Obama stealing presidential perk from Trump w/ Cubs White House visit?

Perhaps it’s only appropriate that the first president with solid Chicago ties (Ronald Reagan’s connection was living here one year when he was about 3) gets to host the White House visit of the first Chicago Cubs baseball team that was able to win anything in a long, long time.

President Barack Obama will pay tribute to the Chicago Cubs' World Series victory, similar to the belated tribute he gave to the Super Bowl-winning Chicago Bears of 1985. Just wondering if coach Mike Ditka (now known to be a Trump backer, wishes he could take back the jersey. Photographs provided by White House.

Although I’m wondering if there will be political partisans who will claim Barack Obama is stealing away a moment in the public eye from incoming President Donald J. Trump.

SERIOUSLY, THOSE PEOPLE are capable of complaining about anything and everything. I’m sure they’re already looking for excuses to claim they’re being snubbed.

And the fact that the Cubs, who won the World Series back in November, will make their celebratory White House visit on Monday, instead of waiting for the team’s next trip to Washington (June 26-29, to play the Nationals), is just the kind of fluff event that will cause some to get outraged!

It was reported this week by various news organizations (because this kind of fluff is easy to comprehend, unlike budgetary matters or the ongoing fight over how to kill off Obama’s political signature Affordable Care Act) that most of the Cubs players will be on hand at the White House for the event with Obama.

Although I’m wondering if any ballplayers decide to try to make their own political statement – similar to when Obama tried to pay tribute to the 1985 Chicago Bears team that won a Super Bowl, only to have Dan Hampton refuse to show up in protest.

Obama also paid tribute to the Chicago Blackhawks victories in various Stanley Cups.

LET’S NOT FORGET that pitcher Jake Arrieta befouled the celebratory mood of Cubs fans in early November when, on Election Day, he used his own Twitter account on Election Night to make comments interpreted by some as mocking those people who were appalled by Trump’s political victory.

In fact, let’s not forget that amongst Trump’s appointments to cabinet and staff positions was one for Todd Ricketts, the brother of Cubs team chairman Tom Ricketts, to be a deputy secretary in the Department of Commerce.

Does Clinton wish this event were hers?

There may be some people who think the Cubs should have waited until June so that the new president can have the honors. In fact, it has me wondering if Trump would be so petty as to demand his own personal event with the Cubs.

We know he loves positive press and certainly is capable of being petty and childish.

BUT FOR NOW, we’re going to get the Cubs appearing with Obama. His final public appearance in Chicago was Tuesday night, which could make the Cubs his final event with Chicago ties before he departs the White House at noon on Jan. 20.

I’m sure the event will be light-hearted fluff – one that I’m sure the ballplayers will use to make themselves feel all important. Although I suspect back in 2006 when the World Series-winning Chicago White Sox got a White House visit with then-President George W. Bush, they were probably more impressed Hugh Hefner invited the team to visit the Playboy Mansion.

Because after all, they’re ballplayers and the political people, including the president, are just about wetting themselves with glee at the thought of getting to meet them. But “Hef” had girls and booze on hand for his event!

If anything, it might have been worse for the Cubs if Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election – because then she’d be citing her lifelong ties to rooting for the team – while also probably trying to have burned and shredded every single photographic image that depicts her wearing a New York Yankees cap.

A MOVE SHE made back when she ran for the U.S. Senate – coming up with the convoluted logic of being a Cubs fan who rooted for the Yankees in the American League. An explanation that no legitimate baseball fan ever took seriously.

Then again, there’s Obama – who because he wound up settling in Hyde Park on the South Side adopted the Chicago White Sox. Whose team web site identifies Obama as their “first fan.”

Yet it was then-President George W. Bush who paid tribute to the last Chicago team to win a World Series -- the White Sox of '05.

Yet Obama on Monday will offer up his bit of public praise for the ball club and moment that made many hard-core White Sox fans nauseous; citing the idea of uniting Chicago into one.

That’s Bull! Then again, it takes basketball and our disappointment with the Bulls to truly unite the Chicago sporting mentality.

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What will we remember when we think back fifteen years to September 11?

When I think back to Sept. 11, 2001, I have my own personal image I keep in my mind from that day.

As we viewed it from Chicago

It was as I walked through downtown that morning while most businesses were quickly shutting down for the day to allow for an evacuation of the Loop as a precautionary measure – in the event that anything similar to had what just happened in Manhattan and suburban Washington, D.C., was in store for Chicago.

