Obama outshines the Trumpster?

You have to admit that Barack Obama has kept a low profile since leaving the presidency some 91 days ago.

Obama to make a return trip. Does anyone think Trump would have something significant to say there?

I’m sure the ideological nitwits amongst us want to lambast the former president for being frivolous – what with his post-presidential vacation trips to Palm Springs, Calif.; a resort in French Polynesia and to the Caribbean with English billionaire Richard Branson.

BUT THEN, THEY’D have to acknowledge the constant weekend trips that President Donald Trump makes (at public expense) to the Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida that he owns.

As though Trump can’t stand the thought of traveling anywhere where he can’t stay in a place with his business brand on the marquee, or have somebody fired for serving him chicken salad rather than tuna.

And while Obama is spending time with people such as Branson, we’re getting the current White House occupant spending his time there with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her rock ‘n’ roll buddies.

Just a thought; how sad is it that we still refer to Palin for the political post she held for two years and gave up nearly a decade ago? Because she hasn’t done anything of significance since then that we could use to identify her.

BUT BACK TO Obama and Trump – with the former president expected to make his first post-presidential appearance in public in Chicago come Monday. He’ll be partaking in a forum of high school and college students – hoping to inspire our society’s future.

Rather than Trump, whose idea of our “future” is to turn back to elements of our society’s past that, frankly, we should be ashamed we ever tolerated to begin with.

How many pretending this image still relevant ...

Although not directly affiliated with the Obama Foundation, the program next week will be held in the Jackson Park neighborhood, and will create a sense of what we can expect to get from having that Obama presidential library and museum in our city.

These thoughts bop about my brain because of the constant efforts by the Trump administration to erase elements of our government that can be traced back to the Obama years. As though they want us to forget we were ever deluded enough to reject the idea of either John McCain or Mitt Romney as U.S. president.

OBAMA SEEMS TO exist in a separate realm – not getting dragged into the current president’s world. Which is probably a good thing, on account of the fact that Trump truly seems to live in his own world – and thinks the rest of us need to suffer there with him for his amusement.

... rather than the current occupant?

Such as when Trump talks of how successful his “first 100 days” (which have just over a week to go) have been, and thinks it is a media conspiracy that prevents the masses from realizing this fact!

Perhaps we’re just seeing how separate segments of our society have become; and why I’m not surprised that various polls show evidence that the people who DID vote for Trump aren’t showing any regrets – no matter how little is accomplished.

The rest of us may be following the lead of Simon and Garfunkel when they sang, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” Obama probably will carry on a symbolism far greater than his actual accomplishments. Just as DiMaggio was called the “Greatest Living Player” even though others had more home runs or a better batting average!

HOPING THAT SOMEHOW, we can get something in the way of leadership from a man who at age 55 is retired from political life – unless he can somehow create a second segment of life for himself that could rival the post-presidency of Jimmy Carter. We’re probably going to spend the next few decades comparing the lives of Obama vs. Trump – and seeing which one matches up to our ideological sensibilities.

Such as when Obama appears May 25 in Germany at the Brandenburg Gate – recalling his 2008 speech that gave him international recognition and which the McCain campaign tried to use to mock him as an insubstantial “rock star” rather than a serious politician.

That didn’t work, and German Chancellor Angela Markel will be at Obama’s side. The same Markel whom Trump managed to offend when he wouldn’t publicly shake her hand during a visit to the White House.

KENNEDY: Fired? Or honored!

Or perhaps when Obama later this year receives the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, with Kennedy daughter, Caroline, whom Obama made his U.S. ambassador to Japan. And whom Trump insisted had to be fired from the post and leave that country the instant he became president back on Jan. 20.

  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): What makes “normal” Indian governor?

I have one thing to say about the Illinois gubernatorial Democratic primary coming up next year – Ameya Pawar has a sense of humor.

PAWAR: Our state's first Indian gov?

He’s going to need it; particularly since the common perception is that this primary is a battle between J.B. Pritzker (he of the Hyatt Hotels fortune) and Chris Kennedy – with the latter making up for a lesser personal wealth with the political glories of his father and two uncles.

YOU HAVE TO admit, even a Daley running for office in Chicago would have trouble rivaling the political star power of papa Bobby, Jack and Uncle Teddy.

HALEY: Now our nation's U.N. rep

For those of you who haven’t paid any attention to Pawar (and most people merely snicker when his name is brought up in political conversation), he’s the alderman for the 47^th Ward (Northwest Side) whose immigrant parents settled into this country from India.

He’d be the first Indian-American governor of Illinois, if he could win. He’d also be the third Indian-American to become a governor of any state – we’ve had Bobby Jindal from Louisiana and Nikki Haley from South Carolina; the latter now being the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Both of whom ran as Republicans in states that had negligible Asian racial populations (both estimated at about 1.8 percent, according to the Census Bureau’s 2015 updates). Which means both had to make themselves into something that the white majorities could identify with, rather than being themselves.

