“Awesome?” How about absurd instead?

There has been speculation in recent days that Rod Blagojevich and his legal defense team might very well try to drag Barack Obama into the courtroom sometime this summer in hopes that his comments and political goodwill would reflect well upon himself.

Of course, the fact that Obama now goes by the title “Mr. President” means that his people will do everything they possibly can to ensure that the onetime U.S. senator from Chicago won’t have to set foot anywhere near the Dirksen Building anytime soon.

FOR THE RECORD, Blagojevich’s lead attorney told reporter-types on Wednesday that being able to question Obama under oath would be “an awesome experience.” It would be so bizarre, but it also would ensure that Samuel E. Adam would be the focus of the legal world for that one day.

Not that there’s anything Obama would seriously be able to add to the understanding of this particular case.

If anything, the real purpose about dreaming of getting Obama involved is to turn the Blagojevich trial into a legal circus of sorts. Get everybody so focused on the actions of Obama that people begin to think of Milorod as secondary, if not downright irrelevant.

From there, acquittal is an easy step. Not that anything related to this particular criminal case is easy or sensible.

IN THIS PARTICULAR case, attorneys will remind us that federal investigators themselves thought Obama was significant enough to interview back when they were trying to figure out how extensive the criminal behavior related to Blagojevich truly was.

I would guess they will claim that since “the feds” got to question Obama, they too should be able to do so. Not that they expect to get serious information. Like I wrote earlier, this tactic is all about misdirection.

What does Obama know? Why won’t Obama testify? What is Obama trying to hide? Of course, they’ll use the words “cover up.” As in What is Obama trying to cover up? It sounds so much more ominous that way.

And if they can somehow turn this case into a debate of sorts about Barack’s behavior, rather than that of Milorod, they may think it will work in their favor. At the very least, they may cause enough confusion among the eventual jurors that a mistrial would be a distinct possibility.

I HAVE TO admit to hoping that Obama never does have to get involved in this particular legal mess, and not just because I don’t think there’s much he could say that would truly be relevant.

It’s just that I remember how much of a circus a trial can become when a major political figure has to take an oath to tell the “truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth” and be treated just like any other schmoe who is subpoenaed to testify in a criminal trial.

I still remember the summer of ’97 when in U.S. District Court for central Illinois, executives of a company that did business with the Illinois Department of Public Aid were on trial along with some state officials.

Then-Gov. Jim Edgar had some contact with the defendants (one of them was something resembling a computer “whiz” who literally helped set up a computer for Edgar’s use at his home in suburban Springfield).

THOSE OF US who observed that trial ultimately got to see the day when the legal proceedings became a mess because Edgar had to show up and testify that he personally wasn’t aware of any illegal activity by the people who he knew as acquaintances.

In the end, I’m not sure what information Edgar was able to provide that added anything to my understanding of the case. I just remember Edgar’s day in court as the day that a whole lot of television crews showed up to crowd the hallways and turn the downtown Springfield courthouse into something resembling a zoo.

I could easily see the Dirksen Building becoming the same way if Obama were forced to return and talk about what questions he answered in those days when he was president-elect and when Blagojevich was in charge of picking the person who would get to replace him.

We remember the many names who were sucking up to Blagojevich in those first few days after Obama won the 2008 presidential elections, hoping that he would give them the appointment to finish the term to which Obama was elected in 2004.

WE ALL EVEN know that Blagojevich inquired about what it was these people would be willing to do on the governor’s behalf if they were giv en the appointment – which would have given them the benefits of incumbency if they sought re-election in next year’s elections.

I don’t know that Obama himself knew much about the degree to which Blagojevich crossed the line between playing partisan politics and engaging in criminal behavior. He’d probably wind up taking the same line of logic that Edgar took on his day of testimony, claiming he, “didn’t know anything.”

Personally, I don’t know that such a revelation is worth all the hassle that would be created, just so Adam could have his “awesome experience” for his legal career.

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They're coming to Illinois, accept it!

