Are voters in places like Bolingbrook really rebelling against the Trumpsters?

The political pundits are desperately trying to analyze the electorate – is it a plus, or a minus, to be perceived as backing Donald Trump.

TRUMP: Is it really all about him?

There were those special elections held this week to fill Congressional vacancies in Georgia and Kansas, and Dem political operatives are eager to see signs of future victory – even though Democratic Party candidates didn’t win in either place.

WE’RE HEARING TALK of strategic victories because they showed Democratic candidates can be competitive in districts that typically lean Republican because there is great uncertainty about the stability of the Trump administration.

In the Georgia election (the Atlanta suburbs, to be exact), the Democrat actually came close to winning outright a bid to replace a Republican congressman who gave up the seat to become a Trump cabinet member. A runoff election will decide the outcome.

While in Kansas, Republican Ron Estes will be sworn in to his new post later this month.

These particular areas are political districts that lean so typically Republican that they’re usually not the kind of places that Democrats spend time trying to win elections. Meaning that areas where Democrats are more competitive are more likely to provide Dem victories in future elections.

OR AT LEAST that’s the analysis the Washington Post gave to the two elections on Wednesday.

Yes, we’re getting the political fantasies of a 2018 election cycle in which the national electorate repudiates Donald J. Trump and sticks him with at least a Democrat-led House of Representatives – if not an entire Dem Congress!

That would be hysterical to watch, because you just know Trump would go ballistic nearly every day if he had a government with the authority to be openly defiant of his absurd whims. As it is, what makes the current government scary is that it is more than willing to indulge Trump’s whims, so long as they reinforce their own authority within the federal government.

But strategic wins aren’t wins unless you actually get more votes!

WHICH MAY BE the lesson we learn from the recent Bolingbrook mayoral election. That’s the suburb in Will County where the mayor, Roger Claar, had to go shooting off his mouth last year about how wonderful Donald Trump was.

He even went so far as to organize a Trump fundraiser for Trump at a time when Illinois Republican political operatives were desperately trying to avoid having anything to do with The Donald. His opponent was a commissioner on the Will County Board, and she used Trump against Claar big-time during her campaign.

Finally, this week, all the provisional ballots were counted and we can now say definitively that Claar won re-election to a ninth term in office with 151 more votes than his challenger.

So is the lesson to be learned here that Claar probably would have had an overwhelming victory (in the past, he has often ran unopposed) if he had only eased up on the Trump talk and kept his support down to merely voting for him?

I KNOW SOME political operatives have tried claiming similar lessons from Claar’s case as they’re now trying to see in the congressional elections – there are significant numbers of voters who feel contempt for the current occupant of the White House who can be used to support candidates who oppose the thought of the Trumpster.

But as noted earlier, we don’t have Democratic victories in Georgia or Kansas. And I’m pretty sure Claar is going to forevermore think of this election cycle as the one in which he had to endure some political harassment, but came out ahead in the end.

Could it be that in the end, people will put aside their distaste for the president and not let it impact their future votes? Or are too apathetic to get that worked up?

It’s all about the spin one wants to put on the issue. Actual truth gets lost in the shuffle.

  -30-

Bolingbrook, Orland Park make issues of Trump, upcoming gov campaigns

Gubernatorial candidates already are starting to stir up talk (Bruce Rauner and duct tape?) for their election cycles of 2018, while we’re supposed to have moved beyond the 2016 process that saw us pick Donald J. Trump.
 

Will voters see Claar of Bolingbrook...

Yet in a pair of suburbs, the municipal elections that will take place Tuesday will most likely be influenced by people whose primary concerns aren’t the local candidates running for office.

FOR IT SEEMS that long-time mayors in Orland Park and Bolingbrook will wind up having to deal with outside concerns as they try to keep their political posts.

 

... and McLaughlin of Orland Park?

Bolingbrook, in particular, is going to get national attention, particularly if long-time incumbent Roger Claar actually gets defeated by Jackie Traynere, a member of the Will County Board.

Bolingbrook in most cases would be inclined to give Claar a ninth four-year term in office. He is like many suburban government officials who have long stints in power largely because no one else is particularly interested in holding political office locally.

If anything, Claar is a Bolingbrook institution – the community otherwise known as the one that once employed Drew Peterson as a police officer.

Will names like Trump, ...

WHICH IS WHY during last year’s election cycle, Claar felt compelled to let people know what he thought of the presidential election. He became particularly enamored with one of the candidates.

And when many political establishment types didn’t think much publicly of his preferred candidate, he took it on himself to put together a Chicago-area fundraiser for the candidate – who we now know is President Donald J. Trump.

... Rauner, ...

Not that it did Trump any good locally – Will County was like all the other counties of the Chicago metro area (except for McHenry) in preferring Hillary Clinton. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence took a mere 43 percent of the vote last year.

Yet Claar became so over-the-top in his preference for Trump that it stood in peoples’ minds, particularly that of Traynere. She challenged him, and she’s getting some backing for her campaign that’s going out of its way to associate every knuckleheaded act of Trump with that of Claar.

... and Pritzker predominate?

IF A TRUMP association winds up seriously costing Claar his post, that will be something that generates attention – particularly since the Trumpites of our society want to believe that association with The Donald is the key to victory.

The southwest suburbs have become a particular gathering spot for people of the Islamic religious faith, and there are strong Muslim groups taking up the cause of beating Claar.

