Will we EVER get new A.G.?

One of the things I remember from the days of Harold Washington and Council Wars is that the aldermanic opposition to Harold was so intense that they rejected just about everything he proposed.

 

To the extent that there were political appointments of individuals who didn’t get confirmed until after the end of the time period to which they were originally appointed.

 

MEANING THAT A lot of positions sat empty and in a holding pattern – nothing was really able to go forward.

 

Why do I expect that the Congress is more than willing to have the same happen with regards to the position of Attorney General? Eric Holder, who was one of the few original Obama Cabinet members to remain in place the entire six years that Barack has occupied the Oval Office, let it be known he’s stepping down.

 

Obama now has to come up with a new attorney general to finish out the remainder of his presidency – running through January 2017.

 

Because of the process involved in finding a prospective nominee, there likely won’t be a “name” for anyone to consider until late this year. By which time, we could have had the Nov. 4 elections and there may be a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

 

WHICH WOULD MEAN open hostility toward anyone that Obama put forth. Heck, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, already is going about hinting that the Republican caucuses in Congress will be as obstructionist as the “Vrdolyak 31” in the City Council of old.

 

Would they really have the nerve to oppose anyone for just over two more years? Thereby waiting for the next president (whomever that turns out to be) to pick a new A.G.? Would they leave the legal office of the federal government in limbo?

 

I don’t doubt for a moment they fantasize about such an action; probably justifying it in their minds as the “tearing down” of a government they don’t trust. Although such actions are exactly why real people don’t trust the ideologues of the Tea Party movement.

 

I do find it amusing that the Chicago Sun-Times already has put forth the idea of Patrick Fitzgerald as a potential Obama nominee. The idea that he prosecuted both George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich while serving as the Chicago-based U.S. attorney allegedly would make him acceptable to all sides of a partisan argument.

 

ALTHOUGH I WONDER if it really makes him untrustworthy to all political people who would fear that he would go after their particular political interests and not focus attention solely on the “opposition,” whomever they might consider that to be.

 

I find it amusing that if he were to somehow get the post, he’d be the second-straight Attorney General with a record of going after Chicago-type political interests. Let’s not forget that Holder was once a U.S. attorney who handled the prosecution of Dan Rostenkowski – turning him from the mighty Ways and Means chair to a federal inmate.

 

But it should be noted the Sun-Times seems to be the only entity that believes Fitzgerald is in the running. The Washington Post recently came up with a half-dozen or so names of people who seem to have more direct Washington political ties.

 

They include Solicitor General Don Verrilli, Jr., who was the one who defended the Affordable Care Act when it was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.

 

I CAN ALREADY hear the rants and rages from the individuals who can’t accept the reality that having so many people without health insurance in our society is a significant burden to us all.

 

That debate might even get more stupid than anything that occurred at City Hall during the Washington era.

 

All of which makes me think that there are political people destined to permanently taint their reputations in coming months with their actions. Just like Vrdolyak did all those decades ago.

 

It’s too bad some people can’t think before they open their mouths!

 

  -30-

It’s about time we get a full-fledged U.S. attorney for Chicago!!!

I realize that government often works at its own pace, particularly in the partisan environment that we now exist. The worthiness of something doesn’t mean it’s going to be completed in an expedited manner.

FARDON: U.S. Atty sooner, than later

Yet there’s something about the way in which the U.S. attorney’s post for northern Illinois (as in the Chicago area and Rockford) has been handled that makes me wonder what the hang-up is.

BECAUSE THE APPOINTMENT of Zachary Fardon does seem to be dragging along. For people who want to think that Chicago is a cesspool of corruption and violent activity, it would seem odd that they wouldn’t consider having a permanent person in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office to be a high-priority.

For the record, it was back in May 2012 that former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald let it be known that he intended to leave the post – and as it turned out, he left the following month.

He has since moved on with his life – having taken a post with a local law firm and is currently serving as a member of a panel that is supposed to figure out how to reform the government agencies that oversee mass transit throughout the Chicago-area.

For Fitzgerald, the federal government post he held for 11 years is a past lifetime.

YET FOR THOSE people in Chicago who take an interest in the various levels of law enforcement, we’re still stuck on Fitzgerald as our idea of the ideal “G-man” because our federal officials can’t just get on with picking a replacement.

Fardon, a Kansas City native who worked in Nashville before coming to Chicago in 1997 for a stint in the U.S. attorney’s office before going into private practice, was made public many months ago – going through a process that saw him beat out a woman who could have been the first ever African-American U.S. attorney in Chicago.