Federal officials made it final on Tuesday, the U.S. government is going to buy the largely-vacant prison near Thomson, Ill., and use it to house many of the alleged terrorist suspects who until now have been held indefinitely at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

President Barack Obama made one of his first actions in office to be the signing of an order that those inmates be moved out of there as soon as was practically possible, and the purchase of the prison means that the answer to the question “What will we do with them?” is now “Send them to rural Illinois.”

AS WAS TO be expected, this is becoming a partisan issue amongst our political people. Democrats are lining up behind the president, while Republicans are engaging in the scare tactics of ridiculous rhetoric implying that somehow, this makes Chicago more of a target for future terror acts than it already is.

Or do these people believe Chicago should give up O’Hare International Airport and the Willis Tower?

All big cities in this country are targets, just because an incident in Chicago or somewhere else significant will draw more international attention than, say, an attack on Watterson Towers in Normal, Ill. (and my apologies to any Illinois State University alums who ever actually lived in that 27-story structure).

Also, there’s the fact that no more than 100 Guantanamo inmates are being sent to Thomson, a maximum-security facility that has about 1,600 cells. This is not going to be the end destination for all those would-be terror suspects, so we’re not going to get the brunt of negative attention.

YES, I WILL come out and write it. I mock the idea that Illinois is somehow being put at risk by shifting these inmates to Thomson. I realize that they ultimately have to be put somewhere on the mainland United States, and a place in northwestern Illinois that is located a hundred or so miles from any city of significant size is about as isolated a ground as one can find.

About the only placemore isolated might very well be to build a facility in Alaska and transport them there – but then I could envision Sarah Palin getting all worked up.

Part of what makes me think little of the Republican rhetoric was the debate held this week among the GOP dreamers for Illinois governor – all of whom took their own shots at Democrats, which is to be expected.

But one-time Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan, in his attempt to criticize, wound up conceding the absurdity of the argument.

“I THINK IT’S a very bad idea to bring the mastermind of (the World Trade Center attack) to Thomson,” said Ryan, according to the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights. “I have no doubt we can keep him there and he’ll never get out . But no one can tell me there’s no risk.”

In short, he concedes that it would be impossible for these inmates to sneak out of the prison and “blend in” with the surrounding community. So what’s the problem?

Is it just that some people are determined to complain no matter what the issue or how ridiculous a viewpoint they must take in order to be “in opposition” to the “other” side? Because under typical circumstances, these particular officials would be the first ones to praise the opening of a new prison facility because of the creation of so many new jobs for people who are their potential political supporters.

At least with the case of Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., whose campaign website promoting his bid for a U.S. Senate seat contains a link to an Internet petition to be sent to Obama, his ridiculous rhetoric can be explained away as a cheap attempt to gain attention to his political aspirations and to try to appear more conservative than his voting record would indicate he is on various issues.

I’M SURE HIS people took a look at polls such as the one recently released by the Chicago Tribune that showed nearly half of would-be Republican voters (46 percent, to be exact) remain undecided, which means their initial look at Kirk was not enough to convince them to want to support him.

It may be shameful, but Kirk’s rhetoric is political, and his comments of today may very well be the ones that he tries to downplay in the future when he’s trying to get the votes of “real” people – not the ideologues.

My problem with the issue, and the reason I’m glad to see that movement is being made to get the inmates out of Guantanamo is that I always have believed the odd conditions (unlike those of any other person being incarcerated by our government against his will) of that facility go a long way toward undermining the moral authority our country claims with regard to the military efforts taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A line I often have used remains true today – any time Fidel Castro can criticize you (and he has many times on this issue) without being totally dishonest means you’re doing something wrong.

TUESDAY’S ANNOUNCEMENT ALSO gave me a kick because it had the feel of Illinoisans taking over the White House for the day. Obama made sure to have Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., at his side, along with Gov. Pat Quinn – who made last-minute changes to his schedule so he could be in the District of Columbia for the day instead of at his Chicago office.

Heck, even our other senator, Roland Burris, D-Ill., got into the mood, issuing the statement that usually would have been the priority of Republican officials and which likely will be the last time anyone pays serious attention to him.