I RECALL THE sight and sound of Chicago Police motorcycles riding all over the downtown area with their lights flashing and sirens roaring, trying to create the visual image of a heavy police presence that would pounce down on anyone who did anything even remotely suspicious.

And while I heard that, I happened to look over at the Borders Books store that used to exist on State Street (it’s now the Old Navy store), where I saw a store manager standing in the display window quickly concocting a sign that informed people the store was closed for business until further notice (it wound up re-opening a day later).

Like I said, the Loop was in a state of chaos. People were headed for the commuter train stations in hopes of catching a ride back home for the rest of the day. In fact, I was one of the few people headed to an office – instead of away from one.

I would up spending the day at a makeshift United Press International bureau, then got to see the Loop later in the afternoon by which time everybody was gone and it seemed like a ‘ghost town.’

ALL BECAUSE OF the activities by fanatics citing their religion as an excuse for acts of vandalism against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (with speculation being that had the plan been carried out to its full extent, the Capitol building and White House also would have been hit that day).

 

'Loop empties' makes Page One

We literally wondered if someone had in mind a plan to hit the Sears Tower as well. It led to the precautionary evacuation that pretty much meant that for Chicagoans, Sept. 11, 2001 was not so much a day of horror, but one in which we got an excused absence from work.

Which makes me wonder what we’ll think about on Friday – which is the date that many communities throughout the Chicago area have chosen with which to have official ceremonies paying tribute to the memory of that date.

 

A view from up and close

One which some people are determined to think lives “in infamy” even if their sense of history is so weak that they have no concept of what that famed FDR quote refers to, or who President Roosevelt even was!

I WONDER ABOUT the point of many of these ceremonies, which I wonder if they will be so filled with all the patriotic gestures one can think of that they wind up becoming trite remembrances of what we actually felt that day.

For one thing, they’re being held now instead of on the actual anniversary date of Sunday. Which makes me suspect that organizers fear people would be too preoccupied with the Chicago Bears season opener against the Houston Texans to care much about a patriotic ceremony!

Has Sept. 11 become just a date? Rather than an event in which we remember how 15 years ago our sense of our nation’s invincibility was challenged, and we might have to consider the concept that someone else would have the nerve to try to challenge our society.

Because that’s what those particular attacks were – meant to strike a blow against the western world that some perceive as leading us into a 21^st Century that has deviated too far from their vision of the ideal.

 

A little over the top

TO THE POINT that Chicago pretty much shut itself down for a day, and I still remember the fact that commercial airlines were shuttered for a week. Car rental agencies received a boon as certain people learned that the three-hour flight across the country was actually a three-day drive if done by automobile.

It's something that ought to be thought of seriously, and not just an excuse to listen to a poorly-sung national anthem while people struggle to remember the proper words to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Which is what is too likely to occur in ceremonies held across the metropolitan area and the nation come Friday.

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Some people just don’t get the concept of doing things more efficiently!

We’re in a new year, and it seems that the Cook County Board has a resolution – they’re going to try to run their twice-a-month board meetings more efficiently.

At least that’s what their intent seems to be. In actuality, the board on Wednesday managed to plod its way through its public business in as inefficient a manner as possible.

FOR THE RECORD, the news reports that will come out of the Wednesday session will focus on gun control – particularly the fact that the county board approved a resolution telling the General Assembly to approve a bill now pending to restrict firearms even further.

The board also will consider a measure to make it a crime to fail to report a firearm missing. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says too many people who resell firearms to people who shouldn’t have them try claiming that “oops, I forgot” to report that weapon stolen!

But that activity managed to take up about, at most, a half-hour of a four-hour session. And it came at the very end of the session.

Anybody sitting through the county board activity on Wednesday had to endure hours of minutia – particularly a full hour on the subject of when it is appropriate to use electronic monitoring on someone rather than keeping them confined in the Cook County Jail.

THE CHANGE IN policy is that county board meetings now officially will start one hour later than they used to. While all the committee meetings that previously took place simultaneously with the board meeting will take place in the first hour that used to be the county board session.

It is good in one respect. It used to be a pain in the derriere to have to keep straight whether the board was acting as a board, a finance committee or some other entity.

But on Wednesday, it meant that the committees were done within 15 minutes. And that was delayed because the bulk of the commissioners couldn’t be bothered to show up on time.