Yet our political process that has become hung up on partisan ways of considering issues such as health care and immigration policy also is capable of letting things drag on way too long.

FITZGERALD: Some think he's still U.S. Atty

If anything, I wonder if the fact that the ideologues are too obsessed with those hot-button issues is to blame – they get so hung up on dominating the public perception on their pet issues that they can’t be bothered to do anything with the issues that relate to daily governance.

THEN AGAIN, CONSIDERING that some Republican officials are willing to see a federal government shut-down to emphasize their opposition to health care reforms desired by President Barack Obama, maybe they don’t really care that the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago has been “leaderless” for the past 15 months.

I write that sentence knowing full well that there have been people calling the shots for the federal prosecutors. The Dirksen Building hasn’t come grinding to a halt just because there’s an empty office where Fitzgerald used to work – and Fardon likely will someday.

The key to government agencies at all levels is the fact that there is a certain bureaucracy that lasts through several political administrations. They are the ones who keep things moving on a day-to-day basis.

They are the ones who kept things going on to the point where former alderman and Cook County Commissioner William Beavers could be found guilty and sentenced to six months in a federal prison – even though the prosecutor’s office was leaderless.

STILL, AN OFFICE gains some sense of direction from its leadership. The Beavers conviction was most likely just past momentum carrying it forward a little while longer -- just as a boat doesn't come to a halt when its motor is turned off.

It was a sense of direction provided by Fitzgerald that caused the U.S. attorney’s office in the past decade to be ambitious enough to go after now-former governors George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich.

I don’t know how Fardon’s direction, whenever it becomes reality, will compare – will he try to take a lead on the issue related to Chicago’s murder rate (not a record high, but still high enough to be depressing to the city’s image)?

Or is the fact that it took this long before a Senate committee to make a recommendation, and we’re not sure when a final vote will come about, a part of our overall problem?

  -30-

Residency issue, in reverse?

Usually when we hear of residency being an issue in government, it involves those people who have some requirement related to their jobs that they live in the city of Chicago proper – but try to have a more suburban lifestyle.

RAKESTRAW: No longer suburban

We’ve all heard of the enclaves of city workers (with a large percentage of police and firefighters) on the southwest and northwest edges of the city – allowing them to live within blocks of the city limits and suburban communities.

NOT THAT I have anyone choosing to live in a suburb. It’s their life, and if they’re willing to endure the lengthier commute to get into downtown Chicago, so be it.

But it is a reality that makes the current residency controversy on the Metra commuter railroad board all the more ironic.

For in that board’s case, there is a member being asked to resign his post because he is not in compliance with the residency requirement. For the Chicago Tribune has figured out that the board member actually lives not only in Chicago, but is one of those people living in a high-rise that gives him a wonderful view of Millenium Park.

He’s right in the heart of the action.

BUT SINCE HE was given a seat on the Metra board by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, it seems she believes he must have a suburban Cook County home address – even though he believes he merely has to live somewhere within the county (either city or suburb).

For the record, I have never met Stan Rakestraw (the Metra board member in question). He used to be a nursing home administrator, but now operates SCR Medical Transportation, Inc., along with his wife, Pam. I don’t know how good a performance he provided in his service on the board that oversees those commuter trains taking people from the outer suburbs into downtown Chicago (and include some stops in the Far South and Southeast sides of Chicago).

Published reports indicate that Rakestraw got the appointment back at a time when he still had a home address in suburban Flossmoor. Although the Tribune reported that the house was damaged by fire, and his response was to move to a downtown-based condominium.

PRECKWINKLE: Needs a Metra member

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In my wildest fantasies, I wouldn’t mind living that close to the action of urban Chicago. If he can swing it financially, more power to him.

AND HE CERTAINLY isn’t gaining that wealth from the political appointment – the Metra board post only pays $15,000 annually.

But there is the fact that the Metra board was meant to be a suburban dominated entity; as a counterpart to the Chicago Transit Board that oversees the CTA buses and elevated train lines and has a Chicago-dominant board.

In the case of the Metra board, Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets one appointment to Preckwinkle’s five – with the understanding that only the mayor gets to pick a city resident. The heads of county government in the five surrounding counties each get one appointment.

Which makes for a 10-1 suburban/city ratio on the Metra board. That may be a bit much (and goes a long way toward explaining why Metra is willing to let its stops in the city deteriorate).

BUT I ALSO comprehend the idea of regulations that ought to be followed. Maybe we ought to consider a change in the composition of these boards? To that end, Gov. Pat Quinn created on Thursday a 15-member commission to study mass transit boards -- one of whose members is former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. A move that had many political cynics pleased.