Even J.B. Pritzker of the family whose fortune comes from Hyatt Hotels has taken up Traynere’s cause, campaigning with her in Bolingbrook while trying to talk up his own 2018 aspirations for Illinois governor.

Jackie Traynere had gubernatorial hopeful J.B. Pritzker in tow. Photo provided by Pritzker

That post has also become a factor in Orland Park, where Dan McLaughlin, who began as a village trustee in the 1980s and is now seeking his seventh term as mayor, is being challenged by an ideologue group getting its funds in part from Rauner.

McLAUGHLIN ONCE TRIED running for state office (Illinois treasurer in 1998, he lost), but otherwise has focused his attention on Orland Park. Although the Liberty Principles group wants us to believe that McLaughlin has been around too long.

Too high a tax rate, a fall in property values and the mayor’s position becoming a full-time job are the allegations being spewed in television spots and mailers that are giving McLaughlin his most serious political challenge of his life.

PEKAU: Benefitting from ideologue campaign

These kind of challenges are rare at the municipal level – most of the people running for government office on Tuesday are unchallenged. No one else wants the positions, and I’m sure Claar and McLaughlin are wondering to themselves what could they have done wrong to deserve such vehement challengers.

Although in the case of McLaughlin, his opponent, Keith Pekau, who’s never held government office before, isn’t even mentioned in the campaigning – that puts its focus purely on the concept of “Dump McLaughlin.” It will be intriguing to see how many people – inspired by Rauner bucks – feel the need to do just that.

  -30-

Dean wants a comeback

EDITOR’S NOTE: One interesting campaign will be in suburban Riverdale, where incumbent Mayor Lawrence Jackson is being challenged by former Mayor Deyon Dean. Local electoral board officials controlled by Jackson had kicked Dean off the ballot, saying his independent candidacy was improperly listed on nominating petitions. The Illinois Supreme Court last week disagreed and ordered him reinstated – even though early voting had already begin with ballots excluding Dean. New ballots will be available Tuesday, and we’ll see if the campaign chaos causes confusion.

Some criminal acts won’t wither away

Crime is all about us, and sometimes we get a quick resolution.
 

Tinley Park P.D. still searching

Either the so-called stick-up man falls asleep in the getaway car, or does something else absurd (think of those people now sitting in Cook County Jail on criminal charges they beat a mentally-retarded man, and videotaped it to post on Facebook) to give themselves away.

BUT MANY TIMES, we don’t get the quick resolution. Sometimes, we never get an official end to a case – even though the masses of us have to figure out a way to get on with our lives; or else we’d be a neurotic mess if a lifetime’s worth of horrors accumulated.

What brought this to mind was a pair of stories that turned up this week about criminal acts from a decade or so ago that technically remain unsolved to this day.

Although in one case, the man many suspect of committing the crime is now “doing the time” (remember “Baretta?”) has been in prison for several years and likely will rot away what remains of his life at the Menard Correctional Center in Southern Illinois.

We’re talking about Drew Peterson, the one-time Bolingbrook cop who a decade ago was all over the news because of the disappearance of wife number four, whom he married not long after wife number three died drowned.

THAT DEATH INITIALLY was thought to be accidental, but was later ruled a homicide, and Peterson is now serving a 38-year prison term for it, along with more prison time he picked up for supposedly trying to hire someone to kill the state’s attorney who prosecuted him.

But the disappearance of wife number four, Stacy, remains an unsolved incident, even though Peterson’s son, Stephen (himself a former police officer in Oak Brook) said recently during the “Monster in My Family” program on the Lifetime cable TV network he now thinks his dad killed his step-mother Stacy.

Not that he knows anything specific that would result in a resolution of the case – the public’s suspicions that “Drew did it” may well linger on for decades to come.

 

Peterson still rotting in prison

Although I’m sure the Lifetime network will be the big beneficiary. They are, after all, the same one that gave us that 2012 film “Untouchable” that purported to be the Peterson story starring actor Rob Lowe in the lead role, Maybe they’ll find new reasons to keep putting the Peterson saga on television?

THERE ALSO REMAINS the incident that in some minds will forevermore cling to the name of the Lane Bryant chain of clothing stores – the slaying of five women at a store in suburban Tinley Park that occurred nine years ago Thursday.

Officials in Will County (the crime occurred just right across the county line from Cook) say they’ve chased down some 7,000 leads, and Tinley Park police have one detective who remains on the investigation.

Not that there has ever been anything close to an arrest. Or the finding of anyone who bears a resemblance to those police sketches of the man who supposedly forced six women into a backroom of the store, then shot them with a pistol.

Five died. One survived.

THIS INCIDENT STICKS in my mind because my mother at the time lived in Tinley Park just a few short minutes drive from the store, and I remember trying to visit her that day only to encounter local police who were searching everyone in the area.

I had to justify to a cop that my mother actually lived nearby. Then again, I later learned the shootings had occurred within the past half hour.

The frustrating part is that I really don’t know any more about this criminal incident now than I did that day. The rumor mills out in the suburbs have spewed their share of stories and theories about what happened that day.

But for those with a direct interest in the case, they don’t even get the Drew Peterson outcome – that sense of someone being locked up for a differing crime!

  -30-

Ivanka does Chicago! Donald does Bolingbrook? Trumps in Chicagoland

We won’t be seeing Donald Trump anywhere within the Chicago city limits anytime soon, if ever, during this campaign cycle.
 

