Korean summit? It’s all about the ‘spin’

U.S. and Korean leaders will try to talk...

Assuming someone doesn’t say or do something stupid in the next few hours that causes somebody to go storming out of the room and bringing the summit between the United States and North Korea to an end – this is the week that the two sides will talk.

The nations that were at war back in the early 1950s and which ended in a stalemate that for decades has created the potential for the shooting to start up again are going to have their leaders try to talk out their differences.

... about peaceful relations in coming days

WHAT WILL COME out of all this? Who’s to say!

If anything, it doesn’t matter one iota what is actually done or said by officials of either side.

This truly will be an event about the political spin. Both sides are going to be looking for some sort of occurrence that they can distort into a story putting themselves in the best light.

When it comes to the officials from North Korea, I’m sure they want something to happen that they can claim to be the end of the war – with the North prevailing. It won’t matter that nothing will actually change. They want to be able to say they defeated the attempt of capitalism and Western imperialism to chase them out of power.

AND IF NOTHING truly occurs along those lines, they’ll want to be able to say it does.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials have their own agenda going into this gathering (which will take place in the early hours of Tuesday – our time). It may be over and done by the time we wake up Tuesday morning.

Or maybe the sides will talk late into the night (which will be about lunchtime, our time, on Tuesday)?

Remember how the 'Laverne & Shirley' stars both used to claim top billing because of how their names were positioned? This weekend will be filled with lots of equally ridiculous rhetoric by both Trump and Kim

What President Donald Trump wants to gain out of all this is something that he will be able to spin into stories of what a high-and-mighty, all-powerful negotiator he truly is.

TRUMP WANTS US to think that he’s the guy who was able to sit down face-to-face with North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un and knuckle under to his almighty aura.

On the surface, Trump says he wants to get North Korea officials to abandon the arsenal they have built up throughout the years of nuclear weapons – which, quite frankly, are the only reason anybody pays attention to the impoverished Asian nation whose attempt at Communism is so isolationist that there’s really no reason any other part of the world would want to be bothered with it.

Yes, it really is about his ego and that Nobel Prize – he will forevermore be bitter that his predecessor, Barack Obama, received the prize for his efforts to try to bring peace to the Middle East. I’m sure if it were possible, Trump would order the prize’s revocation from Obama.

Since that’s not possible, he’s out to get his own. His backers already are proclaiming him the man who “ended” the Korean War, and I’m sure the ideologues here will be more than willing to distort whatever actually happens into a story that backs their pre-summit rhetoric.

IN ALL HONESTY, I’m skeptical that anything of significance will happen as a result of the talks taking place in Singapore in coming days. Even Trump himself has made statements warning that long-term change will take years to achieve.

The kind of image Trump dreams he can make a part of the past in Pyongyang

Meaning we can’t proclaim him the ultimate failure if nothing has changed by Friday. Although nothing will stop the smarty-pants-types amongst us from pondering which of the two world leaders has the most ridiculous hairstyle.

This week’s activity is about talk. And talk is good. It’s better than isolationism keeping the sides apart to the point where our ignorance of each other results in somebody doing something stupid (always risky when nuclear warheads are involved).

And if it really is nothing but talk, I can’t help but remember the old cliché; “Talk is cheap!”

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EXTRA: June 12 is back on, for now

So it seems that June 12, in Singapore is back on. President Donald J. Trump said Friday following an hour-long-plus meeting with aides to Kim Jong Un of North Korea that he's once again willing to meet with that nation's leader in hopes of reaching some sense of agreement with that rogue nation.

What will actually come out of such a gathering? We'll have to wait and see. Actually, we'll have to wait and see if the gathering actually takes place. Trump could easily have another hissy fit in the next week-and-a-half and cancel the session once again.

I DO HAVE one thought bopping through my mind; do the ideologues who perpetually rant against the United States trying to reach a sense of peace with Cuba now ease up their rhetoric since they're so eager to see Trump get his "Nobel Prize" for bringing peace with North Korea -- a nation we technically remain at war with some seven-decades after the shooting stopped.

Not likely. Ideologues rarely care about fact or logic when making their arguments.