But until some sort of action is taken, the regulations are going to have to be followed. Which is why Rakestraw peacefully resigned his post Thursday afternoon, instead of putting up a political fight. He does, after all, serve at the pleasure of Preckwinkle, who to her credit asked for Rakestraw’s resignation once the situation was brought to her attention.

Although we all should admit that, relatively speaking, this is a minor infraction by a government appointee. We can only fantasize that this is the worst thing we will see one of our officials commit.

  -30-

Is U.S. attorney post a reward for putting George Ryan in prison all those years?

It was intriguing to me to learn that both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday reported about the likely person to become the new U.S. attorney for the Chicago area.

RYAN: Name back in the news

It seems that one of the prosecutors who handled the case that got former Gov. George Ryan convicted, and incarcerated, is now the front-runner to replace Patrick Fitzgerald – the U.S. attorney whose name will always be associated with putting Ryan away for all those years.

A PART OF me is sarcastic enough to dream of calling up Ryan and see if he has a reaction – just to see how irate a comment he would spew before hanging up on me!

But it would seem that Ryan is the plum in the resume of Zachary Fardon that him ahead of the other people who were supposedly in the running to replace Fitzgerald – who resigned the post last year.

It makes me wonder if the people who actually handled the prosecution of Rod Blagojevich are now going to be entitled to something resembling a promotion for the work they did in turning Milorod from a governor into a de facto history teacher of prison inmates who didn’t have the benefit of the same education that Blagojevich obtained during his lifetime.

But back to Ryan – who has tried to maintain a low profile since the day back in January when he was released from the federal work camp in Terre Haute, Ind., and spent just a couple of hours at a half-way house in Chicago before being allowed to return to his house near Kankakee.

I’M SURE HE isn’t pleased this morning seeing his name crop back into the newspapers and on their websites in conjunction with Fardon – who most recently has been an attorney in private practice with the Latham & Watkins law firm.

But in his career, he also has worked in the U.S. attorney’s offices based in Chicago and Nashville – reaching the level of the second-in-command in the “Music City” office before coming to the Second City office and having to handle the ordeal of prosecuting Ryan back in 2006.

BLAGOJEVICH: What reward for him?

To read the newspaper accounts, Fardon beat out Lori Lightfoot – who was another of four people who were supposedly the finalists in the process that will still take a few months to complete before there’s a new person working at the Dirksen Building who can go about calling himself the “USA” (as in U.S. attorney).

Lightfoot -- who could have been the first African-American woman to get the top federal prosecutorial post -- used to be with the police department’s Office of Professional Standards – the entity that is supposed to investigate Chicago’s police department to ensure that its officers behave in accordance with the law, but often gets denigrated for allegedly turning their head to instances of police malfeasance.

WHILE I’M SURE they handle many of the cases that come before them in a completely legitimate way, they also get much public grief for those few cases where it turns out that a police officer misbehaved and they were not as aggressive as they should have been in terms of discipline.

In fact, I already have stumbled across some Internet comment (anonymous, of course) claiming that anyone affiliated with city government in any way ought to be disqualified from the federal prosecutorial post that has become an unofficial watchdog over Chicago’s municipal government.

There is, however, one element we should keep in mind. Nothing truly is official when it comes to the courts or justice system until it is signed off on.

DURBIN: Has yet to make final say

Who’s to say that the “vetting” process (that both newspapers report is still ongoing) will come up with something about Fardon that will be construed as a negative?

I’M NOT SAYING there is such a thing, or that if something does turn up it won’t be something completely trivial and stupid that doesn’t deserve to be a disqualifier.

Even then, there’s always the possibility that the process will be bogged down in partisan politics. The Senate has to confirm any appointment that President Barack Obama makes with the consultation of Illinois’ two senators (Richard Durbin and Mark Kirk).

Which means that presuming we know now for sure who will be the U.S. attorney might be a risky bet. You might be safer betting on the Chicago Cubs to not completely embarrass themselves this season!

  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): What makes place historic? Helps if old

It seems Chicago has a new site on the National Register of Historic Places – although my guess is that it won’t be one that comes to most peoples’ minds.

The National Park Service has created the Cermak Road Bridge Historic District fto help influence future development of the blocks around the bridge that crosses over the South branch of the Chicago River.

I DON’T KNOW of anybody who lives in that district, or of any businesses in that area that I patronize on a regular basis. In fact, when I think of the area, all I envision are some warehouses.