WHICH IS THE point Pawar tried to make with his appearance this week at the iO Theater when he quipped, “I’ll be the first normal Indian governor.”

JINDAL: 1st guv named for a Brady?

No tales like we get from Jindal, the guy who “Americanized” his name by taking the moniker from the snot-nosed youngest boy on “The Brady Bunch.”

Of course, we also get Pawar’s wife, Charna, who is Jewish, which leads to Pawar referring to himself as a “Hin-Jew.” Certainly a lot more color and life in this potential governor compared to some of the Executive Mansion occupants (Yes, I’m talking about you, Jim Edgar) we’ve had in the past.

What else is laughable, in an unfortunate manner, about the political scene these days?

AN ENCORE PERFORMANCE: Remember how miffed President Donald J. Trump got when a federal judge of Mexican ethnic ancestry wound up ruling against him in that lawsuit against his Trump University?

CURIEL: Will Trump target him again?

The same judge who is a native of East Chicago, Ind. (which has a slight majority of Latinos amongst its population) is now going to preside over a case in which a man says he was illegally deported to Mexico.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel (a federal judge in Southern California) will have to decide the fate of a man who says that federal Immigration officials provided no documentation to justify his removal from the United States. The Mexico native says he should have had protection from deportation due to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act.

You know, that measure enacted by President Barack Obama that Trump wanted to wipe away just as much as he wanted to do away with the Affordable Care Act? You just know if the courts prevent him from taking that action, we’ll get the ultimate load of obscenities – probably so many that even the late comedian Richard Pryor would blush.

WHO LET THE RABBLE IN THE OVAL OFFICE: We’ve all seen the photographs by now – Trump allowed former Alaska Gov. (and failed Vice Presidential candidate) Sarah Palin into the White House for dinner.

She brought along so-called musicians Ted Nugent and Kid Rock – both of whom think it enhances their “street cred” by being outspoken and crass toward Progressive causes and officials. Meaning they approve of the Trumpster way of thinking.

The 'deplorables' at work?

Much has even been made of the photograph of the group that was taken of them standing in front of a formal portrait of former first lady Hillary Clinton. It’s a wonder they didn’t blow their noses and wipe snot on it!

Although personally, I was more entranced by the trashy-looking women who accompanied Nugent and Rock to the White House. Because they’re exactly the kind of loose-looking “ladies” whom the conservative ideologues have spent years associating with former President Bill Clinton.

  -30-

EXTRA: Palin on Obama – bringing to mind nothing more than Forrest Gump

Learning that one-time Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin attacked President Barack Obama’s stance on gun control in the wake of the mass shootings in Orlando, Fla., by calling him “a special kind of stupid” brings to my mind nothing more than actor Tom Hanks’ “Forrest Gump” character witticisms.

As in, “Stupid is, as stupid does.”

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE she’s just eager to be mocked yet again (“I can see Russia from my house”) by one-time Chicagoan Tina Fey on national television.

Why else would Palin even bring this kind of nonsense on herself?

  -30-

366 days – I’m sure some bothered by Leap Year giving Obama extra day

One more year is all Barack Obama has to get something lasting done.

OBAMA: Seven down, one to go

Sure enough, it will be 365 days from Thursday that Obama will cease to be president, and whichever of the mediocrities currently seeking their political party’s presidential nomination who manages to win the November general election will be taking the oath of office.

I FOUND IT interesting to read an e-mail message sent to me Wednesday morning. Bearing the signature “Barack Obama,” it urged me to consider voting for candidates who would be sympathetic to the goals he tried to achieve during his seven years in office.

Because it is certain there are some candidates who are making their appeal to the voters based on the idea that they will try to eradicate any evidence of Obama’s existence from our laws and our history books.

If anything, I can’t help but wonder what they would attack first. Most likely the things that were imposed trough executive order – because all the new president would have to do is rescind the old order and replace it with one of his own doing the opposite.

This is a typical move. George W. Bush killed off some Bill Clinton initiatives, many of which were restored early on by Obama.

THE POLITICAL PARTISAN nature of our government has turned us into a political yo-yo. Up and down, back and forth, no stability – which is part of why our society is such a mess.

Immigration and the minor moves that Obama tried to impose on his own because Congress won’t give permanence to any serious reform of our nation’s policies are a likely first target.

In fact, a Republican president could truly give reality to the biggest fears of some non-citizens living in this country – that those who complied with the Obama measure and registered themselves will have merely provided a hostile federal government with a list of the first people to be deported.

Setting themselves up for their own demise. Which will be the likely reason the Latino vote will go for the Democrat – no matter what form of nonsense Donald Trump or Ted Cruz tries to spew about how they will be competitive for those votes.