Trump sends 'better half' to Chicago for campaign cash

There’d be far too many people inclined to mock him mercilessly for his initial debate performance – particularly from those people who are convinced the lousy microphone system was, in reality, a case of a candidate with “the sniffles.”

AFTER ALL, ISN’T Hillary the one who toughed it out on the campaign trail while suffering from pneumonia, continuing to make appearances at a time when ordinary people would have been staying home in bed and whining for their spouse to bring them another bowl of chicken soup?

Trump likely will have to do more debate prep for his next appearance Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, and probably will put the squeeze on his vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, who has his lone debate event Tuesday at Longwood University.

But we in Chicago may get a taste of Trump this week – for it seems that daughter Ivanka is scheduled to make several stops in Illinois on Wednesday.

Those include an evening cocktail party/fundraiser in the city, along with a breakfast-type/coffee event in Quincy and lunch in Peoria.

MUCH IS BEING made of Trump’s recent comments implying he thinks Chicago’s homicide rate makes it a far-more-dangerous place to visit than reality reflects.

Is Donald scared? Actually, he’s probably more realizing that any assault he’d face in Chicago would be in the form of verbal harassment and insults. As we saw quite clearly during his first debate performance Monday night, he doesn’t like being questioned or criticized.

He likes to be the one who dishes it out.

Besides, I do find it somewhat odd that Trump may be in the metropolitan area (as in outside the city proper) on Wednesday. Supposedly, he’s going to show up in Bolingbrook for a political luncheon that twice already has been cancelled.

SOMETHING KEEPS COMING up that knocks the event off the schedule. Will Trump finally honor this commitment?

Considering that Bolingbrook, is some minds, is nothing more than the municipality that once employed Drew Peterson as a law enforcement officer, you’d have to question the idea that the community is all that safe.

After all, not many communities can claim to have one of their officers now serving a lengthy prison term (he’d have to live to at least 93 to ever be free again) for murder. Although it seems that Peterson is only a threat to the young girls who fall for him, thereby leaving Trump safe.

Anyway, back to Ivanka, who could be an interesting persona. There is evidence that she may be the one of all the Trump kids (the jury is still out on Trump’s youngest son, Baron) who amounts to anything – what with her corporate role with the Trump Organization and the fact she plays a significant part in the business.

HOW MANY WILL come out to see Trump’s eldest daughter? Will they bring their checkbooks and make donations to try to give Trump a campaign fund that comes close to approaching the many millions that Democrat Hillary Clinton will have access to?

And what kind of crowd will Trump himself garner. Politico reported estimates from Republican party leaders that some 400 supporters will be on hand for the suburban event. Although there’s always the chance that some activist types will want to show up to cause a ruckus.

We’ll have to see if Trump has a sufficient explanation for his less-than-stellar debate performance Monday night.

Or will it amount to little more than a gruff demand that the questioner “Stuff it!!!!” up a certain bodily sphincter? Ouch!

  -30-

Getting fined for posts on Facebook? Could be the wave of the future

A woman living in suburban Bolingbrook could be the first of many who will face fines because they couldn’t control what they decided to post about themselves on Facebook.

Actually, in this instance, the woman won’t face a fine because officials with the Will County Forest Preserve District decided to rescind the ticket they initially issued her – one that called for a $50 fine.

BUT THE FACT that someone reading a Facebook page who was in a position of authority decided that something posted there could be worthy of some form of discipline could be something we see more of.

And it’s likely that in the future, some official won’t back down from insisting on collecting a fine. Some municipality is bound to think they need the money badly enough to want to have someone scour through Facebook in search of something that could hint at a violation.

One that needs to be punished!

“Big Brother” really is watching you! Even all the stupid, trivial things you elect to post on your Facebook account page.

PERSONALLY, I ONLY use Facebook to promote this weblog and its sister site. Anybody reading my page is only going to get tidbits about what is published here. Along with the occasional comment my aunts in the greater Minneapolis, Minn., area decide to post.

Although I suppose someone offended by my opinion could try to harass me in the same way. Not that I’m overly concerned about what some anonymous crank thinks of what I choose to write.

But the larger lesson is that Facebook does put our comments out there to a wide audience – many of whom are people we don’t know. That’s kind of the whole point of the concept – which is why I don’t post much personal material beyond what I write here.

It’s kind of like asking the local police to prod in your life, which is what happened to the Bolingbrook woman.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported Thursday now the woman got a $50 ticket on May 20 because of a comment she posted on a page related to the Whalon Lake Dog Park in Bolingbrook.

There have been problems at the dog park related to “kennel cough” being passed around area dogs. The woman, according to the Tribune, posted a comment saying she hadn’t bought a permit to use the dog park this year, but wrote it in a vague way that could be interpreted to say she had used the park.

One forest preserve district read the comment, passed it along to a superior, and then the ticket was issued.

It seems the woman hasn’t been at the dog park this year, so the ticket for using the dog park without a permit turned out to be premature.

THE DISTRICT’S POLICE department said it is reviewing its policies, while saying it does not plan to routinely monitor social media accounts. They also say there are no plans to discipline the officer who issued the citation, or any others involved, because they tell the Tribune there were “good intentions” involved.

But what happens when we get a governmental entity that isn’t quite so understanding about the concept of social media and a person’s desire to express themselves?

Will we someday get overzealous officials who view social media comments the same way they now view traffic violations – as something to be routed out in great numbers so that citations can be issued and fines can be collected.