Yet that is what federal and state officials (the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency helps administer the historic sites program) are hoping to pay tribute to. Because it seems that all of the buildings within the district date back to the first few years of the 20^th Century, and the bridge also was constructed back in the same time period.

In short, it is a place that has changed very little despite the passage of time. It still looks much the same. So it gets the historic designation – even though any events that actually occurred in that area during the past century likely wouldn’t trigger any memories in the minds of the average person.

The desire to preserve the “feel” of Chicago from those old days is what will be behind the historic designation. I’m just wondering how long will it be before some developer tries to come up with ideas for “revitalizing” the area that he complains are being interfered with by these “history zealots” the way that some people rant and rage about environmentalists somehow interfering with business?

YES, I HAVE to admit to getting a kick out of this newest historic site designation. Because I realize that our society has to keep some sense of where we’ve been, if we’re to fully appreciate what direction we ought to be heading in.

It would be easy for one new development to crop up to something of significance and ruin the effect. To me, the best example of that is the National Park that was created out of the blocks immediately surrounding the Abraham Lincoln home in Springfield, Ill.

Federal officials try to make the neighborhood look like it did when the Lincoln family actually lived there in the 1850s. But because officials didn’t get control of all the property in the area until the 1940s, some of the neighborhood houses have advanced beyond the desired time period. It can have a jarring effect.

What else is notable these days about life along the shores of the southwestern portions of Lake Michigan?

NOW WE KNOW WHAT HE WON’T DO:  I got my chuckles from listening to soon-to-be former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who told us he won’t run for political office and won’t become a criminal defense attorney.

He claims not to know what he’s going to do with his life once his “summer break” is complete. It seems he did make a recommendation to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., as to who he thinks should succeed him. But it seems that Durbin is honoring Fitzgerald’s desire not to publicly name that person at this point.

So we really don’t know at this point what’s going to become of the man, except for one thing.

He’s not planning to go back to his native New York City; he’s come to love living in Chicago. He says he’s staying. Which means on some level, he has some sense!

YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN:  Author Thomas Wolfe could have written the headline for the reports this week about the disappointment felt by Barack Obama for the couple of days he was in town during the NATO Summit held at McCormick Place.

The president publicly said that he couldn’t be at Wrigley Field to watch his fan favorite White Sox beat up on the Cubs because he’s not allowed to have much fun built into his working schedule.

But on a more serious note, he wasn’t even allowed to stop by the family residence in the Hyde Park neighborhood for a quickie visit. Which was something he had hoped to do.

Security was so tight that the roads leading up to his home were shut down for the duration. Even the president got inconvenienced by the NATO-related security.

SOMETHING FOR SOX FANS TO LOOK FORWARD TO?:  Could the big story of Chicago baseball in 2012 turn out to be a battle for who gets to be Comeback Player of the Year?

The annual award to the player who showed the most improvement compared to the prior year is something that could wind up being won by a White Sox – although whether it would be the “Big Donkey” or the man some fans try to call “Joliet Jake” is arguable.

The “Donkey,” of course, is Adam Dunn, who has wisecracked about how he expects to win the award this year because of how awful his 2011 season was.  Going into Friday, Dunn had hit 14 home runs and had a .568 slugging percentage – although the one category he was leading the American League in was strikeouts (68 in 155 at-bats).

But then there is Jake Peavy – the one-time National League Cy Young Award winner who has been truly mediocre pitching in Chicago. Thus far this year, he has a 5-1 won/loss record with a 2.39 earned run average and has a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 5-1 – which is overpowering.

  -30-

EXTRA: It’s about time!

FITZGERALD: Moving on

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is stepping down from his post – a fact that I’m sure has some political observers quaking in their pants.

These are the people who seem to have had dreams of having Fitzgerald as the top federal prosecutor for Chicago and northern Illinois for life – which is the image that had me quaking in my pants.

SO DO I take some pleasure in the fact that Fitzgerald himself had the sense to realize he’s already held the post far longer than any other man, and that it was time for him to want to step down from the job and do something else with his life?

Yes, I do. And personally (although I doubt he cares what I think) I hope he finds pleasure and success in wherever his life takes him, once he leaves next month. Personally, I envy someone who is secure enough financially to be able to quit a job and take the summer off (as Fitzgerald plans to) to reflect, and figure out what he wants to do.

It was kind of assuring during the past decade to have a federal prosecutor who wasn’t obsessed with the idea of using the post to establish credentials that could help him run for political office someday.