More than 3,000 jobs created for the local folk, along with the potential for much more federal funding for the area on account of the fact that the Thomson Correctional Center shifts from the Illinois Department of Corrections to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

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Cohen’s personal money can help, but it’s not the only factor at work in primary

I never realized that cleaning products and pawn shops were so profitable.

But that appears to be the case for Scott Lee Cohen, who is the one non-political person wishing to receive the Democratic Party’s nomination for lieutenant governor.

SERIOUSLY, THE BULK of his opposition in the Feb. 2 primary are men who have served significant stints in the Illinois Legislature, as opposed to Cohen – who’s trying to portray himself as the businessman who would bring his “real world” expertise to Illinois state government.

There are many people who will try to simplify the candidate field to four by claiming that Terry Link, Mike Boland, Art Turner and Rickey Hendon are the only ones that ought to be taken seriously. But Cohen is making rumblings that indicate he will force others to take him seriously.

In short, he’s rich. He has money. He can afford to spend some of his own wealth to try to win a primary nomination for public office.

The source of that money will cause some chuckles among politically oriented people. He founded a company that sells environmentally-friendly cleaning products, which will play very well among more liberal Democrats. He also owns several pawn shops in the Chicago area, which is bound to be the image the Republicans tag him with if his campaign starts to get too much traction among the public.

SO WHAT DOES Cohen have in mind?

Specifically, Cohen told the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald newspaper that he will spend up to $3 million of his own money on his primary campaign. None of the aforementioned trio could come close to matching that kind of money out of their own bank accounts or investments.

Personally, I find it kind of hypocritical when people think they ought to be able to use their personal wealth to give their campaign dreams a jolt. They usually are the ones who rant and rage about political people spending too much money to get themselves elected – even if it is money that comes from donations from potential supporters.

Cohen himself includes among his campaign rhetoric support for spending limits, along with a claim that candidates should only be allowed to raise up to $100,000 from outside sources to seek the lieutenant governor’s post.

SOME WILL SAY that Cohen is merely playing the political “game” with the rules that currently exist, and that his talk of reform would apply to himself in the future should he manage to get elected.

To me, it seems like he thinks he ought to have a financial advantage because of his personal wealth,which is a trend that has played out in election cycles past.

Some times it works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.

I still remember the millions spent by one-time state Rep. Al Salvi, who in 1996 was able to dump the Republican Party’s preferred nominee of Bob Kustra for U.S. Senate and in 1998 beat out Loleta Didrickson for the Illinois Secretary of State nomination.

HE DIDN’T WIN either general election (and by his own admission, his personal wealth dropped so much from having to pay for two statewide campaigns that he no longer qualified as a “millionaire”), but he was able to force his face into the public view.

Let’s also remember the way Chicago attorney Al Hofeld used his own money to pay the bulk of a primary campaign for U.S. Senate, using his money in 1992 to try to tar incumbent Al Dixon. There are some who believe that the personal money worked in that it caused Dixon to lose, even if a plurality of voters preferred the third option – then-Cook County Recorder of Deeds Carol Moseley-Braun.

But when Moseley-Braun tried running for re-election in 1998, she had to encounter another man with personal wealth. Peter Fitzgerald ran a campaign that kept him out of the eye of everyone except the most hard-core GOP supporters – and he won his one term in the U.S. Senate.

My point in reciting these past pols is to show that there’s no guarantee Cohen can buy the Democratic Party’s nomination for the right to be one heartbeat away from serving as governor. But money, if handled right, will go a long way toward jumpstarting the Cohen campaign into electoral legitimacy.

OF COURSE, IF Cohen has a skeleton or two in his background (and I’m not aware of any, other than the fact that some people will try to turn his connections to pawn shops into something sleazy), all of his money won’t help him.

He could wind up suffering the fate of Blair Hull, who early on in the 2004 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate was the leader – in fact, the only candidate who was able to get much public attention, because he could afford a batch of television spots that made it appear as though he was the ONLY candidate in the campaign.