So does this mean the ideologues now resurrect their talk that Trump is worthy of the Nobel Prize (which they think he's entitled to because former President Barack Obama managed to win one for his efforts related to the Middle East)?

And how peeved would they become if it turns out the Nobel types think Kim's actions are more worthy of the prize? Not that I'm saying they will be -- having two irrational leaders trying to achieve peace always has the potential to create chaos. And I don't mean the humorous kind that the International Organization of Evil of "Get Smart" used to engage in.

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Trump may have lost Nobel, but he “crushed” those pansy football players

President Donald Trump achieved his political “victory” this week by putting a stop to those professional football players who have expressed interest in protesting during the playing of the National Anthem prior to games.

TRUMP: A political 'win," but not the Nobel

Trump is being credited with getting the National Football League to implement a new policy by which players MUST stand at attention during the anthem’s playing. They must show the proper respect – as dictated by the conservative ideologues amongst us.

THOSE PLAYERS WHO have objections must keep them to themselves and do any protests in private in the locker rooms. When on the field and in view of fans, they must go along. Which led Trump to say he thinks those players ought to just get out of the country.

I’m almost surprised he didn’t say they should go somewhere else and play soccer. That kind of stupid talk would have appeased the ideologues amongst us who will forevermore think Donald J. Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Yes, I think Trump is making way too much of this issue. Then again, it was a non-issue until the president himself stepped it up a notch with his nonsense talk.

But I do get exactly why Trump is so eager to make the NFL a top priority in the public mindset.

BECAUSE THIS IS also the week that it appears Trump lost his Nobel Prize. That is, the one his fans were trying to pressure the establishment to give him for supposedly “ending” the Korean War.

When North Korean officials made it clear they were through talking with South Korea (the segment allied with the United States) and said they weren’t sure they wanted to bother with U.S. officials during a summit session scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, Trump’s reaction was all too predictable.

KIM: Will there ultimately be a summit?

A letter from the White House to the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, made it clear the offer to meet was rescinded.

Trump will no longer make the trip to Singapore, a city that I’m sure he enjoyed visiting (all the girls) in his younger years. It almost made me wonder if Trump’s idea of peace talks would involve getting Kim caught up with a couple of bimbos to show him a “very good time!”

TRUMP’S LETTER INCLUDED some rhetoric alluding to the possibility of rescheduling a meeting between the two. “I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me and ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters,” Trump wrote.

But considering that Trump’s idea of a dialogue is usually something along the line of he speaks, and everybody around him shuts up, listens and does what they’re told, I’m not sure what would seriously have come from any such summit.

There’s also the fact that Kim may be the one world leader as erratic and unstable as Trump himself. Who’s to say who would have said, or done, something more stupid to cause problems to escalate between the two nations.

For I don’t doubt that Kim is looking for some outcome that will provide factual basis for North Korea to be able to claim it “won” the Korean War – whose actual shooting ended back in 1953.

THERE ALSO HAVE been the New York Times accounts of how factually unaware Trump is of Korea or the situation, and how lacking in interest he is in filling the gaps in his own comprehension of the issue.

Trump has to settle for gridiron victory

As though Trump thinks this is like his real estate days when he tries to sway the thoughts of some Arab sheik in whose country he wants to build a hotel/casino. Where the big issue is how much of a payoff does he have to make to build his project there.

For the time being, none of this will happen. The talk of Trump being a Nobel Peace Prize winner will have to be put aside – except by Trump himself, whom I’m sure has already awarded the prize to himself in his own mind.

Just as I’m sure he also thinks he’s the one who exposed professional football players for the pansies he thinks they are. Truly the evidence of a delusional mind at work.

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Is Assange a Nobel distraction for Ryan?

RYAN: Will he win this year?

I can think of one “advantage” to having WikiLinks founder Julian Assange being among those under consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize – it would mean that George Ryan would be far from the most controversial person whose name has been put forth for the prize meant to honor people whose work helps contribute toward “fraternity among nations.”

Assange got nominated for the prize, whose winner will be announced in October, by a youthful member of the parliament in Norway on the grounds that his use of his Internet presence to disclose assorted government documents and cables (some classified, but most just embarrassing to the government officials named) benefits mankind by making information public.

