or Nelson Mandela sympathize. Although I’m also sure the vast majority of people would not think twice about rooting against Reynolds.

REYNOLDS: Victim? Or whiner?

I also couldn’t help but notice news reports where Reynolds claimed he was a target for assassination by gang members because of some of his actions back when he served in Congress – which supposedly was the reason then-President Bill Clinton gave him that pardon back in 2000 before leaving office.

DOES CLINTON NOW wish he could take that act back? Could it be something that comes up during the current presidential campaign for use against wife Hillary?

Or will there now be some people who secretly will wish for the gang members to “finish the job” that Reynolds claims they were given?

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A Tax Day warning?!? Or what could have been of Reynolds legacy?

If I didn’t know better, I’d think the federal government staged the return of one-time Congressman Mel Reynolds on Monday just to try to scare the rest of us into complying with federal laws concerning the income tax.

REYNOLDS: Back in the U.S. of A.

For we’re approaching the deadline by which the American public is expected to acknowledge our incomes and just how much our tax obligation is (and also to pay up any debt owed, if that is the case).

FOR THOSE OF us who might be inclined to think that no one would miss it if their return wasn’t amongst the millions that the Internal Revenue Service will have to go through, Reynolds becomes the prime example of how to get caught

For it seems the former representative from the far South Side and surrounding suburbs is facing criminal charges for what federal officials say was his failure to even file income tax returns from 2009 to 2012.

He doesn’t have much of an income these days. I’m sure he’ll offer up some grandiose attempt at justifying his behavior when he goes on trial next month in U.S. District Court.

But Reynolds, whose case has been pending for over a year, has missed recent court appearances. Officials admit there was actually a 10-day time period in which they couldn’t account for where Mel was physically.

THAT LED TO an arrest warrant being issued by a federal judge demanding Reynolds’ arrest. That warrant was served on Monday.

For it seems that Reynolds was out of the country. In South Africa, to be exact. It seems one of his daughters is ill and undergoing medical treatment there. He says that’s why he wasn’t in court in Chicago.

As it turns out, upon arriving back in the United States at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, he was picked out of the returning masses at the airport, and placed under arrest.

He had to appear before a federal magistrate in Atlanta, who ultimately decided to accept the fact he was back in the U.S. of A. and not impose any additional penalties.

IN THEORY, REYNOLDS could have been ordered held in federal custody between now and May 5 – the date upon which his trial is scheduled to begin. Or he could have been ordered to post a significant bond to provide further incentive for Mel to show up in court for his trial.

I don’t know what to think of Reynolds’ latest predicament – other than to say it shows further evidence of a man who, despite his Ivy League education and Rhodes Scholar credentials is one of those kinds of people who is just a screw-up in life.

And that it adds to the list of laughable moments we have of the man we once thought was the significant step up from political people such as one-time Congressman Gus Savage.

Just think of the lotto or peach panties. You’re either smirking at the memory of Reynolds, or else you’re a snot-nosed punk kid who’s too young to remember what happened between the congressman and his one-time teenaged admirer.

ALTHOUGH THE FACT is that it is the latter round of criminal charges that came up in federal court in Chicago (bank fraud and deceiving FEC investigators for improper use of campaign funds) are the ones that are the more serious blot on Reynolds’ legacy.

Not being able to file tax returns for several years only adds to the impression of a man whose lengthy political career (he was only a member of Congress for 2 ½ years) we, the people, were seriously spared.

Just think what could have been accomplished if he had been a government official for a significant length of time.

Certainly more than a horror story of how the federal government really will go after you if you think it isn’t worth your while to file that tax return – which this year won’t be due until Monday instead of Friday.

  -30-

Somebody somewhere REALLY doesn’t think much of Mel Reynolds

The Mel Reynolds saga has reached new levels of pathos, what with the way he’s now desperately scouring for a place to live that doesn’t offend the sensibilities of the U.S. District Court in Chicago.

REYNOLDS: 'Big Brother' watching him?

Reynolds is the one-time Congressman (and Rhodes scholar who also attended Harvard University which makes him a highly-educated Chicago politico) who has done time in both state and federal prisons, and nearly got himself incarcerated in Africa.

HE HAD TO “settle” for deportation instead.

He has a new round of legal issues to deal with – federal prosecutors are seeking conviction and prison time on charges that he did not file income tax returns during a four-year period.

Those charges are now pending, and Reynolds had been reduced to living with a friend in Chicago while also this is going on.