But when it came out that he had a history of domestic abuse involving his ex-wife, his money couldn’t save him, which created the political vacuum that ultimately was filled by the state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood whom we now refer to as “Mr. President.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: He may be one of the least known of the lieutenant governor “dreamers,” but Scott Lee Cohen (http://scottleecohen.com/New_Home.html) may become the latest wealthy guy to try to buy himself an elective office in Illinois.

Cohen says he can handle up to $3 million (http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/3085) to pay for a campaign, but his supporters are more likely to try to portray him as a businessman with “real world” experience (http://nwitimes.com/news/local/illinois/article_a06e9c9f-5cca-5be6-a0d0-ac5f3571db08.html) that could benefit state government if he is elected.

EXTRA: Preckwinkle wants women’s vote

Toni Preckwinkle, the Chicago alderman who’d like to run on what’s left of Barack Obama’s coattails for the presidency of Cook County Board, is counting on getting a significant share of the women’s vote if her campaign is to succeed come Feb. 2.

Preckwinkle is the African-American candidate whom some pundits say is the one black person that African-American voters want nothing to do with.

SHE’S A PRODUCT of the same Hyde Park neighborhood that gave us Obama (he used to represent the area at the Statehouse in Springfield, compared to Preckwinkle making the trip downtown to City Hall).

But while the African-American vote, some polls indicate, seems to center around city Treasurer Dorothy Brown and incumbent President Todd Stroger (not everybody thinks he’s a goober), Preckwinkle is the one who ran in second place in a recent Chicago Tribune poll, behind Brown but ahead of Stroger and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District head Terry O’Brien (a.k.a., the white guy).

It was with that in mind that Preckwinkle made public on Monday a list of groups that endorsed her – including Planned Parenthood of Illinois (the first time that group has ever bothered to get involved in a county board campaign).

The group cites the fact that they long supported her as an alderman and that she was a backer of the Bubble Zone Ordinance – the measure that prevents anyone from getting within eight feet of a woman trying to enter a clinic where abortions are offered.

SHE ALSO GOT the support of Democratic organizations in Chicago’s 49th Ward (the far north side), along with Evanston, Northfield and New Trier townships (the far northern suburbs of Cook County), and with Citizen Action/Illiinois – a good government type group.

In short, it looks (http://www.tonipreckwinkle.org/page/22) like the same kind of white people who had no problem voting for Obama for president are the ones most inclined to prefer Preckwinkle for county board president.

Which makes me wonder if we ought to quit paying much attention to O’Brien, who was only being taken seriously on the mistaken grounds that white people would mass around his campaign.

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It's still early in campaign season

A lot of people don’t have a clue who they’re going to vote for when it comes to the Feb. 2 primary elections.

At least that’s what I got out of the trio of polls used by the Chicago Tribune in recent days to write exclusive stories about how the campaign season is going thus far.

THEY’RE EXCLUSIVE IN that the newspaper got them first, and everybody else who writes stories based off the results is forced to acknowledge the fact that it’s the Tribune they’re stealing from. That’s the real purpose of the stories – enhance the impression that the Tribune reigns supreme over other Chicago newsgathering organizations by being able to afford to sponsor their own polls.

We got to see the headlines predicting Quinn/Ryan and Giannoulias/Kirk campaigns for Illinois governor and U.S. senator from Illinois, and the fact that Dorothy Brown gets to call herself the front-runner in the campaign for president of the Cook County Board.

The trick to consider about polls is that they indicate what the results might be, if the election were held today. But instead of mid-December, the elections in Illinois will be in early February, and it is very likely that many people won’t seriously think about the political process until next month.

In short, they will make up their minds at the last possible minute. So nobody ought to be thinking of themselves as having the election locked up (not even Quinn, whom the Tribune poll indicates has a huge lead over leading opponent Dan Hynes).

SERIOUSLY, THE TRUE leaders as indicated by the Tribune polls were Brown for county board president, Quinn for the Democratic nomination for Illinois governor, and undecided for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, and both party nominations for the U.S. Senate seat that Roland Burris finally had to concede he had little chance of winning election to in 2010.

The number of people surveyed who don’t know whom to vote for was higher than the support for Jim Ryan, Alexi Giannoulias or Mark Kirk.