People should keep this in mind, and perhaps learn to be overly precise in what they write. Because even though they think they’re writing for a select audience of like-minded people, other people are reading. And reacting.

  -30-

EXTRA: An off-the-wall question, but a predictable outcome, for Peterson case

PETERSON: Verdict pleased, but was it proper?

We should have known something was up when, in mid-day Wednesday, jurors in a Will County courtroom asked Judge Edward Burmila to clarify exactly what “unanimous” means.

As in all 12 jurors have to agree on the same verdict in order for it to mean anything.

WAS THERE SOME sort of hard-headed juror who was being stubborn, and his colleagues wanted to know what they could do to overcome him (or her)? Was there really some confusion about whether majority was enough to reach a verdict?

Or was this truly a vacuous jury?

All I know is that when I learned of the question, it seemed that Barack Obama’s worst nightmare was about to come true. The big story today and into the Friday ayem newspaper cycle would be that of the verdict against one-time Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson.

Who was going to give a squat what Obama would say on Thursday night in accepting the nomination of his political party to run for a second term as president?

AN ATTITUDE I find despicable and irritating. But one that I realistically have to acknowledge is felt by many. Cheap thrills and petty crime does have a knack of snatching attention away from serious matters.

And if it means an arrogant buffoon such as Drew Peterson officially crossed the line into becoming a corrupt cop (one who would kill his wife in order to allow himself to marry another, much younger, woman), I’m sure many people will rejoice in the “Guilty” verdict that was handed down Thursday afternoon.

Even though a part of me can’t help but think of that old Doonesbury strip from nearly four decades ago where the Mark Slackmeyer character used his radio show to do a Watergate-era program on then-Attorney General John Mitchell, whom he pronounced with a wild-eyed look to be, “Guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!”

Somehow, I sense the mood in Joliet on Thursday was just as crazed.

THE  REPORTS COMING from that city tell of the honking of horns and sirens, the singing of songs parodying Peterson’s plight, and even a mob that persisted in taunting defense attorneys while trying to leave the downtown Joliet courthouse – located within walking distance of the casinos.

It’s a wonder somebody didn’t get hurt.

It also doesn’t surprise me to learn that the jurors themselves sought to sneak out of the building as undetected as possible.

They would have been subjected to questioning about whether they found any substance to the hearsay testimony and lack of physical evidence that would have shown Peterson was present when Wife Number Three died.

IT IS THAT very weak evidence that had some people believing Peterson could actually be acquitted of the criminal charges – no matter how much the public mood against him is hostile.

It’s also not like the jury gave any evidence of what it thought. Usually, a juror or two is willing to discuss how a verdict was reached.

But in this case, the jury prepared a written statement that is a masterpiece of saying absolutely nothing. Unless you can interpret some significance to the one-liner of, “After much deliberation, we have reached a decision we believe is just.”

If it reads like I’m skeptical of the legitimacy of this verdict, I sort of am. But I can’t say it surprises me. I always expected the mood against Peterson to be so intense that it would sway the jury into a “guilty” verdict.

I FULLY SUSPECT that the same people who got all worked up on Thursday would have been outraged if a mistrial had been granted on any of the multiple instances during testimony that prosecutors overstepped their bounds.

But I also believe that this is a case where the appellate court decision is going to turn out to be more significant than the court verdict.

Which means the Peterson circus now gets to pack up its tent and leave Joliet for a 37-mile trip west on Interstate 80 to Ottawa – the location of the appellate court, which hasn’t seen such nonsense since the day more than a century-and-a-half ago when it hosted one of the Lincoln/Douglas debates.

  -30-

Is “old school” news style too tacky?

The Chicago Sun-Times gave us a news “exclusive” that reeks of the news mentality of decades past.

Drew Peterson, the one-time suburban Bolingbrook cop whom many people believe killed two of the four women he has been married to during his life, sent a letter to the Sun-Times, specifically to gossip columnist Michael Sneed. Considering that his telephone access to broadcasters who could put him on the air "live" is largely restricted, this seems to be his lone way of expressing himself.

SHE CAN NOW claim an “exclusive” on a two-part story that she largely didn’t write. The copy that made it into print is largely the text of Peterson’s letter – edited for space – in which he talks about the conditions of his life for the past year in the Will County Jail.

He takes his share of digs at other law enforcement types (he never became an Illinois State Police officer because his parents weren’t brother and sister and wonders if the jail officials who routinely strip-search him ever think about his naked image while having sex with their wives), and also talks about his incarceration itself (the food is “really isn’t that bad,” but “a step down from Army food.”)

By and large, it seems that Peterson believes he is being singled out for abuse by a society that is all prepared to believe the worst about him. It also seems that no matter how much many of us want to think of Rod Blagojevich as some sort of egotistical buffoon that Drew has him beat.

Milorod is Mister Humility compared to the former Bolingbrook police sergeant – who now faces criminal charges connected to the death of his third wife while investigators still try to resolve the disappearance of wife number four a few years ago.

READING THROUGH THE letter gives me a few cutesy details that appease the morbid side of my self-interest. For those who want to know, his cell in protective custody does not have bars. “I’m kept in solitary confinement on the reflective side of two-way glass,” he wrote.

And Peterson did make one observation that makes me wonder – “I haven’t figured out yet if I’m being protected from the other inmates or are they being protective from me?”