But it seems that is a problem, because of that state conviction from two decades ago that is the reason most people remember Reynolds at all – where he was found guilty of having sexual relations with a teenage girl. Remember the gags about “peach panties” and “win(ning) the Lotto?”

BECAUSE OF THAT conviction, he remains a sex offender. He’s required to notify authorities of where he lives. And there are restrictions on where he can live – theoretically to reduce the amount of exposure he has to children.

Sure enough, his residence falls within the range of a school. He has to move.

But he was reduced to scrambling on Thursday to find someone to stay with who is far away enough from children to not offend the court’s sensibilities. One place in suburban Bartlett was too close to a child care facility, while Reynolds’ plans to check into a motel just across the state line in Indiana bothered the judge.

They could easily sic’ the U.S. Marshalls based in Hammond, Ind., on Reynolds, but the judge didn’t like the idea of Mel having to cross state lines quite so often. Even if anyone who is realistic knows full well that the Chicago metro area stretches into the Hoosier state.

AS ONE WHO was born in the part of Chicago that borders Indiana and raised in suburban municipalities right on State Line Road, I’d be inclined to think that making Mel Reynolds live in Indiana ought to constitute part of his punishment.

It certainly would put him out of our political hair, while also keeping him close enough for law enforcement types to keep an eye on him.

But that’s not going to happen. Supposedly, Reynolds found someone to stay with for Thursday night, and is expected to return to court on Friday with a long-range plan for where he will stay while he is free on bond for the tax evasion charges he currently faces.

We’ll find out later Friday if the judge is satisfied with his living arrangements, or if the threat is followed through on that Reynolds would have to be detained at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (the South Loop building with the narrow, rectangular windows) while his criminal case is pending.

PERHAPS IT ONLY is appropriate that Reynolds is being overly-scrutinized (or “scrootened” as former Mayor Richard M. Daley would have said).

Because after facing the sex charges, then federal charges related to campaign contributions, and now the tax evasion charges, it seems that Reynolds is going to be watched for the rest of his life.

It’s just too bad that Reynolds didn’t catch on to that fact in recent years in handling his tax returns – which he insists are totally proper. Although I found it humorous to read in the Chicago Sun-Times how his attorney said that perhaps his poverty these days is his defense.

Maybe if he doesn’t have any money, it means he had miniscule income to report. We’ll have to see if the judge buys that legal argument.

  -30-

He’s in hiding because he knows too much, or so Mel Reynolds says

I don’t doubt that there’s a stink surrounding the story of Mel Reynolds, the one-time member of Congress who recently got deported from Zimbabwe after managing to offend the government of that African nation.

REYNOLDS: The man who knows too much?

Then again, being on the bad side of Robert Mugabe doesn’t take much to achieve. That man seems to have a problem with anyone who won’t kowtow to him.

NOT THAT THIS fact makes me feel much in the way of sympathy, since he seems determined to continue his current saga in life.

For it seems that when Zimbabwe officials transported him from the jail where he had spent six days to their airport to get him out of the country, he didn’t return to his native United States.

He went to nearby South Africa – a nation that decades ago wouldn’t have let him come anywhere nearby. But now, is the place where he claims to be in hiding because he fears that a “secret Zimbabwean death squad” is trying to hunt him down. He’s marked for assassination, or so he says.

Although I wonder just how deep in hiding could he be if both WLS-TV AND the Associated Press managed to track him down by telephone for interviews in which he told us his life’s latest sob story.

REYNOLDS, WHOSE CRIMINAL record in this country involves both state charges related to being sexually involved with underage girls and federal charges related to his tax returns, has turned himself into a self-described consultant who was helping U.S. business interests to make connections in African nations.

Which is why he supposedly was in Zimbabwe since back in November.

He now says that his experiences have caused him to learn of U.S. officials, including some from our very own Chicago, who are skirting their way around the law – particularly since Mugabe doesn’t have the best record on international issues.

Reynolds now wants us to believe that the reason he got hit with criminal charges of pornography possession in Zimbabwe is because he was threatening to expose those people.

WHICH COULD COST business and government officials serious money!

Hence, the “death squads” that would turn Mel into a corpse. It all sounds so far over the top – almost like something out of a James Bond film (at least one from the Sean Connery era, the rest get just a bit too lame to pay much attention to).

Or maybe it’s more like something from a “Get Smart” episode – it sounds more like a Maxwell Smart caper than anything else, on account of all its inanity.