In fact, many political observers are convinced that the only reason Ryan has more support in the poll than any of the other Republican possibilities for governor is because none of the other candidates is that well-known.

The theory is that once people get to know who the other candidates are, their support will shoot up and one of them is bound to surpass the one-time Illinois attorney general who is trying for a second time to become Illinois governor.

AS FOR GIANNOULIAS and Kirk, it could be that their opponents have a chance to overcome them – since there are elements of each one’s political party that would rather have nothing to do with them,.

It’s really bad for Kirk, who’d like to think he’s the inevitable GOP nominee for a U.S. Senate seat. But nearly half (46 percent, to be exact) of Republicans are undecided about who they’d like to have – other than that they don’t want a Democrat.

In short, they know they want the Senate seat once held by Barack Obama (because of the snickering they will be able to do in political circles by achieving such an electoral victory), but they don’t know who they want.

Giannoulias, whom some Democrats fear has political skeletons in his family’s financial history that could become negative issues, is not as bad off. But 31 percent favoring him and 35 percent being unsure who they want is a sad state of affairs in and of itself.

IN SHORT, I don’t know how these primary campaigns are going to turn out. Anybody who says they do know is either dishonest or dumb – if not both!

Too many people are going to wait after the winter holidays before they give much thought to elections. That is when the undecideds will drop to a more typical level – there are always a certain number of people who say they’re undecided because they are indecisve.

They just can’t make up their minds about anything.

But at this point, having that many undecideds indicates a series of election cycles that can go in any direction.

WHICH MEANS THAT the Tribune polls really didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, except for the fact that Tribune Company remains an organization with more muscle than any other news outfit in this town.

Who else is likely to pay for the multiple rounds of polls they are likely to conduct in coming weeks that the Tribune will give us?

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EXTRA: Does endorsement hurt Topinka?

What does it say for Judy Baar Topinka that she is the lone Republican who got the support of the leading labor union that represents state government employees?

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees local that covers state government workers made public their endorsements, and much attention is being paid to the fact that the union picked Alexi Giannoulias for U.S. Senate, but chose to back nobody for governor.

CONSIDERING THAT ILLINOIS Comptroller Dan Hynes has been counting on the notion that organized labor will boost his campaign to victory in the Feb. 2 primary, that has to hurt (particularly when combined with the fact that a Chicago Tribune poll shows Hynes getting his butt kicked by Gov. Pat Quinn.

But the endorsement for Topinka was the one that caught my eye.

Like most labor unions these days, they tend to prefer Democrats in elective office (similar to how the business-oriented groups all want Republican officials).

All of the AFSCME endorsements made public this weekend are for Democratic officials (although no political observers are getting excited about the idea that the union wants Bobby Rush to win another term in Congress).

EXCEPT FOR TOPINKA.

The lady from Riverside who always has been considered something of a loose cannon by her GOP colleagues received the endorsement of the AFSCME in her bid for Illinois comptroller.

What makes it interesting is that the union also gave an endorsement to the bid of state Rep. David Miller, D-Lynwood, who wants the Democratic Party’s nomination for Illinois comptroller.

So the labor union is telling us that this would be the one campaign where it might be permissible to consider voting for a Republican.

IT HAS ME wondering if some Democrats are conceding that it is highly unlikely they’re going to continue to win every single state constitutional office, so this is the post they’d be willing to sacrifice.

After all, Topinka as a state senator and as Illinois treasurer has a record of being as reasonable as any Republican can be – at least as far as Democrats are concerned.

But I wonder how long it will be until Topinka’s Republican primary opponent, Jim Dodge of suburban Orland Park, starts letting us know about this endorsement. For having a perception of being sympathetic to the interests of organized labor can be the literal kiss of death for a Republican candidate.

Did AFSCME unintentially do some serious harm to the Topinka camp by giving her their support?

WILL THOSE SAME Republican supporters who hated the idea of Topinka as their political party’s gubernatorial nominee in 2006 use this as a reason to deny her a political comeback?