YET THE FACT that some of the information made public was classified, and the fact that the humiliation experienced by some government officials may very well drive the “fraternity among nations” further apart may well mean that Assange is the last person who ought to get the Peace Prize.

Give it to the person who comes in and fixes the mess caused by Assange – who these days is preoccupied with trying to avoid going to prison for allegations of sex crimes committed in Sweden.

By comparison, the best we have locally is the repeat performance of former Gov. George Ryan being nominated for the prize for the actions he took as governor that have brought our state’s death penalty procedures to a grinding halt for more than a decade.

Personally, I don’t think Ryan has much of a chance of getting the Nobel Prize this year. I believe that if it were ever going to happen, it would have happened quickly when his noble activities worthy of a Nobel were still fresh (and not nearly a decade old).

BUT THE UNIVERSITY of Illinois at Urbana law school professor who in recent years has repeatedly touted Ryan for the Nobel said this week that he once again made his nomination – which was due to the Nobel Foundation by Tuesday.

The reality of our society today is that the death penalty as punishment for violent crimes is on the decline. The few states that persist in using it regularly are more interested in making some statement about their own view of life, rather than trying to impose penalties that would actually discourage others from committing crimes.

The fact that Ryan, while he was governor of Illinois, imposed the moratorium on executions that remains in place to this day and also cleaned out the state’s death rows of the just over 160 condemned inmates at the time are being portrayed as bold acts that helped trigger the movement away from capital punishment during the first decade of the 21^st Century.

As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported earlier this week, Francis Boyle of the law school wrote in an e-mail, “thanks to Governor George Ryan, there have been no…executions by the state of Illinois for over a decade.”

THAT PART IS true. Illinois hasn’t had an execution since 1999 when Andrew Kokoraleis was put to death at the prison near Tamms in far Southern Illinois. That was the only execution Ryan presided over. It was soon after that Ryan began taking an interest in issues related to the state’s capital crimes statutes.

Personally, I respected Ryan’s actions, and wish/hope/demand/beg that current Gov. Pat Quinn would take the next logical step in that direction by signing into law the measure approved by the old General Assembly to abolish the state’s capital crimes statutes. Because the Illinois status quo that Ryan created (a death penalty that we don't use) was only meant to be temporary.

Which is why I’m not quite sure that Ryan's actions qualify for a Nobel – unless one wants to believe the line of thought that giving the ex-gov the prize would be a jolt of support for the movement around the world to abolish the death penalty, which Ryan himself did NOT do.

The prizes awarded in recent years to Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama were seen as symbolic gestures of support for the direction those two men wanted to take our society (and a rebuke to the conservative ideologues who have their own ideas about where our country should be headed).

ACCORDING TO REPORTS, Boyle included in his nomination of Ryan this year his belief that the reason the former governor is in prison is because prosecutors wanted to punish him for taking actions against the death penalty.

That might be an over-simplification, although I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that many of the people who are most vehemently opposed to Ryan and who take the greatest pleasure in his current incarceration at the work camp near the maximum-security correctional center near Terre Haute, Ind., are the ones who remain offended that he took such actions.

All the other issues involved in Ryan’s case are of lesser importance to those people – similar to how Al Capone may have offended us with his racketeering and violent gangland activity, but prosecutors used federal tax law violations to justify putting him in prison.

Yet compared to Assange, he’s just boring – if not downright conventional.

THE IDEA OF considering Assange for the Peace Prize gives us a story with elements of national security, espionage and sex (blonde women who claim they were taken advantage of). Ryan comes off as a stuffy, grouchy ol’ grampa by comparison.

Perhaps it will take a few more wild-eyed nominees like an Assange to make Ryan appear to be the favorite.

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George Ryan brings out our worst side

There are some cold-hearted people inhabiting Planet Earth. Anybody who doubts that fact ought to read the running commentary that gets spewed on the Internet any time George Ryan’s name comes up.



Should 16627-424 be released?