EVEN THOUGH MANY Latinos are still laughing at Hillary Clinton comparing herself to a Latina granny, or the fact that Bernie Sanders of Vermont has probably never been exposed to Latinos of any significant number in his life!

Of course, there’s the fact the Supreme Court of the United States is taking it upon itself to hear arguments on this issue – which means the high court could wind up striking down the measure before Obama leaves office.

That is, if people like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas get their way. Not that I think the high court legitimizing the president’s actions would make a difference to Republican partisans – whose opposition to issues is rarely based on reason and logic.

There’s also the fight over the Affordable Care Act, which got Congressional approval and Supreme Court backing. But the ideologues still don’t want this president to have an achievement for his legacy.

I EXPECT THE fight to repeal this issue will be the dominant battle during the upcoming year of the Obama presidency. Certainly more so than Obama actually being capable of accomplishing anything else of substance.

A fight to maintain the status-quo, which didn’t particularly accomplish much – although I’d argue that Obama was mostly too weak to stand up to a political opposition he should have seen coming from Day One. They were, after all, hostile towards his very existence even before he began campaigning in late 2007.

One more year before the transition – some 365 days from now because of this February has a 29^th and is a Leap Year, leading to Jan. 20, 2017 being Inauguration Day.

And before anyone gets all worked up about Obama getting an extra day to his presidency, keep in mind that every president’s four-year term includes a Leap Day. So keep your traps shut and quit showing us just why you take people like Trump and his possible cabinet member, Sarah Palin (who couldn't even be bothered to show up at his recent Iowa campaign event) at all seriously!

  -30-

‘Black Lives Matter’ an outrage only to people who are offensive themselves

“Black Lives Matter” is one of those slogans that has the potential to become so overused that it will lose its significance.

Offensive rant? Or incredibly obvious!

Yet it also has the ability to bring out the worst in people who usually don’t take too much to get themselves all worked up into a lather.

THE SLOGAN IS one that was adopted by the activist types who are upset with what they perceive as excess force and violence used by police and other allegedly law-and-order mentality types against black people.

On the surface, it is an incredibly obvious statement – life does matter. One’s significance to our society shouldn’t depend on one’s race (and I don’t want to hear that we’re all a part of the “human” race, because if we’re honest, we don’t behave like that).

But the conservative ideologues, particularly those who are motivated by race, detest such a thought. They complain that “Black Lives Matter” somehow is disrespectful – perhaps they think that attention paid to black people is attention diverted from themselves.

Which, to me, sounds like it’s their own hang-up that is the problem, and not the slogan.

ANYWAY, “BLACK LIVES Matter” is gaining public attention for the number of outbursts. Most recently, a Unitarian church in the Beverly neighborhood was forced to remove the slogan from a sign outside their building.

The DNAInfo.com web site reported that many people were using the Internet to anonymously (of course) rant and rage about the church because of what they wanted to consider as a subversive concept.

Scary that Archie Bunker image still fits

Which sounds as ridiculous now as those old “All in the Family” episodes of four decades ago when actor Carroll O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character would refer to provisions of the U.S. Constitution about personal freedom and liberty as “Commie crapola.”

I find it ridiculous that some people seriously have objections to thinking that police brutality is a problem – or that anybody somehow deserves such treatment.

THEN AGAIN, THEY’RE probably the ones who don’t have a problem with Sarah Palin – who on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., said that protesters who organize around “Black Lives Matter” are really nothing but “dogs.”

Not the attention Beverly Unitarian usually seeks

Or as the Washington Post reported, they were dogs whom President Barack Obama won’t call off.

Palin, by comparison, says she wants to offer her support to police officers in departments all across the nation. As though the woman whom John McCain considered fit to be president “just in case” thinks it’s an all-or-none proposition.

Any respect paid to black people somehow detracts from law enforcement, and that somehow racial concerns (or the fears of certain segments of our society) warrant hostile treatment toward those whose racial origins trace back to the African continent.

YES, I THOUGHT that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly (just after offending the ideologues by being less-than-reverential toward Donald Trump’s presidential fantasies) made herself sound ridiculous when she implied that “Black Lives Matter” protesters were somehow, in and of themselves, a “hate” group racially biased against white people.

That is the same mentality that put the Beverly Unitarian Church on notice that it didn’t want the church offering support to the “Black Lives Matter” concept. Or anything else it probably thinks of as “pinko” or “n----r-loving” or whatever other narrow-minded term they use to express their ignorance.

I’m not about to call for our society to express equality for all, or any other high-minded talk. I’m enough of a realist to know that bigoted thought is always going to prevail amongst some people.

But it is when our government starts reinforcing the hang-ups (like that goofy rural Kentucky county clerk wants to be able to do for those who can’t handle the concept of gay marriage) of that segment of society, that is when we become as morally bankrupt as the ideologues think we already are.