While I do realize there probably is some knucklehead currently incarcerated in the jail in Joliet who would think it proves him to be a “Big Man” if he were to shove a shank into Peterson’s back, I wonder how much Peterson’s treatment is so that Will County can avoid the embarrassment of letting something happen to him while he is in their custody.

Now I’ve already included more details from Peterson’s letter than I originally intended. Because my gut reaction to Peterson’s letter is different from the Internet-type commentary I am reading from people.

SOME ARE SICK enough to say publicly they want Peterson to be raped by other inmates, while others say it is insensitive to the public to give Peterson any kind of forum for communicating his thoughts.

My reaction is that this kind of copy seems like something from the days of The Front Page.

Those old-school days of Chicago journalism where being able to publish a real-life letter from a prominent inmate would have been regarded as a major coup for that particular newspaper – and one whose contents would have ensured that the Sun-Times would be having its copy picked up by newspapers across the nation as readers all over would lap up every little detail.

Now I’m sure that some people in the past would have expressed moral indignation at the idea of an inmate letter or diary. But I can’t help but sense we’re moving beyond that stage. Which makes me wonder if this latest column has the potential to cause embarrassment – although maybe not as much as the time then-Chicago broadcaster Giselle Fernandez got on board a speedboat with a convicted drug dealer to do a story about his final days of freedom.

BUT IT WILL be seen as a relic of the way that things used to be done? Which makes me wonder if Sneed is about to become the journalistic equivalent of old-school politicos like Dan Rostenkowski or George Ryan – whom some people argue were sent away to prison for engaging in hard-ball politics today the way they used to be done.

Or maybe that’s an over-reaction on my part.

Because we have enough of the “tabloid” television shows that give us graphic detail about all kind of sordid tales, and we the public seem to lap them up – demanding more while also issuing our meek denials about how offensive we found the whole experience to be. Which means we might not have changed as much as we want to believe we have.

For I have to admit the truth. As much as I want to believe I could care less about Peterson’s legal predicament, I read his whole letter that was published in the Sunday newspaper.

-30-

Tired of Olympic politicking, how about Drew Peterson? He’s still around

On the same day that Mayor Richard M. Daley’s political reputation took a blow (even though I doubt the International Olympic Committee seriously cared about Chicago’s political “controversies”), Drew Peterson also suffered a loss.

Remember Drew? He’s been whiling his time away in the Will County Jail, while his attorneys try to come up with a strategy that prevents a jury from imposing the “guilty” verdict that a large segment of our society is so anxious for him to get.

THE NUMBER OF people who want the ex-Bolingbrook cop to rot in prison likely is larger than the share of Chicagoans who wanted the 2016 Summer Olympics to come to the Second City.

But it was along this line that Peterson was in court on Friday, where a Will County judge ultimately rejected his request.

Specifically, Peterson’s attorneys put in the legal motion that is common of all high-profile criminal defendants – a change of venue.

He wants his trial held somewhere other than Joliet, Ill. He says that local residents are so biased against him that there’s no way his “peers” who wind up in the jury pool will be willing to look at his case with unbiased objectivity.

FOR HIS PART, Judge Stephen White rejected the request, which would be a significant hassle for prosecutors who would have to relocate their operations to a place where they are not familiar with the locale.

It also would create a hassle for the corrections types in Will County who would have to figure out how to transport Peterson to and from whatever county wound up getting the trial.

About the only person who would benefit from moving a trial would be Peterson himself, which is why many people will instinctively be opposed to the idea.

But this is one of those instances where we need a judge to behave like an impartial observer – an automaton, of sorts – when studying the facts.

BECAUSE THE FACT of this instance is that Peterson’s criminal case has been so heavily publicized and had so many stupid stunts attached that it probably will be hard to find a Will County resident who doesn’t have some previously-set opinion.

And I’d argue that the people who go before prosecutors and say they can be objective most likely are lying so they can get on the jury and be the one who (in their mindset) puts the hammer to Drew.

Of course, that creates the other part of this problem.

Peterson’s PR people have followed a strategy similar to those working for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich – they have turned him into a national figure. So it is very likely that there isn’t anywhere in the country where one could pick a jury pool that wouldn’t have some sentiment about Peterson – unless one is willing to accept people who go to such extremes to cut themselves off from our society at large that they’re absolutely clueless about everything.

THEN AGAIN, WHEN one considers that pay for jury service is $17.50 per day (the cost of parking and lunch), it could be argued that one gets exactly what they pay for.

White didn’t exactly specify the reasoning for his decision to reject Peterson’s request. But my guess would be that he figured a Will County resident would be no more tainted by all the pre-trial publicity (most of which was brought on by Drew himself) than someone living elsewhere.

So it wasn’t worth the added expense of moving a trial, unless someone seriously thinks Drew is entitled to something resembling a final vacation trip before being sent off from a county jail to a state correctional facility.

That likely will be the same reasoning used when Peterson’s attorneys make the follow-up motion some point in the future – to bring in a jury from another county and have them preside over a trial held at the courthouse in downtown Joliet located just a few blocks from that city’s riverboat casinos (which really aren’t riverboats anymore and are perpetually docked).

WE SHOULD KEEP in mind that the Peterson legal saga is going to be filled with many legal motions on different strategies – all aimed at keeping certain bits of evidence away from a jury.

In particular, they want the prosecution to be forbidden to use those letters written by Peterson spouse Kathleen Savio where she wrote how much she feared her husband. Such “evidence” would be hearsay, along with the fact that only portions of Savio’s autopsy were made public – rather than the whole thing.