Most recently, that was Monday, when attorneys for Ryan argued that the same legal principles that allowed one-time newspaper mogul Conrad Black to be released from prison while his criminal appeals are pending should allow Illinois’ former governor to be released from the work camp outside of the maximum-security federal  prison near Terre Haute, Ind.

THEY ARGUE THAT he has already served more than three years in prison, and that there is a good chance that the rest of his prison time would be for convictions on charges that would no longer apply under new legal standards for an “honest services” conviction.

In short, Ryan may well have already served his prison term, and should be released so he can be with wife Lura Lynn when she dies – which according to arguments heard Monday in court could come some time during 2011.

Not that many people are being swayed by any of this.

In fact, I have lost count of the number of people who think that Lura Lynn herself should either be in jail with George, or should move herself to some apartment in Terre Haute if she really feels the need to have some proximity to her husband of six decades.

THERE EVEN WERE those people who accused her of faking her appearance in the courtroom on Monday – no makeup and she was lugging around an oxygen tank to help her breathe.

Then, there are those people who want to trot out variations on what has to have become one of the lamest clichés ever to be derived from a television show.

I’m referring, of course, to, “Don’t Do the Crime, if you Can’t do the Time.” From “Baretta.” Every time I hear someone trot out that line, it makes me despise that television program from my childhood years even more than actor Robert Blake’s youthful performances in the final incarnation of the Our Gang kids.

My point in bringing all of this up is to point out how little the concept of rational thought has to do with our gut reactions to George Ryan, and whether or not the man has suffered enough for not really caring that his employees in the Illinois secretary of state’s office (particularly, the department of motor vehicles) were shaking down unqualified drivers for bribes in exchange for the licenses that allowed them to have their jobs.

AS ANYONE WHO has read my past commentary on this issue already knows, I believe this was an incident where the actual “criminality” of the act occurred at the lowest level, although it bothers me that Ryan’s initial reaction was to try to keep such behavior from tainting his political post – rather than trying to punish those workers who thought that one of the perks of their job was to be able to solicit such bribes.

So yes, I thought it was punishment enough that when all of this came to light during Ryan’s subsequent term as governor, the outcry was so severe that he was unable to seriously contemplate running for re-election.

It sent him into political retirement, and my guess is that he would have had the same visceral reaction to such status as Roland Burris has had throughout the years – continually seeking a return to public life, even though his time had passed.

I will always believe that a large part of the opposition to Ryan, including the people whom to this day still insist on as much incarceration as possible, is due to the fact that Republican Ryan didn’t behave as a blatant political partisan during his time as governor.

THEY MAY TALK about corruption, but in their minds, the corrupt act was that he was willing to listen to those death penalty opponents and take their arguments seriously enough that he eventually cleared out Illinois’ Death Row when it became apparent that the state Legislature would never approve a reform of the capital crimes statute for him to sign into law.

I’m not crediting Ryan with sainthood for that act (unlike those people who perpetually nominate Ryan for the Nobel Prize). But it is a factor for those people such as the one Internet commenter I saw who argued that Ryan should be thankful he only got a 6-year prison term, rather than 30 years or more like some other people convicted of felony offenses.

Which I will admit is part of the reason why I can support some sense of compassion for Ryan’s case. Just the thought that it would greatly offend people whose thought processes on this matter I find offensive means it probably is the right thing to do.

So while I am not under any delusion that U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer would care in the least what I think, I am hoping she comes to some ruling with regards to Monday’s legal arguments that does cut short Ryan’s time in prison.

I THINK IT is time we as a society in Illinois get past George Ryan. Letting him become a decrepit old man with a felony conviction at the family home in Kankakee is an unpleasant fate for someone who lived for so long in the public eye.

For those people who secretly dream of Ryan being attacked by fellow inmates and dying in some sort of prison brawl, all I have to say is that you have serious issues to address in your own life. With such unpleasant thoughts, you may be a bigger threat to our society than Ryan could ever be.

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What warrants the Peace Prize, and what do the next three years hold for Obama?

Two years ago, Barack Obama was an obscure Illinois official who some people argued should not be considered a legitimate candidate for the presidency of the United States.