Although they eventually straggled in and a quorum was reached, I couldn’t help but notice Commissioner John Fritchey, D-Chicago, showing up for business two minutes AFTER all the committee activity was over.

NOT THAT HE missed much! Although I think Commissioner Peter Silvestri, R-Elmwood Park, hit it right on the nose when he said, “the first time we do this new schedule, there’s no business.”

Even county board President Toni Preckwinkle was off a little bit, as she initially started the formal part of the county board meeting with an announcement that committees would now meet – only to be told by Commissioner John Daley, D-Chicago, that the committee business was already complete.’

"I’m going off the old script,” she quipped.

Actually, if there’s something that the county board could do if it were seriously interested in shortening its board meetings, it would be to do away with all those ceremonial resolutions they feel compelled to debate and discuss at will.

ON WEDNESDAY, THERE was but one (by Commissioner Jesus Garcia, D-Chicago, honoring the memory of a long-deceased doctor of Mexican ethnic heritage). But there have been times when they feel compelled to honor a half-dozen people at a time – which stretches out the pomp and fluff into hours of mind-numbing activity.

Then there are all the little tidbits of business – such as the awarding of a contract to Finer Foods of Chicago to provide all the poultry products that will be fed to inmates at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, or the deal that says county jail inmates will now be used to clean and feed the animal population at the Animal Care Facility, 2741 S. Western Ave. The city will pay the county just over $323,000 per year for that detail.

Daley might have been right technically when he said that making the change would allow the board meeting proper to “blow right through the agenda.”

But it still is a mind-numbing place to watch politicking take place – not truly gross enough to be classified as sausage-making.

BUT STILL NOT the most refined of processes to watch.

Which is why listening to Daley in response to the county board’s invocation might have been Wednesday’s highlight.

The pastor in question who gave the prayer recently transferred from a Bridgeport-neighborhood church to one in Hyde Park.

Which Daley – the life-long Bridgeport native himself – said amounts to, “leaving a great ward to go to a good ward.”

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‘Way of the Cross’ just not the same walking along Michigan Avenue

I don’t mean to bash the roughly 100 people whom I saw Friday morning partaking in the “Way of the Cross,” an attempt to replicate (sort of) the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for having the nerve to say that he was the Son of God.

Site of one of the 'Stations' of the cross

But there’s just something about the event that loses so much flavor when it basically becomes a walk along Michigan Avenue.

SOMEHOW, I DOUBT that Jesus in his final hours of life as a mere mortal was thinking anything close to what the typical “Magnificent Mile” marcher has running through his (or her) mind.

But that is what occurred when people attempted to replicate the events celebrated by Good Friday, one of the holiest days in the Christian faith. For those of you who are celebrating Passover this weekend, this may all sound like superstitious hooey.

Then again, I’m sure there are devout Christians who don’t get the whole thing about opening the door for Elijah. Perhaps if we tried to comprehend each other better (and that also includes Christians and Jewish people trying to understand Muslims), we’d all be better off.

Part of my problem with what happened in downtown Chicago is that my mind compares the event to the similar events that were staged in neighborhoods like Pilsen (or Spanish-speaking enclaves across the United States, for that matter).

SOMEHOW, LATINOS REALLY seem to get into the spirit of Good Friday more than what I saw Friday morning, although I'm sure the denizens of Michigan Avenue probably think what happened Friday afternoon in Pilsen is downright uncouth.

How else to explain the difference between a couple of people leading this particular procession (which had Chicago Catholic Archdiocese backing) being led by a couple of people bearing a cardboard cross, and a Latino-oriented production where the Jesus “impersonator” is literally lugging around the cross that he will be crucified on later in the day in Humboldt Park?

Add in a couple of portly Latinos (yes, I’ll admit to falling in that category myself) dressed as Roman soldiers who are flogging Jesus all the while, and it just makes the downtown version seem so tame.

In my case, I saw the procession as it made its way past the Thompson Center state government building. It had just started one block south at the Daley Plaza, where a cross was erected in the shadow of the Picasso statue and even after the crowd moved on, a woman was present handing out prayer cards to all passersby.

THE GROUP WAS was later to make stops at the Veterans’ memorial at State Street and Wacker Drive, the Tribune Tower, the Water Tower, then work its way west a couple of blocks to Holy Name Cathedral – the church that still has a couple of pock marks in the front steps from when gangster Dion O’Banion was shot to death after attending services there.

It may be somewhat sacrilegious to dismiss Holy Name’s significance to Chicago with the organized crime reference.