It was also unusual to have a U.S. attorney who so-often was brought in to cases involving federal government or other parts of the country, because he was an expert prosecutor. Usually, our federal prosecutors are themselves little more than aspiring political hacks.

ALTHOUGH HAVING SOMEONE who is so intensely in a prosecutorial mode always made me wonder if that is way too harsh a stance for anyone to have to take – particularly if there’s no real limit on how long that person will be in office.

It was just a few days ago that I finally got around to seeing the film “J. Edgar,” the Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle where he depicts FBI head J. Edgar Hoover as an earnest man who believed in law enforcement and science, but allowed the power to go to his head in reinforcing his own hang-ups about society!

At one point, I actually found myself wondering, “How long until Pat Fitzgerald becomes like that?” I’m relieved to know now that it won’t happen.

It’s just that I realize that U.S. attorney has always been a limited position. Generally, somebody gets picked for the post, serves a four-year stint, then moves on. Until now, Fitzgerald wasn’t showing any signs of moving on.

JUST BECAUSE THE kind of people who want to lock everybody up were satisfied wasn’t a good enough reason.

And yes, I’ll concede that whoever replaces Fitzgerald will be very much unlike him. After all, it will be Barack Obama who gets to name the replacement, with the advice senior Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and the consent of the U.S. Senate – which will have to confirm the appointment.

The only real question is whether Republican opposition will try to gum up the works to delay a replacement for as long as possible. Perhaps they have dreams of being able to delay a new U.S. attorney to a future date when it would be GOP officials who would get the final word in choosing a person to be the head prosecutor.

In my “book,” that would be the real immoral act!

  -30-

EXTRA: Will Beavers, the “hog,” take on feds the way he takes on Toni?

Bill Beavers, the self-described “hog with the big nuts,” is going to have to brawl with the federal government in coming months, and it will be interesting to see if he is as feisty with “da G” the way he can be with county board President Toni Preckwinkle.

BEAVERS: Speak up to the feds?



For Beavers is the Cook County Board member who represents the far southeastern corner of Chicago and who uses his position to question just about anything that goes on in government that doesn’t meet his standards.

NOT THAT HE has the standards of the “goo-goos.”  Beavers, who was once with the Chicago Police Department and also was alderman of the seventh ward for many years, is an old-school political type who doesn’t have much time for a lot of the “good government” nonsense – as he sees it.

Back when former county board President Todd Stroger was still around, Beavers was a solid backer of his. When Preckwinkle came in and used her authority to eliminate the county sales tax increase that Stroger used to balance the budget, Beavers was her biggest critic.

To this day, Beavers can be counted on to engage in a rant about how short-sighted the county government officials were to do away with that increase – any time anything comes before the county board that requires extra money.

Will Beavers try to adopt the same attitude in dealing with the federal investigators who on Thursday got a grand jury to indict him on tax-related charges? It’s very likely.

WILL BILL BEAVERS go into the Chicago history books as someone who got busted for tax evasion, similar to Al Capone? It’s very possible.

Because what strikes me about the charges now pending against Beavers is that his actions, in and of themselves, are not illegal. To listen to the Internal Revenue Service, he wouldn’t be in any legal trouble if only he had filled out his tax returns differently.

By comparison, I suspect many people will be more offended by the ways in which Beavers spent money, and will be less concerned about the way his tax return was filled out.

The bottom line is that Beavers is charged with obstructing the IRS and three charges of filing false income-tax returns.

WHAT HE ACTUALLY did was used money donated to his campaign committees (which are supposed to pay for his Election Day efforts) and his county commissioner expense accounts for personal purposes.

No one is being specific, but it is being said that some of the money wound up being gambled away by Beavers – which in and of itself is not a crime.

Another part was used to pay into funds that enabled Beavers to get a larger pension for his time with the Police Department AND with the City Council – a $68,763.07 payment by Beavers nearly tripled his pension to just over $6,500 per month.

It’s no wonder he can afford those self-described “finely-tailored” suits.

HIS ACTIONS ARE completely legal. I recall once having a conversation with then-Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan about this very issue, and how he was planning to bolster his eventual pension by buying credit for more time worked -- making up for the fact that in his early working years, he short-changed his pension contributions so he could have more money for his family’s expenses.

BUT, when you use these kinds of funds for personal purposes, you’re supposed to consider them additions to your income. That means you’re supposed to acknowledge them on your tax return, and be prepared to write out a check to cover the additional tax burden you face from such income.

Federal prosecutors say Beavers did no such thing. When the IRS began investigating, they say Beavers had his campaign committees create records to try to cover up the lack of such payments.