In fact, about the only reason I give it any credence is the fact that the pornography possession charge seemed too trumped up – and officials in Zimbabwe were way too eager to dismiss it.

REYNOLDS WAS CHARGED with a visa violation (it had expired) that was the reason he ultimately got deported. The pornography charge supposedly was dismissed because police did not get the consent of higher-ranking authorities before making the arrest.

Which may sound reasonable to someone whose legal sensibilities are U.S.-oriented. Although since when Zimbabwe officials care about such sensibilities is the real question.

A pornography arrest was just the way to draw attention to a U.S. political official whose lingering reputation was of getting aroused by the 16-year-old in peach-colored panties.

Reynolds isn’t wrong when he says that they used the most effective weapon they could come up with to discredit anything he might have to say about business interests in African nations. He may even be truthful in his statement to WLS-TV that he essentially “bribed” Zimbabwe officials to deport – rather than incarcerate – him.

ALTHOUGH EVEN TAKING that into account, it just seems like Mel Reynolds has a knack for walking into gaffes. And why his threats to expose what he knows about corruption (a press conference to be done while in hiding, he says) likely won’t be taken seriously.

Which may well be why the Rhodes Scholar-turned-Congressman-turned-inmate never was able to live up to the promise he showed early in life.

  -30-

EXTRA: He’s coming back home! But do we really want Mel to return?

It would seem that one-time Congressman Mel Reynolds is NOT some form of international pornographer.

He’s just a guy who overstayed his visa, and is about to get kicked out of the country. Zimbabwe, that is.

FOR IT SEEMS that the one-time representative from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs who got caught using the camera on his personal phone to take pictures of women in compromising pictures is not going to face a criminal charge on that, after all.

A judge in Harare dismissed that charge of pornography possession – which is a felony in Zimbabwe.

But Reynolds did plead guilty to a charge that he was in Zimbabwe on an expired visa (he’d been there since November, theoretically so that he could make contacts to benefit U.S. corporate interests that want to do business in Africa).

So for that, a judge ordered Reynolds to be deported.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported Friday that attorneys for Reynolds say they expect him to return to the United States next week, although they’re not sure if he will wind up back in Chicago proper (he had been living in the Bronzeville neighborhood in recent years).

Although the part that most intrigued me was the claim by the hotel manager to the Tribune newspaper that they had nothing to do with Reynolds’ arrest. He had something like a $24,000 hotel bill he had run up. Who knows if they’ll ever get the money?

I still wonder if this was more about Reynolds offending some local persona, and then falling into a trap of his own making by having all those girls up to his hotel room so he could try making himself a personal film.

All of which makes this week’s Reynolds saga -- which was already so overloaded with tacky incidents -- a self-inflicted wound!

  -30-

Reynolds, the one-time “lotto” winner, faces sex-related charge in Africa

No, one-time member of Congress Mel Reynolds never actually won the Illinois lottery, or any other game of chance.

REYNOLDS: Won't go away!

It’s a reference to Reynolds’ alleged response (which came out during his criminal trial on charges that he had sexual relations with an underage girl) to the idea of getting involved with a Catholic school girl.

WHICH CREATES THE image in all of our minds of an adult male who can’t keep his hands off the young girls. An image that Reynolds seems to have reinforced this week with his arrest in Zimbabwe.

It seems that Reynolds, who represented the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs in Congress from 1993-95, got himself arrested in Harare. Local newspapers reported that Reynolds brought models and other women to his hotel room, where he used his camera to take pictures and video of them.

Technically, he has run up a hotel bill totaling the equivalent of $24,000 since arriving in Zimbabwe back in November. And his visa wasn’t authorized for such a lengthy visit.

But the charge that will draw the international attention will be the pornography possession charge – which is particularly harsh in Zimbabwe because the laws prohibit any kind of material that could be construed as sexually explicit.

FOR ALL I know, this very weblog has published things that could be construed as pornographic – under the standard that is being used in this particular case. Where it is questionable as to how consistently it is enforced by local officials.

A part of me wonders if local officials think Reynolds is trying to get out of paying his hotel bill, and they turned him in to ensure that he coughs up some cash.

A part of me also expects that he’ll spend a couple of days in a jail cell in Zimbabwe, before ultimately being deported from the country.

So much for the idea that he’s some sort of U.S. business executive who is advising other officials in this country about how to make money in Zimbabwe. He’s now going to be the U.S. sex offender who used an African sojourn as an excuse to take dirty pictures.