Then again, there is a part of me that is pleased they included a stop (meant to replicate the stops made along the route to Christ’s place of death) at Tribune tower.

Although I wonder what needed more of a blessing – the Chicago Tribune itself to use its still-ample resources to publish a better newspaper, or for some sort of miracle so that the nearby Marilyn Monroe statue quits showing off her undies to passers-by on Michigan Avenue!

WHILE I BELIEVE the people who participated were sincere, I couldn’t pick up any sense that they were gathering the attention of those people whom they passed by. Just another crazy day in the Second City!

I doubt the masses took to the event as literally as can occur in a Latino neighborhood, where the guy who gets to play Christ will literally go around showing off the scars (and, in some cases, nail holes in his palms) he received from playing the Son of God.

Although my favorite story resulting from a “Way of the Cross” celebration isn’t even from this country. It came out of a town in rural Mexico where police had to be called in to break up a bar fight.

For it seems the fight was between two men – one of who had played the part of Jesus Christ and the other filled the role of Judas Iscariot. When the other bar patrons figured out who the two were, they quickly sided with Christ.

“JUDAS” WOUND UP getting beaten severely by the other bar-goers. Then, when police arrived, he was the one who got hauled away and wound up facing criminal charges for starting a fight with “Jesus.”

The day that a downtown “Way of the Cross” celebration can inspire that kind of enthusiasm and energy will be the day I stop thinking of it as a superficial way of remembering our religious faith.

And for what it’s worth, they plan to be back out there on March 29, 2013. Just so you can get yourself ready.

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It’s gonna be a zoo come Monday

I can’t help but think that the last place any rational human being wants to be on Monday is Millennium Park.

Chicago’s downtown playground is the place where Rahm Emanuel wants to take the oath of office that makes him our mayor. Which in theory makes sense because it means that anybody who wants to show up to create the illusion that they were present for the event can just come along.



BIDEN: The presidential fill-in



THE EVENT WILL take place in the Pritzker Pavilion (named for the wealthy Chicago family whose members, if I recall correctly, were among the early presidential backers of Barack Obama’s opponent – Hillary R. Clinton).

Yet I don’t want any part of the park. Not because I don’t care. But because I think the actual oath ceremony is going to be such a mess. I don’t want to imagine how congested the crowds will get around Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue.

The rumor mill that had President Obama himself showing up to see his former chief of staff become mayor of his adopted home city washed out in a sense.

It is highly unlikely that Obama will be in Chicago on Monday.

WHAT DOES SEEM more likely is that Joe Biden will have to earn his federal paycheck on that date by coming to Chicago to “fill in” for the prez.

The Vice President is expected to be the official representative on hand when Emanuel takes his oath to uphold the laws of Chicago, along with the Constitution and all that other jazz.

EMANUEL: The new mayor



Which means that anyone who is going to get anywhere near to the place where either Biden or Emanuel will be is going to be someone who has gone through a Secret Service background check.

Now those checks aren’t the most complicated in the world. I have had to be subjected to them, from time to time during my duties as a reporter-type person. They basically want to know if anyone who’s going to get within the president’s sight is someone with a warrant out for their arrest or is someone involved with any kind of group that the president might consider “subversive.”

NOW THE SECRET Service isn’t about to conduct such a check on every single person who shows up at Millennium Park. So the bulk of us are going to be kept so far away from the action that I’d advise bringing a good pair of binoculars so you can see even a tiny bit of what happens.

Otherwise, the players in the city inauguration will appear to be little more than fleas. One might even mistake which one is which and start thinking that the Biden blip is our new mayor.

Let’s hope not. I can’t think of a more dreary image for our city. And keep in mind that I’m old enough to remember the days when Michael Bilandic was mayor.

I’d say I “vividly remember” those days, but somehow use of the word “vivid” in connection with the boring Bilandic just seems wrong. That was a man who truly had the personality fit to be a judge – the post to which he ultimately rose after his stint at City Hall was complete.

IT IS INTERESTING, to me at least, to see a bit of a federal presence being included in the city inauguration festivities. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood also will be in Chicago for the ritual that will make Emanuel (in the minds of some politically parochial types) the Most Important Political Person on the Face of Planet Earth.

You know what I mean, those people who believe that running for something like president or senator is what you do if you don’t have what it takes to be “da mare.”