This whole affair is one that will be filled with ridiculous gestures on all sides. It’s not the most solid of criminal cases (no matter how much the general public wants to believe it is). This case is bound to give the general public many headaches in coming months.

It may even do what I would now consider the unthinkable – get people to reminisce fondly about when the “big story” in the news was whether or not Chicago would get to host an Olympiad.

-30-

To Mancow and Drew, Oh be quiet!

The next time that radio “personality” Mancow Muller claims his critics ought to shut up because they don’t appreciate the “wit” he brings to the airwaves, we ought to remember what happened this week on his WLS-AM radio program in telling him where he can stuff his complaints.

I’m referring to Wednesday, when Drew Peterson used the telephone at the Will County Jail to make a collect call to the downtown Chicago-based radio station, which not only accepted the charges, they put him on the air.

FOR ABOUT SEVEN minutes (according to the Associated Press), they did a “jailhouse interview” with Drew – the one-time Bolingbrook police officer who likely breathed a sigh of relief earlier this week when officials announced that a body they found in the Des Plaines River was NOT that of his most recent wife Stacy (who has been missing for over a year).

There’s no evidence to connect Drew to that disappearance, so all the criminal charges he faces are related to the death of another of his wives – Kathleen.

Now it is not uncommon for news organizations to go to the jail and try to talk to inmates whose stories might be unusual enough to warrant public interest. There are times when a legitimate (if macabre) story can come out of the thoughts of an inmate.

And I also realize that Muller is not a reporter-type by any means. He is an entertainer.

SO ANY DISCUSSION he would have with Drew is not going to be about the great legal issues involved in the case, or trying to get the perspective of a one-time cop who may very well be in the same jail with people he helped lock up (which is why Peterson is being kept in solitary confinement these days; Will County officials don’t want a jail riot if at all possible).

But the content of that “interview” was so ridiculously trashy as to be pointless. It was a waste of radio airtime, particularly from the station that once gave us “Uncle” Larry Lujack and Lil’ Tommy (as in Edwards).

While some people might argue freedom of speech and Muller’s right to air whatever he thought appropriate (so long as his boss approved), I’m now using my right to freedom of expression to write this commentary that says the interview was stupid.

I never expect anything particularly highbrow from Muller, but this bit was just so crass that I have a hard time believing that anyone in the portion of the public that comprises the Chicago area found it to be entertaining.

IT CERTAINLY WASN’T informative.

Or do you really think the thought of “Win a Conjugal Visit with Drew” to be intriguing? I’d hate to think anyone would seriously take Peterson up on such an offer.

That is about the level of humor that was achieved during this entire bit, while also maintaining his innocence of any criminal activity in the death of wife number three (whom officials originally thought died by accident, but later ruled to be a homicide).

In fact, only one part even came close to giving me a chuckle.

THAT WAS PETERSON’S crack about the quality of food served to inmates in the Will County Jail. I’m not going to repeat his line, but the implication is that it causes inmates to put heavy wear and tear on the jailhouse toilets.

Isn’t this the same Drew who a couple of weeks ago wisecracked that one of the perks of his new situation was “three (free) square (meal)s a day?” Now, he gives us bathroom humor.

I outgrew that kind of wisecrack at about age 12. I’d like to think most of us did as well.

The ironic part is that I can easily picture in the past that when Peterson was a police officer, he likely would have been the type of person who would have lambasted “the media” for airing such trash.

MOST COPS I have known during my life can’t stand the inmates getting too much attention. It can go a long way toward humanizing people who may (or may not, there is that presumption of innocence) have made a stupid mistake in their lives and must now pay for it with loss of freedom for a time.

About the only thing I can think of that this “interview” accomplishes is that it humanizes Drew Peterson by showing him to be a nitwit (although he has said in a serious tone that his use of sarcasm in humor is his way of dealing with the stress of his incarceration).

So I don’t blame Peterson so much for making the call and acting like a buffoon on the radio. But I really have to wonder about the level of common sense that went into deciding that he was worthy of putting live on the air.

That lack of sense goes a long way toward undermining any credibility that Mancow the broadcaster ever had. That offends me more than any toilet joke told by Peterson.

-30-

What makes for a biased judge?

Hearing the prosecutors of Will County complain about the judge being biased against them reminds me of a trial I once covered some 20 years ago when I worked for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago.

On trial at the courthouse in Markham were two teenage boys (just barely old enough to be considered adults, but both under 20). To listen to the prosecutors, these two were thugs who liked to go around beating people up.

IT WASN’T SO much that they were robbers. These two (who I’m not naming because I don’t think they’re worth the public attention) liked to administer beatings.

Oh, and by the way, all of their victims could be described as elderly. As I recall, prosecutors pointed out that every single person attacked by the two used either a cane or a walker. In short, they weren’t people with great mobility, or much of any ability to put up a fight or flee.

What I remember the most is that the public defender initially was pleased when he learned which judge the case was assigned to – it was a man whose reputation was to be sympathetic to defendants, remembering that they too were human beings.

He definitely was not the type of guy who felt the need to “play God” from the bench, pronouncing sentence upon the guilty with a flourish.

THAT PUBLIC DEFENDER, however, made the mistake of saying how he was convinced his two clients would get a light sentence (it could have been as little as three years in prison). When the judge found out that he was being perceived as a wimp, he turned into a stickler for the prosecution.