THE SAD PART of all this is that Reynolds seems to walk right into these incidents. You’d think he’d realize he’s in a life situation where his every miscue is going to get international attention.

We may not really care much about what happens to the one-tie Oxford-educated man who rose to a brief stint in Congress before his downfall in Chicago. But we are the type of people who will gladly use his gaffes to give ourselves a cheap giggle.

Which is what this latest story is about.

Personally, I think the story in and of itself is cheap, and that Reynolds wasn’t a significant enough figure (barely one term in Congress, would we care as much if it were Michael P. Flanagan who got arrested for something?) to deserve to last in our memory so long.

EXCEPT THAT IT allows us to recall his trial in Cook County Circuit Court, where the most interesting aspect was that the girl in question tried to refuse to answer questions about her involvement with Reynolds – which led the state’s attorney’s office to play legal hardball and have her put in jail for a few days for contempt of court; before she finally admitted what the Congressman did to her when she was younger.

There also are those of us of a certain generation who will always get a giggle from the phrase “Peach panties.”

All of which is why it becomes impossible for Reynolds’ memory to wither away into nothingness – which is what we really wish were possible.

  -30-

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-

Illinois’ absentee boys on verge of filling their vacancies in Congress

One of the big stories of 2012 was the fact that two members of our state’s Congressional delegation missed significant amounts of time.

For Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., it was a stroke that took him out of action for a year, while it was a bipolar disorder that caused Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., to have to take a leave of absence that stretched from June until the week in November when he decided to just chuck it all and resign.

WHICH IS WHY I found it intriguing Thursday that both vacancies were on the verge of being filled.

In the case of Kirk, the man himself was able to return to the U.S. Senate. He had the television cameras on hand to record the moment that he walked up the 45 steps of the Capitol – with his congressional colleagues cheering him on.

He even had fellow Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., helping him up the steps, and Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., ready to shake his hand when he got to the top.

Kirk isn’t fully recovered from the stroke he suffered early last year. But he seems ready to go back to work and take on a limited schedule, while representing (along with Durbin) the interests of the people of Illinois when they come before the U.S. Senate.

NOW JACKSON WILL not get anything close to a welcome like that. In fact, I haven’t the slightest clue where he was on Thursday. And I doubt that anybody except the U.S. attorney staffers who are trying to bolster their careers with his criminal prosecution cared what he was doing.

But that vacancy in the House of Representatives took a significant step toward being filled on Thursday when the Illinois State Board of Elections began accepting nominating petitions from people wishing to get on the ballots for the Feb. 26 primary elections.

There are more than two dozen people who have said they’d like the Democratic Party nomination for the Illinois Second Congressional district seat, while a few Republicans and a couple of political independents also have said they may run.

But any clown can put out a statement expressing interest in running for any electoral office they can dream about.

IT IS THE people who go through the process of putting together nominating petitions who ought to be taken seriously.

Petitions will be accepted through Monday night, so there is still room for more people to come forth. In fact, some of the names of people who supposedly have a serious chance of winning have yet to file petitions.

Yet let’s look at the five candidates who were actually at the Elections Board offices when they opened at 8 a.m. – all in hopes of getting their names printed atop the ballot when it is finally compiled.

I know one political observer-type person who seriously believes only those candidates deserve to be taken seriously, because their ability to get their petitions filed so early shows a special dedication to the office.

IF THAT IS the case, then 9^th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale, state Sen.-elect Napoleon Harris, D-Flossmoor, state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields (who on Thursday boasted of the $130,000 she raised for her campaign just in the past month) and former state Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson are the ones who should be at the head of the pack.

Oh yeah, Clifford Eagleton of Harvey also was among the early filers. Although I doubt that even this will gain him any significant attention.

We’ll have to wait until 5 p.m. Monday to see how the ballot shapes up. Although I got my kick out of seeing one of the later filers on Thursday – former Rep. Mel Reynolds, who filed his petitions for a political comeback and indicated that he wants to be identified as Mel “MR” Reynolds.

Does he seriously go about calling himself “MR” (as in his initials)? Or is he going to demand that we all call him “Mr. Reynolds” (instead of all those thoughts we have about him based on his past criminal convictions)?

ONE OF THESE people (or maybe one of the other people such as former state Rep. David Miller of Lynwood or former Rep. Debbie Halvorson of Crete) is going to get to fill the vacancy we have had in our state’s delegation for seven month-and-counting.