I don’t quite buy into that line of logic. But it will be nice to see someone like LaHood in Chicago. While he might be an Illinoisan who got picked for Obama’s cabinet because of his “local” ties, he is a Peoria native (and represented a central Illinois district in Congress). Perhaps we can persuade him to move to Chicago once his government service days are done.

But back to the mess that will be Monday.

UNLESS YOU’RE THE ultimate political V.I.P., you’re going to be so far away from the action that you won’t have a clue what is happening.

Let’s only hope that the weather on Monday (tentatively predicted to be sunny in the lower 50s) isn’t as ridiculously humid as what we have experienced the past couple of days.

Otherwise, we will have the potential for Millennium Park to turn into a sweaty, stinky pit of humanity that could create an aroma reminiscent of the old Union Stock Yards.

Not exactly the image we’d want to create of our fair city. And one I likely will miss by watching the actual event over someone’s television screen.

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A question for Gov. Quinn – What exactly constitutes “frugal,” but “not chintzy?”

A part of me is tempted to work my way down to Springfield on Jan. 10.

QUINN: What is "frugal?"



It’s not that I really have any desire to see the inaugural ceremonies to be held for the officials who won Illinois state government constitutional offices in the Nov. 2 elections. It is more that I would want to see what qualifies as “frugal,” but “not chintzy.”

THAT IS THE description that Gov. Pat Quinn used earlier this week to describe the ceremonies at which he will take the oath of office and become Illinois’ governor through 2015, along with Lt. Gov.-elect Sheila Simon, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (for the third time), Illinois secretary of state Jesse White (for the fourth time), Illinois Comptroller-elect Judy Baar Topinka and Illinois Treasurer-elect Dan Rutherford.

He’s trying to play into the theme that he won’t be wasting money on an elaborate ceremony and inaugural ball, particularly at a time when the state faces some serious financial problems of its own.

Not that I expect anybody to be swayed by this. His partisan critics are going to look for every little nitpicking detail that they can claim is too much – mainly because they don’t want him to have it.

And if he really does do things on the cheap, then he’s going to get bashed about for doing things in a third-rate manner.

IT WOULD NOT shock me to learn that Quinn tries to create the appearance of scaling things back. This is the guy who for many years used to boast of staying at Motel 6 hotels whenever he traveled on government business. (And yes, I know the stories about how his famous Motel 6 club card was long expired and good for nothing, so don’t feel the need to reiterate them to me).



TOPINKA: Will she top herself?



I noticed on the website created to disseminate information about the upcoming Inaugural that it boasts of not using any taxpayer funds, and that the web design itself was donated.

Inaugural Committee officials themselves will only say they’re seeking private donations to come up with money to pay for the festivities that will take over the Capitol Complex and downtown Springfield for a couple of days.

But I also noticed that the basic schedule of events for the 2011 Inaugural is the same as in past years – an early-morning church service at First Presbyterian Church in Springfield (located across the street from the governor’s mansion and one block from the Capitol building), an open house at the Executive Mansion and other state offices during the afternoon and an inaugural ball – which usually just serves to show that Illinois’ government officials don’t have any sense of rhythm.

THERE ALSO IS the “big event,” the inaugural ceremony in mid-day during which the oaths of office are administered at the Prairie Capital Convention Center – which can be converted into an arena seating just over 5,000 people.

Even those ceremonies don’t amount to much, because it is rare that our officials produce some sort of inspiring rhetoric from the newly-sworn-in public officials.

My knowledge of Illinois’ inaugurals comes about mostly from the fact that I was on hand for the events in 1995 and 1999. Trust me when I say that anybody who expects an event in Springfield that will match the majesty of what took place Jan. 20, 2009 in Washington when Barack Obama became president will be seriously disappointed.

Personally, the moments I most remember are (from 1999) when new Gov. George Ryan had his Democratic opponent, Glenn Poshard, stand up in the packed arena, and the crowd gave him an ovation, and (from 1995) when then-Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka gave her inaugural address and managed to include a “fart joke” that left the crowd silenced.

IT DEFINITELY PUT a damper on what otherwise was a glorious moment of triumph for the Republicans (that was the election cycle where they won every single statewide office, and also took the entire Legislature – beginning a two-year period of domination of Illinois state government).

My big question about Inauguration ’11 is, Will Judy manage to top that moment when it comes to shocking the crowd of government geeks that wants to see the new officials take office.