Considering that this is a political campaign where the conservative ideologues are convinced that the name “Blagojevich” means they don’t have to compromise anything when it comes to picking candidates for the general election, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

For those of you who want to think that the electorate has enough sense to see through such a shallow logic, consider that these are the same people who got fooled by that video clip four years ago of Topinka dancing with George Ryan.

This could easily be twisted into something equally "sordid" in the logic of electoral politics.

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Only a Grinch sees a "war" between Christmas and other holidays

On the surface, it seems like a gesture of respect and equal time -- the giant menorah erected in Daley Plaza just a few dozen feet from the city's official Christmas tree.

For eight days, anyone passing through Chicago's unofficial public square can share in spirit of celebrating the Maccabees, who through a miracle of sorts managed to have their lamps with enough oilk for one night burn brightly for eight days.

IT'S NOT JUST Chicago that gives this conciliatory gesture to Jewish people.

Just this week, officials with the park district in Naperville approved the erection of a giant menorah next to the Santa House that is a local tradition. Park district officials gave in to the menorah even though their attorneys (according to the Daily Herald newspaper of Arlington Heights) were telling them there was some legal grounds for keeping the Santa House grounds Christmas-only.

So it won't just be downtown Chicago wehre people can share in the concept of Hanukkah. Others will be abel to watch in confusion or in anger as the various lights on top of the "candles" light up each night.

I suspect many people will be engaged in the hustle and bustle of the commercial aspects of the holiday season to pay these public menorahs much attention. Except for the few people who will perceive them as a "War on Christmas" because they'd rather everybody be forced to pay exclusive attention to the Christmas holiday.

THEY'RE THE ONES who probably remember fondly the episode of "The Simpsons" where Krusty the Klown's non-denominational winter holiday special told us to have a "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Crazy Kwanzaa, Solemn and Dignified Ramadan and a Tip-Top Tet."

Yet I can't help but wonder about these giant menorahs and what point they really serve, other than to force certain political people to accept the fact that not everyone in this nation is of a Christian religious denomination.

I still remember a discussion I had a couple of decades ago with a co-worker who was Jewish. She told me she found the whole concept of a giant public menorah to be somewhat gaudy.

After all, the whole point of the menorah and the lighting of the candles on each of the eight days of the holiday (which this year began at sundown Friday and continues through the end of next week) is to create a moment in a Jewish household when everybody engages in the requisite prayers in Hebrew (even though for some Jewish people, those prayers are the only Hebrew they know) and pays a few moments tribute to the thought of the Maccabees of thousands of years ago who struggled to survive under odds that would have wiped out anyone else.

PUTTING UP THE large-scale versions of a menorah does border on crass. It's almost as tacky as some of those Santa Claus holiday displays erected in the name of Christmas -- in mid-October.

Does this mean that the true point of a public menorah is that some Jewish groups are showing us they can celebrate their holiday in as tacky a manner as some Christians do with Christmas?

I'd hate to think that is the case. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

So as much as I can appreciate the concept of "equal time" and also enjoy the rage that some of these "War on Christmas" types express when they get all worked up over not having their "holiday" reign supreme at this time of year, I'm not sure I see the point.

SO THIS IS what will be going through my mind this weekend, as I'm likely to spend some time with my father and step-mother, who is Jewish. That also means the bulk of my nieces and nephews are being raised Jewish (and are likely to make out this weekend with presents as much as any Christian kid the morning of Dec. 25).

In my own way, I'll even be partaking in Hanukkah (we're gathering Sunday for a holiday party that will include the moment of truth at the menorah). The rest of the week will consist of just a few moments of reflection by my stepmother and whichever of her grandchildren happen to be on hand -- as she tries to pass along the custom to the next generation.

It seems to be to be a more dignified act than anything involving a trip to a public place to look at a giant menorah at the exact moment that another "candle" is lit.

And come Christmas Day, I'm likely to spend a good portion of the day with my mother and other family in holiday celebration.

SO IF FOR me it seems like the whole idea of dueling holidays is just a tad absurd, you'd be correct. There's no reason that there has to be a holiday conflict this time of year. Unless you happen to be the disagreeable type who is looking for a reason to be upset.

In which case, you're just a Grinch.

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