Somehow, I think people are going to be more offended at the idea of a person who already was entitled to a $2,890-a-month pension thinking he should be able to get more.

YET IT’S LEGAL, and surely the kind of activity that Beavers will support.

I have no doubt he’s going to claim in coming months that he is the one being prosecuted. I just want to see for myself if he will get as “lippy” with U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as he does these days with Preckwinkle – and anyone else who dares to challenge his way of thinking.

  -30-

The “Things” that wouldn’t leave!

They seem to be the duo that just won’t leave, and that some people don’t want to depart.

PFLEGER: Entering his fourth decade



I’m referring to Rev. Michael Pfleger of the Gresham neighborhood’s St. Sabina Catholic Church, and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald – the federal prosecutor who locally can claim two gubernatorial notches on his professional belt.

BOTH MEN HOLD positions that have a certain protocol behind them that says there is a certain time limit to the job, after which they’re supposed to move on to other professional challenges.

In the case of Pfleger, the Catholic Archdiocese usually assigns priests to a parish for six years, and allows for the occasional extension to 12 years in a single church. For Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney is supposed to serve four years, then move on to another prosecutorial post.

That is, if they don’t decide to run for electoral office, or shift to some other city.

Pfleger has far exceeded his time limit. He has been at the church on 79^th Street for three full decades, while Fitzgerald will hit the one-decade mark come October.

WHICH IS WHY it is ironic that speculation popped up this week that both men might finally be moving on to another position.

In the case of Fitzgerald, he supposedly is in line to be the head of the FBI. The man whom many would like to think of as a 21^st Century version of Eliot Ness could become the modern-day equivalent of J. Edgar Hoover.

FITZGERALD: He should have been two AGs ago



For Pfleger, he had a sit-down with Cardinal Francis George recently to talk about his professional future. The outcry from various segments of Chicago caused the Archdiocese to feel the need to issue a statement Thursday saying he’s not going anywhere else anytime soon, because his departure would harm the St. Sabina parish.

The sad thing is that such a statement likely is true.

THE PARISH IN a one-time Irish neighborhood that long ago became majority African-American in character likely would have died off years ago had it not been for Pfleger – who throughout his years as a priest has shown a willingness to adapt himself.

He may be one of the few Catholic priests in Chicago who has any real feel or understanding for the African-American population in this city (which may be shrinking, but still accounts for one-third of Chicago).

If anything, St. Sabina is more about the Pfleger personality rather than traditional Catholic teachings, which is a fact that bothers some Catholics who would rather think it is the place of other people to adapt their views to that of the church’s establishment.

Which means that if Pfleger were to move on (the Chicago Tribune reported that church officials considered putting him in charge of Leo High School, before deciding to leave him in place for part of a fourth decade), it probably would turn off the people who regularly attend that parish’s services.

IT ALSO IS likely that Fitzgerald will remain in place for awhile longer.

He supposedly is on the short list to become FBI director. But various reports indicate he’s not necessarily the favorite.

And if he did try to leave for the Washington-based position, there would be people who would be convinced that Chicago was headed down the drain – just as much as there are some people who are convinced that Pfleger is an essential part of his parish and its surrounding neighborhood.

Fitzgerald is the guy who during his time as Chicago’s top federal prosecutor oversaw the staffs that prosecuted George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich, along with one-time Chicago Sun-Times executive Conrad Black, several city officials in the Hired Truck Program, and one-time Chicago Police commander Jon Burge – who started serving his prison stint this week.

THAT IS ON top of his D.C.-based work in prosecuting former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby for perjury.

There are those people who are convinced that no other person would have used the U.S. attorney position to prosecute so many people so indiscriminately.

It has gotten to the point where the political establishment that ultimately decides who gets to be the U.S. attorney is afraid to think of moving him elsewhere. Fitzgerald most likely would have to receive such a high-ranking title as “FBI director” in order to justify to his local fans that he wasn’t somehow being screwed over in being removed from the Chicago prosecutorial post.

Which is sad.

PERSONALLY, I HAVE watched Pfleger and Fitzgerald during my two-plus decades as a reporter-type person. Watching Fitzgerald assume the mantel of prosecuting political corruption and expecting government officials to actually uphold the ideals of good government sounds noble, as are many of Pfleger’s most-outspoken moments meant to eliminate the scourges of drugs and alcohol from inner-city neighborhoods in Chicago.

The problem is that keeping one official too long causes us to rely too heavily upon them. Officials start to forget that everyone eventually must move on.