Somehow, I doubt any of them will make as much of an impression upon their arrival in Washington as Kirk did on Thursday. Who else will be able to tell us (as Kirk did) that he had a near-death experience so close that he heard angels speaking to him – in Noo Yawk-type accents.

It reminds me of that episode of “The Sopranos” where actor Michael Imperioli’s “Christopher Moltisanti” character told of his brush with Hell (or was it Purgatory?) – where every day is St. Patrick’s Day, and the Irish get to rule over the Italians.

Which makes me wonder what a politician’s version of “Hell” would be – probably a place where the “goo goos” get taken seriously, and public policy is meant to benefit public – rather than political – interests.

  -30-

Reynolds and Sosa; not-so-proud 1990s memories seek redemption

Mel Reynolds and Sammy Sosa. They’re a pair of gentlemen, so to speak, who came from impoverished circumstances to rise to high levels in life during the 1990s – only to crash and burn from the public scene.

REYNOLDS: Wants a comeback?

But on Wednesday, both men showed signs indicating that they may be delusional enough to believe they can experience a comeback.

REYNOLDS IS THE one-time member of Congress from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs (yes, the infamous Illinois Second Congressional District) who said he is a candidate for the special election to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr. – who, of course, is the guy who replaced Reynolds in a special election back in 1995.

It seems that Mel Reynolds has dreams of snatching back what he regards as rightfully his and probably has thought for the past 17 years was stolen from him by J.J., Junior!

Those of us with any kind of political memory, of course, know why Reynolds left the political scene. He’s the guy who gave meaning to the phrases “peach panties” and “Did I win the Lotto?”

Quit your snickering. Wipe that smirk off your face! And get your mind out of the gutter that Reynolds dragged us all into when he became one of the few political people whose criminal offense was prosecuted by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office – rather than the U.S. Attorney (although they eventually got their piece of Mel as well).

FOR IT SEEMED that Mel Reynolds cheated on his wife, Marisol (who herself came from impoverished circumstances and wound up returning there once Reynolds went to prison) with a girl who, at the time their affair began, was underage.

She actually did a couple of weeks in the county jail because she initially didn’t want to testify against Reynolds. But she eventually broke, and Reynolds became the congressman with a sex offense (although it seems kind of hypocritical since so many other people in Congress have been known to mess around with girls younger than themselves).

So Mel went to prison, eventually got transferred to a federal correctional center when prosecutors at that level got him convicted on more conventional criminal charges for a political person, and he has maintained a very low profile since being released (on a pardon, from then-President Bill Clinton).

SOSA: Wants glory!

Quite a demise for a man who rose from poverty to being a Rhoads Scholar. Which is why he probably dreams of re-election. Perhaps he thinks he can erase his taint by regaining office.

ALTHOUGH WHEN IT comes to tainted public people, Reynolds probably has to take a back seat to Sammy Sosa (and to Frank Thomas, who will make his first Hall of Fame ballot appearance next year). All because of the way many people in our society place such a significance on professional athletics.

Because in the years after Reynolds, Sammy was that real-life version of actor Garrett Morris’ Chico Escuela character.

He clowned it up for the Chicago Cubs while hitting all those home runs (he’s the only professional baseball player with three seasons of 60-or-more home runs) that made him a superstar.

Of course, now many believe he was among the primary users of various steroids meant to artificially bulk himself up.

WEDNESDAY WAS THE day that the ballots for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., were issued that contained Sosa’s name for the first time. People will have to decide if Sosa’s numerical figures for home runs and other baseball stats are legitimate enough to warrant inclusion.

Sosa himself has said he thinks he’s legit. Although many baseball fans now sound like Chicago White Sox fans did back in 1998 – claiming that Sammy was a clown and unworthy of the attention he was getting.

We’ll get to see for ourselves in coming weeks as sportswriters cast their ballots for the Hall of Fame. Will Sosa get his redemption? Somehow, I suspect he’ll get lost in the overflow of other ballplayers whom do not have any taint of suspicion against them.

Just as Reynolds may wind up getting lost in the mess of candidates who seem determined to treat a seat in Congress as a once-in-a-lifetime perk that is theirs for the snatching.

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Is there a Clinton backlash at stake if Bill touts Rahm for mayor of Chicago?