Now, he's the president who has escalated a war in Afghanistan who some people argue should not be considered a legitimate recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

THE SAME PARTISAN criticism that came up a few months ago when the Nobel recipients were announced is going to recur Thursday, as this is the day that Obama is in Oslo to receive the gold medal and the prize worth about $1,400 in U.S. currency (he says he's giving the money to charity).

To people who don't like to have to think very much, Obama's circumstances make him an oddity to receive a peace prize -- even though Obama himself has justified his recently announced increase of troops by 30,000 in Afghanistan as part of an effort to end U.S. involvement in that conflict against extremists who claim to be motivated by Islam by the year 2011.

If Obama truly can pull off the idea of a brief increase followed up by a withdrawal of troops within two years, then perhaps we'd have to acknowledge that he really did bring an end to the war triggered by George W. Bush's desire to be a "wartime" president.

But as I have written before, I don't think this conflict is going to end so quick. I wouldn't be surprised if troops remain on Inauguration Day 2013,.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of Obama as we listen to him give a speech acknowledging receipt of the medal with the image of Alfred Nobel engraved on it?

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Obama fully intends to use his speech to address the so-called paradox of a man who escalates a war effort receiving a prize meant to reward world peace.

Obama's press secretary, Joe Gibbs, told the newspaper that he will address the issue head on, although he wouldn't say what would be said by Obama -- in large part because those words may very well be worked on and polished literally up to the moment Obama gives the speech in Oslo.

I'm wondering if Obama's address is going to amount to some sort of explanation that war and conflict are occasionally necessary in order to bring under control some force that threatens the peace of people at-large on Planet Earth.

IN SHORT, DEFEATING the Taliban, Al Qaida, or any force that believes the Koran justifies the violent means often employed by these groups to try to bring some sort of Islamic image to their society could be some sort of higher moral concept that should be supported.

I don't know how much I agree with that idea, although I will be the first to admit that if such forces ever did gain support or control within the United States, I'd probably be one of the first people to want to oppose them in large part because of the extent to which they try to control public thought (and rein in opposition).

But we have to keep in mind the fact that the people who voted to give Obama the Peace Prize did so in large part because they want to give him the moral high ground as he tries to impose his "vision" of a better society.

Could it be that that gives Republicans and Al Qaida something in common? Both have their qualms about what Obama would like to accomplish, and would gain politically if Obama were to fail.

A FUTURE OBAMA success would wind up making those Nobel people look like geniuses. And if he were to fail, it would set the stage for his opponents to get much of the blame for shooting down a vision that could have brought about a better society for all.

I will be waiting for word Thursday of what Obama has to say to justify his prize in part because it wouldn't be his only success of recent days.

Just this week, Democrats in the Senate made it known that they think they have reached a deal on a bill related to health care reform that they could vote on and approve in coming days.

That would then set the stage for the "conference committee," the process by which a House of Representatives' version of health care reform that was approved last month would be matched up with the Senate version, and the differences between the two would be ironed out.

THAT WOULD THEN result in a final version of health care reform being approved by Congress, and sent to Obama for his final approval.

In short, the partisan tactics of the Republicans would have failed to prevent Obama from getting something enacted into law that would try to significantly reduce the number of people living in our country without some form of health insurance.

When combined with the fact that he got a Supreme Court nominee of his choice approved by the Senate, and also received that Nobel Prize, it could turn out that the first year of an Obama presidency was somewhat successful.

So much for those whose ideological beliefs are such that they want us to believe that Obama has been a failure as a president.

IT MUST ALSO seem like quite a hectic year for Obama, considering that just two years ago he was the Illinois legislator who some people thought couldn't win a single primary -- considering that he was going up against names such as "Clinton," "Edwards" and "Richardson." Even I must confess to wondering in those days before the Iowa caucuses whether the Obama campaign was merely the 21st Century equivalent of Paul Simon's bid for the presidency in 1988 (taken seriously nowhere except Illinois).

It makes me wonder how chaotic the next three years will be -- and if things will be crazed enough to make this first year seem downright tame.

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What a difference seven days make

Even if President Barack Obama had unanimous political support across the nation, there’s no way he could have done anything in his first nine months as president that would legitimately make him worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The award that he learned Friday will be bestowed upon him is a political statement, just like Obama’s detractors will spend the next few years claiming.