The Archdiocese, in saying this week that Pfleger will remain at St. Sabina, said in part, “we believe that removing him at this time would be devastating to both our parish and the Auburn/Gresham community.”

I can’t help but think that the U.S. attorney’s office will someday have to issue a nearly identical statement that says Fitzgerald will remain in town for awhile longer.

  -30-

“Blacker” than Obama. Hit by “tsunami.” What will Rod Blagojevich say next?

BLAGOJEVICH: Now, he's Japanese?

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if it is Rod Blagojevich himself who is peddling the theory that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is on the verge of becoming the head of the FBI.

It’s not that I don’t doubt Fitzgerald’s straight-arrow aggressiveness or his own ambitions. It’s just that I wonder if our state’s former governor is delusional enough that he would believe the departure from Chicago of Fitzgerald MIGHT give him a chance to get out of a second trial.

A PART OF me wonders if it is the stress of having a second trial coming up in U.S. District Court that is causing Blagojevich to make outrageous comments.

Such as his latest comment comparing his impeachment and removal from office by the General Assembly to the tsunami that took out Japan and caused damage to nuclear power plants so extensive that the implications will be global in nature.

Yeah, sure. Blagojevich’s removal from office and broken financial status so bad that he can’t work is really comparable to the Japanese devastation.

The fact that Blagojevich was able to use the same radio frequency that turned Larry Lujack into a broadcast immortal to spew this particular theory convinces me of how far down WLS-AM has sunk in recent decades.

“A TSUNAMI THAT happened to me,” is how Blagojevich described his legal predicament. In one sense, I can see what he is getting at. The legal process has totally overwhelmed his life, destroying any semblance that he was a person of political significance.

Of course, the difference is that the tsunami that hit Japan devastated a nation. The legal process didn’t devastate anybody but Blagojevich. In fact, it may have saved our society in Illinois as a whole.

FITZGERALD: Leaving Chicago?



Not because I think the idea that Blagojevich wanted to know what he would get in return for giving some public official an appointment to the U.S. Senate is the most outrageous offense that can be conceived.

It is because Blagojevich continues to rant about the state officials (“cynical scoundrels,” he calls Gov. Pat Quinn and the Legislature’s leaders) over the income tax increase that got passed to help raise money to start closing the ridiculously absurd gap that exists in the Illinois budgetary situation.

“A FEEDING FRENZY.” “Lunching up on your money.” “A deal with the devil.” That was just some of Blagojevich’s over-the-top rhetoric.

Now I wasn’t enthused about the income tax increase, particularly since as a free-lance writer, no one is withholding any money for my taxes and I have to calculate and pay them myself. I am fully aware of how much of my piddling income will be going to the state of Illinois.

Yet I realize the essentialness of the increase because of how large the budget gap had become. The idea that a significant increase of some type wasn’t going to be part of the solution is ridiculous.

Yet that is the impression Blagojevich would like to create. Which as far as I’m concerned makes him a significant part of the state’s financial problem.

PERHAPS SOME SERIOUS action back when he was governor would have helped prevent the budget gap from ever getting so big! Perhaps Blagojevich could have averted the problem.

Instead, he enhanced it by being more obsessed with engaging in rhetoric as governor that was meant more to show those legislative leaders that HE was the boss. He was obsessed with putting them in their place. If anything, I can’t help but think that Blagojevich is still overly concerned with putting political people in their place – rather than worrying about his own legal defense.

If Blagojevich does wind up doing some serious prison time (in all honesty, the people who talk about the former governor doing a decade or more in prison are being ridiculous), he’s not going to have much of anyone to blame but himself.

His personality has ticked off so many people that it seems the world is now gunning for him. Fitzgerald can go to Washington to be the modern-day J. Edgar Hoover. His successor will be just as eager to put Blagojevich away. Perhaps that is the real tsunami that is waiting to hit Blagojevich once his trial (scheduled to begin April 20) concludes.

AS FOR BLAGOJEVICH and his reference to the tsunami, it is tasteless. But I suppose we really shouldn’t be shocked.

This is, after all, the man who once described himself as being, “blacker than Barack Obama” (remember Esquire?). So after thinking of himself as a (sort-of) African-American, now he wants to be Japanese?

In his mind, Blagojevich thinks he’s all of us. All I can say is if he ever gets any delusion to try to claim solidarity with Latinos, this is one person with ethnic origins in Latin America who is willing to say right now, “No, thanks.” We don’t want him.

  -30-

Is Fitzgerald biting off too much with involvement in Mexico drug indictments?

Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby. Judith Miller. George Ryan. Someday (possibly) Rod Blagojevich.

These are just a few of the people who have managed to come under fire from Chicago’s very own U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald. With these prosecutorial scalps, Fitzgeraold has amassed a record of high profile – higher than a Chicago-based federal prosecutor usually gets.

IT’S BECAUSE OF his willingness to get involved in the big national investigations that require him to put in time elsewhere, rather than becoming overly parochial like many of our city’s public officials.

So could it be that he’s bored these days, and uses that boredom to justify his latest target – Mexican narcotics traffickers?

Could it be that Fitzgerald’s 21st Century take on Eliot Ness thinks he can fight drugs the same way Ness allegedly (if not fully in reality) took on alcohol?

Will Chicago’s G-men take on the influx of narcotics that are flowing up from Mexico and Latin American nations?

YES. I WILL be the first to admit I’m laying the hyperbole on rather thick here – to the point of being ridiculous.

Because that is what I think of the indictments that were handed down Thursday in federal courts in Chicago and New York, and announced publicly in the District of Columbia, with Attorney General Eric Holder at Fitzgerald’s side in making the announcement.

These acts are pointless if they are to be judged on their realistic potential to actually stop the flow of drugs into the Chicago area, let alone the rest of the nation.

The reporter-type person in me has dealt with many drug busts throughout the years whose significance was exaggerated by law enforcement types who were eager to make themselves look significant in the “War on Drugs!”

BUT FITZGERALD MAY have topped them all with this week’s announcement that some 43 people, including some Mexican citizens currently living in Mexico, now have criminal charges pending against them in the United States.

It’s almost as ridiculous an act as when then Chicago-based federal judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis tried to have Kaiser Wilhelm II extradited to the United States so he could be hauled into his courtroom to allow Landis to punish him for the sinking of the Luisitania – the act that drew the United States into World War I.

I just don’t see the practical effect such a prosecution would have. You might as well just go ahead and issue the indictment against Osama bin Laden.

It is true that some lower-level people in the United States are now busted and likely will wind up doing their time in prison. It will cause some confusion for a few days in terms of the flow of drugs into this country.

THERE MAY BE someone who is not able to make their usual illicit drug purchase for a few days.

But it is too likely that for every person who spends some time in jail, someone else will rise up in the ranks and become significant. In short, they will be replaced. The order of things by which these narcotics get into this country will be restored, even if it is with different people.

It really doesn’t matter who is providing the drugs, so long as the demand for the “product” is there. Someone will always be desperate or determined enough to take the legal risks to try to fill the desire.

If anything, all these indictments did was little more than open up a few jobs – which can be a plus in today’s times of economic struggles. Someone else is about to get a job as a drug dealer.

AS FOR THE Mexicans at the top who are getting rich off the misery caused by narcotics (so rich that at least one of them is among the wealthiest people on the face of Planet Earth)?

This indictment merely makes it a little more difficult for those dealers to bring their bimbos to “los Estados Unidos” for a weekend of pleasure in Las Vegas or at some other luxury spot that most real people in this country can’t think of enjoying (it costs too much).

Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton was correct a few months ago when she said the United States had an obligation to assist Mexico with trying to stop the flow of narcotics into this country.

There wouldn’t be so many Mexicans getting rich off narcotics sales if it weren’t for Anglo idiots being willing to spend what little money they have on a “quick fix.”

IF IT MEANS we have to focus our efforts on trying to get people weaned away from wanting to resort to such drugs, rather than think the “Law and Order” approach is primary, then so be it.

Because a part of me wonders if all that is going to happen from these new indictments is that some people, particularly those of a nativist ideological bent, will think the problem is solved now that somebody’s cracking down on Mexican drug dealers.

When in reality, the problems caused by narcotics use will remain with us, even if a few more people wind up crowding our nation’s prison systems.

And Patrick Fitzgerald could go back to doing his job of keeping us Chicago-area residents safe from the likes of Rod Blagojevich.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Reports of the indictment of various people, including high-ranking Mexican drug dealers, cracked me up (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-082009-drug-cartel-federal-indictments,0,4228031.story) with their references of drugs being slipped into the country “by submarine.” Could it be that those subs are going up the Mississippi River, across the state via the Illinois River, then coming into the city via the Chicago River? Nah!

For those who wonder why Mexico doesn’t just extradite the 10 of their citizens who are now indicted (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21cartel.html) in the United States on drug charges, think of how many of them would feel if the U.S. willingly turned over its citizens because a foreign country filed some charges.