Upon finding the two guilty (it was a bench trial), he went ahead and issued a string of sentences for the various offenses, and made most of them consecutive. It came to 55 years in prison each for the two teens (who now would be in their late 30s, having spent more than half of their lives in prison).

All because a judge felt the need to show he wasn’t anti-prosecution.

That’s why I think it pathetic that the prosecutors in Will County who are trying to put one-time Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson in prison for the death of his third wife.

WHO’S TO SAY that the judge in this case wouldn’t have felt the same pressure everyone else is feeling to try to come up with a ruling in this case?

It almost makes me wonder if prosecutors realize their strategy of trying to use hearsay comments from one-time wife Kathleen Savio herself is potentially weak, and they want to shift blame for a future acquittal of Peterson from a weak case to a weak judge.

Now I don’t know personally the judicial record of Richard Schoenstedt, the judge whom prosecutors wanted out. And it’s not like prosecutors ever publicly said just what it is about his record that made them think he would be inclined to oppose their actions.

Some evidence was offered up that he wasn’t sympathetic to their previous attempt to prosecute Peterson on an unlawful use of a weapon charge, but it could just be that that was a weak criminal case that deserved to be thrown out of court.

PERHAPS THEY SENSED he would realize that the $20 million bond set for Peterson borders on ridiculous, and ought to be brought down a bit (while defense attorneys argue for $100,000, I’m inclined to think $1 million sounds right – but what do I know, I’m not a judge).

But prosecutors got the county’s chief judge to go along with their concerns, and now Peterson has a new judge to argue before.

Carla Alessio Policandriotes was assigned to the Peterson case, and she gets her first crack at having the jumpsuit clad former cop in her courtroom on Friday. It will be curious to see what her demeanor will be in dealing with the mass of attention her every move will now draw.

Because she is going to become one of the best known Chicago-area judges, particularly if she needs to take any action to reign in Peterson’s overblown ego or arrogant attitude.

WILL SHE BE for the prosecutors? Who’s to say!

She could easily turn out to be just as sympathetic to defense attorneys, if prosecutors fail to put up a strong case for consideration.

Because that is what a lot of this ultimately comes down to. Some people become assistant state’s attorneys to gain legal experience for their future political or legal ambitions, while others just enjoy the idea of being the one who “puts the bad guys away.”

Prosecutors in this case sensed someone who might realize the other side has a legitimate point on occasion, and they didn’t like that – even though the U.S. legal system is based on that concept of, “innocent until proven guilty.”

IN THAT SENSE, it’s not much difference than the trial earlier this week in Kane County Court, where a nun was on trial for causing an accident that killed a teenager. She was allowed to wear her habit while in the courtroom, which may have created a perception that one was punishing the church.

It definitely created an image different from most “your word against mine” cases where the “mine” is a uniformed police officer. It created an image of someone who might be equally credible.

Not that I’m saying Drew Peterson has the same credibility as a nun (who, by the way, was acquitted of the charges against her). But it makes me wonder if prosecutors in this case are going to start screaming every time something goes against them in this case.

Or, if they’re desperately praying that the female body found recently in the Des Plaines River turns out to be that of Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy. That, at least, would provide physical evidence for more criminal charges, which could turn out to be more solid than the case they currently have for the death of wife number three.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Prosecutors got a new judge to handle the case against Drew Peterson (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/05/prosecutors-to-get-new-judge-in-peterson-case.html). Will they soon get hard physical evidence that he committed murder (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/05/channahon-des-plaines-river-body-recovery-illinois-state-police.html) against another of his wives?

Peterson, Keyes comprise a pair

Alan Keyes was the conservative pundit who tried to give his political aspirations a jolt at the expense of Illinois, while Drew Peterson is the guy who thinks the fact he was once a cop makes him superior to the rest of us minions – instead of just a pinhead.

If it sounds like I don’t think much of either man, you’d be right. But on Friday, it was a real fight for which one was the bigger goof in the news.

BOTH MEN HAD to deal with the criminal justice system Friday following their arrest, although admittedly Keyes’ criminal case is way less severe than the one confronting Peterson.

The bail amounts both face ought to tell the story. Keyes was one of 22 protesters at Notre Dame University who were arrested on a trespass charge, and he had to come up with $250 in order to avoid having to spend time in jail awaiting trial.

By comparison, Peterson had his bail set Friday at $20 million – a figure that no one expects him to come up with. The point of having such a high bond set in Will County Circuit Court is that the judge was trying to ensure he spends time in jail while he awaits trial on criminal charges that he killed his third wife (never mind what he may have done with wife number four).

Both of these men have been the butt of jokes in recent years. Keyes is the clown who got killed politically when he temporarily became a Calumet City resident so he could run for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.

REMEMBER HE LOST by a 7-3 ratio to Barack Obama.

Peterson is that breed of cop who’s basically a clown but thinks his badge gives him some sense of moral superiority. So I’m sure in his mind, he thinks he’s the one rational human being surrounded by a batch of degenerates and nitwits.

I’m not saying that all police officers are like that. But there are some who fall into that category. They’re the ones who become overbearing to deal with because they can use their law enforcement power in improper ways.

So perhaps the biggest question concerning the Peterson saga is, “Why did it take 18 months to come up with an indictment?” Either Peterson’s law enforcement connections were willing to look the other way out of a sense of protecting the image of their “profession” or the criminal case we’re likely to hear in coming months isn’t all that strong.