YET I’M NOT so sure that makes it a bad thing.

The people who bestowed the prize want to ensure that the direction in which Obama would like the United States to move in terms of its relations with the world and with the Middle East will some how prevail.

And if in the process, if means that we are forced to look a little more bluntly at Obama’s political opponents and see their actions as the crass opportunism that they truly are, then maybe this political statement is about viewing the issue a little more honestly than we have been in recent months.

Part of it is the fact that some of us are so determined to believe that “both sides” have equal legitimacy that we don’t want to acknowledge the crass factor that is at work here.

IF ANYTHING, THE safe thing for the Nobel people would have been for them to wait a few years, see what actions Obama took, then give him the prize in 2012.

Of course, Obama’s political detractors would have denounced that act as being an attempt by “foreign” elements to influence a presidential election (that is the year, after all, that he likely will run for re-election).

Who would have the nerve to vote against a fresh Nobel Prize winner, rather than whichever conservative ideologue winds up winning the Republican Party’s nomination for president in the next federal elections?

Instead, they’re awarding the promise of what could be from an Obama administration – in hopes that enough people will be inspired by the award. Instant credibility could bolster his political strength in the future, or at least that’s what the Nobel people probably are hoping for.

NOW I HAVE read some “instant” commentary from people who say that if Obama were truly the noble creature that the Nobel people claim him to be, he would refuse to accept the award, while also making some sort of self-deprecating statement claiming himself to be “not worthy.”

Which is why I noticed the statement Obama sent to his supporters by e-mail that almost goes in that direction, although he says he will accept the honor when it is formally presented to him in spring 2010.

“To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize – men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace,” he said, in his statement.

“But I also know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement, it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes,” he said.

I CAN’T HELP but note the recipient of the peace prize for 1964. That would be the year that Martin Luther King Jr. received the award for his pacifist protests on behalf of civil rights for all.

Technically, his activity that was awarded by the Nobel committee was considered criminal activity in certain parts of the United States, and mere evidence in other parts of the country of his “communist” tendencies.

Yet it was that Nobel that gave him a jolt of credibility that forced many of his contemporaries to regard King as more legitimate than just some rabble-rousing protester. And it was the start of the process that, throughout the years, has made us realize how ridiculous those people who several decades ago were so eager to label King a “commie” were being.

Could it be that the people who today are bashing the Nobel people for awarding Obama are upset because they fully appreciate how much of a credibility jolt he has received (despite their attempts to marginalize him and his supporters in our society)?

I WONDER IF the people complaining today about Obama receiving the award are the ideological grandchildren (if not the literal ones) of the people who thought it a disgrace that King got the honor?

Obviously, we’re going to have to wait a few decades to see how events pan out and whether King and Obama deserve to be regarded in any sense as equals.

But a part of me can’t help but note that the people who are most irritated by the actions of Friday are the ones whose views are most offensive to those of us who want our nation to move forward into the 21st Century – rather than take a few steps back into the first third of the 20th.

So it won’t bother me too much to see them upset.

OF COURSE, IT could also be that what really bothers them is that we went from last Friday with the pundits trying to blame Obama for the failure of the International Olympic Committee to award the 2016 summer Olympiad to Chicago, to this Friday with Obama getting the Nobel.

Any political fallout he would have suffered (and I’m convinced it would have been minimal) from the Olympics will be far overshadowed in the history books by the Nobel.

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George Ryan allies put too much hope in the unlikeliest of political outcomes

As one who has some respect for the actions taken by George Ryan during his one term as governor (I think his death penalty actions were the right thing to do), I’m not sure what to think of the people who are trying to take actions with regard to the rest of his life.

I’m inclined to think that the people who now expect President Barack Obama to grant him a commutation of his prison sentence after former President George W. Bush refused to do anything for him are the more ridiculous of the batch.

BUT THEN AGAIN, the people who continue to push the notion that Ryan ought to receive the Nobel Peace Prize may also be the modern-day version of Don Quixote – spending their time at a cause that is pointless.