Hearing that Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., says Bill Clinton should butt out of the upcoming mayoral elections (the former president says he will campaign in Chicago for his one-time staffer, Rahm Emanuel) makes me wonder what the backlash could be if Clinton were to immerse himself in Chicago politicking.

CLINTON: Is coming to Chicago a mistake?


Could it be that Bill Clinton could suffer negative consequences should he decide to get himself mixed up in the Feb. 22 election for who gets to replace Richard M. Daley at City Hall?

FOR THE RECORD, Davis says that a Clinton appearance in Chicago would wind up being divisive, and could even stain his legacy among African-American voters in Chicago – who were a significant part of the reason why Clinton never had trouble taking Illinois’ electoral votes when he ran for president in 1992 and ’96.

Then again, that could just be reflected resentment over the fact that among non-black Chicago voters, former Sen.Carol Moseley-Braun’s mayoral campaign is the one most likely to be taken seriously – and not his.

Now we can argue that Bill Clinton isn’t going to run for office in the future. What does he have to lose if the various ward organizations on the South and West sides of Chicago get ticked off at him?

I am not sure what to think. Although I think the people who glibly dismiss such a possibility are being shallow.

BUT I HAVE to admit that learning of Davis’ tough talk toward Bill Clinton reminded me of an anecdote offered up by Clinton’s ’92 campaign manager, James Carville, when he and his then fiancé (now wife) Mary Matalin (herself a South Chicago neighborhood native) wrote their joint book “All’s Fair: Love, War and Running for President” about the Clinton/Bush (the elder) campaign.

DAVIS: Bill should butt out!

Carville told how Clinton campaign aides seriously considered having Bill himself come to Chicago to publicly endorse the Democratic primary opponent of then-Rep. Gus Savage.

We all remember Gus, although our perception of his persona depends heavily upon our own racial perspective. Black bigot? Or the man who told it like it is, even if white people got uncomfortable at hearing reality?

As Carville (who said Savage made “bigoted” and “anti-Semitic” statements) wrote in one of his passages of the joint book, “We kicked around this idea pretty hard inside the campaign for a day and a half, two days. I said, ‘It will show some political courage, it will lick the’Slick Willie’ problem, and in the end it ain’t gonna matter’.”

OF COURSE, IT never happened. It seems the Chicago-based Clinton staffers expressed hesitation because Savage’s backers included many of their backers, and Savage wasn’t doing anything to speak out against the idea of whether an Arkansas governor was fit to be president.

While Carville, in his book, called the lack of an endorsement, “a blown opportunity,” perhaps it was a case where fate saved Bill Clinton from future embarrassment that could have never been anticipated.

For as we remember, Savage did lose that primary election cycle. To Mel Reynolds. We all remember the one-time Far South Side and surrounding suburbs congressman who later did prison time, in part for his intimacies with a 16-year-old girl.

Be honest. If Bill Clinton had come to Chicago and endorsed Mel Reynolds, you just know somebody would have taken the pictures that would have resulted from such an event and rehashed them repeatedly when the president went through his own ordeals involving intimacies with a White House intern.

I CAN JUST envision the ideologues drooling at the very thought, and wishing that such an event could have occurred. Clinton and Reynolds – a “meeting of the minds” (or perhaps some other body part). Make sure no young girls are anywhere near the event.

EMANUEL: Will it help, or hurt?

Now I’m not saying that Clinton coming to Chicago to talk up Rahm Emanuel (of whom he once said at a D.C.-based Gridiron Club dinner, “I found Rahm. I created Rahm. I made him the man he is today. I am so sorry”) is going to create tawdry stories of young girls.

But it also means there is always the potential for consequences that we can’t dream of now. So is Danny Davis correct when he says that Clinton’s relations with Chicago’s black population would be “fractured” and “perhaps even broken?”

Maybe.

DOES IT MATTER? Who’s to say!

Bill’s political career is finished (and he made it to the top). Although there always is the possibility that wife, Hillary, has her own aspirations in public life.

Hillary R. Clinton even has an outside chance of someday running again for the Democratic nomination for president (although I’d say 2016 is her year, not ’12). Could it be that a Hillary Clinton campaign could someday have to struggle more than it ought to in order to get the support of Illinoisans and the state’s (still ample) electoral votes?

Considering how some political people are more than capable of holding a grudge for years to come, I can’t help but wonder if the after-life of a Clinton appearance in Chicago on behalf of Rahm Emanuel’s mayoral dreams is that Hillary would (once again) suffer for the “sins” of her husband.

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