I DON’T REALLY know what to think of the whole Peterson affair. It isn’t a case that I have enjoyed reading about, and it intrigues me to think that so many people in the public think this is an interesting story.

If it were up to me, Peterson’s indictment and arrest earlier this week would have warranted a one-graf news brief, rather than a sense of major news breaking that literally caused WBBM-TV to point out how close they came to having pictures of the actual moment of Peterson’s arrest – as though it would have been a significant scoop.

As much as it is criminal that Kathleen Savio died apparently due to deliberate human activity and that Stacy Peterson remains missing (and so many people believe she too is dead), I can’t say that I find their stories all that sad.

Pathetic, maybe. But not sad.

THEY DID WILLINGLY subject themselves to Drew. The fact is that he has some sense of personality that draws a certain type of person. If someone chooses to associate with Peterson, can we really be expected to feel all that sympathetic if something bad happens to them?

So now, Peterson gets to sit in a jail cell in the facility located on the southern edge of downtown Joliet (although he jokes about getting “spiffy” outfits to wear and “three squares” to eat). And we’re bound to hear much more about him in coming months, even though his saga is one that I desperately want to wither away.

Yet despite all this, I can’t help but think that Keyes is the more ridiculous character on Friday.

He was at the Catholic university near South Bend, Ind., along with other anti-abortion protesters. They are upset about the fact that Notre Dame is dignifying Obama by allowing him to be a part of the commencement program this year.

THEY CLAIM THEY are merely being good Catholics in line with the portion of church teachings (which aren’t even believed by all Catholics) that abortion is never permissible. What it really amounts to is a group of people with a narrow viewpoint that they’re trying to push off on the general public.

In the case of Keyes, I can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to do anything he can now to attach his name to Obama.

Right now, Alan Keyes’ claim to fame is being the guy who once got annihilated politically by Obama. But I’m sure he’d love it if he could become Obama’s permanent opposition.

Think about it. Anytime Obama says or does something, Keyes will be on hand to speak against it. Keep it up enough times, and people will start to think of Keyes as being the equivalent of the president.

PERSONALLY, I THINK it would make Keyes the equivalent of the Washington Generals to Obama’s Harlem Globetrotters.

But Keyes these days is so desperate for attention that he’s willing to engage in stupid stunts such as the one that got him arrested this week in Indiana (trespassing on private property while pushing a baby carriage with a bloodied doll inside).

Somehow, I think even Drew Peterson would look down on that type of behavior.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Drew Peterson will get another chance on May 18 to convince a judge (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/05/petersons-attorney-goes-on-new-media-blitz.html) that his bond should be set at an amount that he can realistically afford.
Alan Keyes would have to enroll at Notre Dame in order to legally be allowed to protest (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/05/alan-keyes-among-21-arrested-at-notre-dame-in-obama-protest.html) on campus.

Where's James Stewart?

Every time I see a television newscast hype its latest lack of knowledge in the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, I think to myself “Where’s James Stewart?”

More specifically, I wonder about the type of news reporter that Stewart played in one of my favorite Chicago-based films, “Call Northside 777.” In that 1948 film, Stewart played a Chicago Times reporter who managed to dig into an 11-year-old police shooting and figure out that the man rotting in Stateville penitentiary likely didn’t commit the crime.

Stewart’s role was based on the real-life work of John McPhaul and Jim McGuire, who managed to dig into an old police slaying and get Joe Majczek sprung from Stateville after only serving one-ninth of a 99-year prison term.

Now I realize the story told in cinema does not match up perfectly with what happened in real life. That same era also included newsmen who were more than willing to ignore the truth if the facts conflicted with the partisan goals of their publishers, who were willing to settle for smaller profits if it meant they could use their newspapers to bully their enemies and kiss up to their friends.

But the problem I have seen with all the television trash masquerading as news coverage of the Peterson case is that it doesn’t seem to care about trying to figure out what happened to Stacy. It seems more interested in covering itself as it creates a circus atmosphere around her suburban cop husband.

I can’t help but think that putting one good old-school Chicago newsman (or woman, in case anyone thinks I’m being sexist) on this story would have resulted in some serious digging into the facts, resulting in us knowing by now just where Stacy’s body was dumped.

Or better yet, we would have opened the papers one day to find out that Stacy really did skip out on that husband of hers. Someone would have had an EXCLUSIVE interview with “Stacy In Hiding!,” telling how she just couldn’t take one more day with that “old viejo” Drew.

Instead, we get cranks like CNN’s Nancy Grace, who openly berates people she is interviewing if they try to talk rationally about the case, rather than play along with her silly stereotypes of what she thinks the story should be.

Personally, I’m not sure what to think of Stacy’s current whereabouts, although mentally I’m braced for the worst.

It’s just that I still remember the 1988 case of Scott Swanson and Carolyn MacLean, two students at a suburban Chicago college who eloped to Michigan then went to Southern California and tried to live an idelic life in seclusion -- only to resurface when their money ran out.

Chicago police quickly figured out the part about the couple eloping, and were convinced they had somehow met some misfortune during their “honeymoon.” When the couple was found near San Diego, it turned out that many of the “facts” given by police and reported in the Chicago news media (myself included, I worked back then for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago) were wrong.

Chicago police didn’t really know what happened to the Swansons (the last I heard, they were still married), and I suspect suburban police in Bolingbrook, Ill., are equally clueless about Stacy’s fate.

-30-