With regard to the idea that Ryan ought to be released from prison now, even though he has a little more than four years to go before he qualifies for early release, it ain’t gonna happen.

I thought it was the longest of long shots that George Bush would do anything for Ryan. I certainly don’t understand why anyone thinks Obama would have anything to gain by taking any action on Ryan’s behalf.

I always figured that Ryan’s activity with regard to the death penalty was so opposite Bush’s attitude on the issue, and the fact that Ryan backers are the Republicans most inclined to look down on the legacy of George Bush the younger, that he wouldn’t feel any particular reason to get involved.

HE DID NOT.

In fact, Bush the younger didn’t feel compelled to do much of anything with regard to the presidential perk of last-minute clemency power. “Scooter” Libby didn’t get the pardon that conservative observers expected, even though now-former Vice President Dick Cheney says he thinks his presidential partner erred on that issue.

The only last-minute bit of clemency Bush gave was totally in character. He released from prison two Border Patrol agents who had become a cause celebré for the far right – the two agents fired shots across the U.S./Mexico border and killed someone, then tried to cover up their actions.

But the conservatives want to believe the agents were the victims who were wrongly sent to prison just for opening fire on some foreigner who probably shouldn’t have been near the United States to begin with.

WITH THAT PERSPECTIVE being the kind of case that draws Bush’s attention, what chance did Ryan ever seriously have? It is about as good a chance as he has of now getting Obama to do anything.

The fact is that if Obama were to want to do anything for Ryan, he’d have to act promptly (as in some time in the next couple of days). He’d have to take action to free Ryan from prison so early in his presidential term that maybe there’d be a chance that the public would forget about it by 2012.

But considering how vociferously Ryan’s critics will act to ensure that anything connected with his name becomes public knowledge, Obama would still have to take a hit.

I suppose Obama could wait until the final days of his current presidential term (early January 2013) to free Ryan. But what would be the point? That is so many years down the road that Ryan might as well serve his entire prison term.

THE FACT IS that Ryan is most likely to go free on Independence Day – in 2013, that is. That is the date that the Bureau of Prisons is tentatively set to release him, assuming he survives that long (he’s currently 74) and manages to qualify for all of his early release time.

Then, there’s the prospect of the Nobel Prize, where academics affiliated with the University of Illinois in Urbana have once again nominated him. They are again saying that his hard-line stance to act against capital punishment in Illinois even though the political establishment was determined to do nothing but maintain the status quo (which was flawed) was a noble gesture worthy of the Nobel medal.

When the idea was first proposed in the days after Ryan retired from Illinois politics (but before he was convicted and sent to prison), the idea had a slim chance of being successful.

There was the notion that just the year before, former President Jimmy Carter had received the Nobel for his life’s work in trying to promote peace in hostile nations throughout the world, out of the belief that the Nobel committee was trying to make a gesture against George W. Bush.

BECAUSE CARTER’S VIEWS on the issue were so opposite that of Bush, it was seen as a symbolic statement against the former president.

Would the Nobel committee be willing to make gestures against Bush two years in a row – this time using Ryan to show how much other parts of the world look down upon the parts of the United States that insist on maintaining a capital crimes statute?

As it turns out, they did not. They had more important issues to deal with, and have continued to have them every year since.

There’s also the fact that the president they would supposedly have been making a gesture against is now gone, and is largely considered to be discredited in the eyes of many across the nation and around the globe.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE a Nobel Prize for Ryan now would be a wasted gesture.

And it might be almost as ludicrous an idea as the one that Obama would waste any of his political honeymoon period to do a favor for George Ryan.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Will Barack Obama show sympathy for George Ryan, or will he take the same attitude (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=266425) that the Illinois Senate took toward Ryan’s desire for them to approve a death penalty reform package he could sign into law – the Legislature chose to do nothing.

This will be the sixth time that University of Illinois officials have pushed for George (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/23/Imprisoned_governor_nominated_for_Nobel/UPI-72931232729952/) Ryan to get a Nobel prize. In what was possibly the one year a Ryan bid would be taken seriously, the former Illinois governor lost out to former President (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/11/carter.nobel/) Jimmy Carter.