For those who would want a touching moment, I also remember when soul singer Lou Rawls performed at the 1995 event (the one that saw Republicans begin a two-year period of domination of state government) and altered the lyrics to “Wind Beneath My Wings” to tell then-First Lady Brenda Edgar that she was "the wind" beneath Gov. Jim’s "wings."

For those who are focused on finances, I’m not sure how any of this would have been impacted. In fact, I have always felt that Illinois conducted fairly low-key inaugural ceremonies.

EXCEPT FOR THE fact that we won’t get a “first dance” by the first couple (Quinn is divorced), I’m not sure how much more low-key the event could get.

Unless they decide to skimp on the entertainment at the ball. Simon’s all-female bluegrass band, Loose Gravel, could perform, with a featured solo by Topinka on her accordion.

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Did Obama pick bad time to visit Chicago?

There are those of us Chicagoans who have been getting on the case of President Barack Obama for not continuing to spend time at his Hyde Park neighborhood home, or anywhere in the Chicago area. So you’d think that his decision to have the family spend the Memorial Day holiday weekend “back home” would cause the criticism to pipe down.

Forget it.

BECAUSE NOW OBAMA is getting criticized by people who think that Memorial Day is one of those moments that he OUGHT TO BE REQUIRED to be near the District of Columbia.

Specifically, there are those people who are upset that the president of the United States will not be participating in the Memorial Day ceremonies to be held Monday at Arlington National Cemetery – the place where many veterans of every military conflict our nation has ever engaged in are buried.

We’re hearing the political rhetoric that the president is showing disrespect to the military – even though his plans for Monday include spending some time at a military cemetery.

It just won’t be “ARLINGTON, Va. – “ as the dateline on Monday’s news coverage of Obama. Instead, we’ll get the ubiquitous “ELWOOD, Ill. –,” which is the home of the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, which is having its 11th annual Memorial Day ceremony – albeit the first ever where a sitting president has bothered to show up.

IT SOUNDS TOO much like people who want to think the whole of our society revolves around the District of Columbia (which is a nice place to visit for a few days at a time, although somewhat depressing if you actually have to live there) can’t accept the fact that there is a “rest of the country” that also will be observing the holiday this weekend.

The presidential appearance is, at most, a few seconds observed on television, in between the segment about the local holiday parade and the line of scores telling us how the White Sox managed to botch another ball game.

Should we really get worked up that Obama had included on his schedule for the national holiday that pays tribute to those who defended this country a ceremony at a place named for a president who held the nation together at a time when forces tried literally to split it into two?

To me, that sounds more appropriate than being in a place that was once the home estate of a military leader who rejected Lincoln’s pleas to work with him in holding the nation together, and was willing to join forces with those who would have torn it apart.

NOW THOSE OF you who have Confederacy apologist tendencies, don’t get worked up. Not yet anyway. Because the people who are all upset that Obama would use a Chicago-area cemetery (Elwood is located on Interstate 55 just past Joliet) to honor soldiers and Memorial Day are not the ones who bother me the most.

What really ticked me off was when I learned of the fact that some people in our society are so miffed about Obama using Will County, Ill., for official Memorial Day tributes that they were planning their own counter-protest, so to speak.

We’re not quite talking about the Ku Klux Klan, but we are talking about the kind of people with racial hangups that they join groups that feed off much of the imagery and nit-wit philosophy of white supremacy.

If they had got their way, we’d be having a counter-protest at a rural site just south of Mokena, Ill. (one of those towns that comprises the outer fringes of the Chicago area).

THINK ABOUT IT, if you will.

A sitting president wants to come to an area cemetery to pay tribute to those who served their nation, yet these activists who like to think they are “real Americans” and “true” patriots find that act to be offensive.

So much so that they talk of holding a rally to express their disgust with the very thought that Obama would think himself worthy of paying respect to military people.

I guess racial hangups overcome patriotism, although I’d argue such hangups are probably what is most “un-American” about these people.

WE SHOULD BE thankful that the owner of the site where these people wanted to hold their rally (officially being billed as “Nordic Fest” to give it an ethnic flair, even though I suspect most of these people have no true concept of what they really are or where they originated from) changed his mind and revoked permission for his land to be used.

Then again, reports in the Herald-News of Joliet indicate his big reason for revoking permission was that he didn’t like the nasty publicity that was being derived. All of those “liberal, out-of-touch-with-society” reporter-types were calling him to ask about the “Klan” rally being held on his land.

Otherwise, Will County literally would have become the place on Monday where the white supremacists protested the fact that a president would pay respect to military dead.

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