  -30-

EXTRA: Some political people have to learn e-mail lessons the hard way

When it comes to the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton setting up her own personal e-mail to conduct government business, I can’t help but think she deserves all the political abuse she’s going to get in coming months.

You’d think that a public official who seriously thinks she is qualified to be president of the United States (she probably is better qualified than any other knucklehead who has expressed interest in the post in next year’s election cycle) would know better than to put herself in such a spot.

BUT IT SEEMS she doesn’t. I don’t know how many people are going to be swayed by her statements this week at the United Nations that she regretted the way she handled the situation.

Which was to set up her own private e-mail server for work-related correspondence. In a four-year period, some 60,000 e-mail messages were sent and received.

Clinton tries to make those of us who want to turn this into a scandal feel a bit better by saying that no classified information was ever transmitted with her own personal e-mail messages.

But the point is that if she had taken an official government-issued e-mail address and used that for her work, there would have been an easily-accessed record. We’d know exactly what was being done, and whether or not any allegations of her wrongdoing were just nonsense.

THE FACT THAT she says she will make her server accessible so that its messages can now be archived is going to merely feed wood to the campfire of those who have held their Clinton grudges for two-and-a-half decades now!

People who don’t want to trust her will not trust her just like they haven't trusted her since the days of when she allegedly defamed the reputation of singer Tammy Wynette.

It is an issue that could easily have been avoided if only she had just used the proper e-mail account, just as many of us who have jobs that require constant message sending get a work e-mail while also maintaining a personal address off some service like Yahoo! or Google.

What amazed me about Clinton’s desire to not use a government e-mail address is that it appears she didn’t learn one single lesson from the plight of Sarah Palin back in 2008.

REMEMBER WHEN THE now-former Alaska governor got caught using a personal address for her government business because she didn’t like the idea of her personal messages being automatically recorded?

This came out when some teenager got cute and managed to hack his way into her account. Because those personal services we all use aren’t THAT secure. They certainly don’t have the layers of protections that government messaging services have.

That truly was another situation that Palin brought on herself; even though federal prosecutors ultimately got a conviction (and some incarceration) against the man who thought it was funny to figure out her password, then post pages of her messages on a public site.

Clinton hasn’t undergone anything this humiliating. But it is always a possibility for those political people who just have to think their e-mails are none of the rest of our business.

WHICH MAY BE part of the reason that I’m gaining a bit more respect for Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.; who recently said he can’t face this situation because he never uses e-mail.

That is a situation which I must admit I wish I could resort to – even though my work often requires I have access to sending and receiving messages.

Even though I can’t help but think that for all the stupid, nonsensical e-mails I get from people trying to influence the way I think about certain issues, we’d be better off as a society if sending messages required ink on paper and the death of a few more trees.

  -30-

Political people way too eager to involve themselves in “Duck” outburst

I hadn’t planned to write a word concerning the recent alleged controversy over one of the “Duck Dynasty” characters making comments implying he’s not sympathetic toward gay people.

FOSTER: Will he benefit?

For one thing, I have never watched the television program on the A&E cable television station. The premise of it just strikes me as being stupid, and I don’t care what this person has to say about much of anything!

SO FOR ME to come out and denounce him for being a dink who needs to get a clue about this being the 21^st Century and how we as a society have evolved just strikes me as being overkill. There already are too many people out there who feel compelled to trash this person.

Just as there are others who will eagerly latch on to the guy because he’s willing to “speak the truth” about “the homos” and other people whom they are determined to think ill toward. That says more about their own warped attitude towards people.

But those people do have the potential to cast ballots, which is why there are political people who are eager to cater to them.

Locally, the Illinois Review website (which also tries to appeal to many of those ideologue-motivated readers) pointed out how Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner has his campaign ads appearing on the web site maintained by the business of the family in the program.

THAT, IN AND of itself, doesn’t mean much. My understanding is that Rauner is using his personal financial advantage to try to get his name out in as many places as possible – giving himself so much name recognition that the rest of the GOP candidates are buried under it and can’t dig their way out!

While the Capitol Fax newsletter reports how one of Rep. Bill Foster’s challengers for the congressional seat – Republican Ian Bayne of Aurora – is going around calling Phil Robertson the equivalent of Rosa Parks.

JINDAL: Forgetting 'free' speech?

Bayne wants to think that Robertson willing to say what he did about gay people was “courageous” and “a stand against persecution of Christians.”

Which makes me wonder if there are some people who call themselves “Christians” who believe that persecution occurs whenever they’re not permitted to persecute other people! And how offended REAL Christians ought to feel that others are using the label to describe their own thoughts.

IT ALSO MAKES me wonder about the need of some political people who feel compelled to seek out the votes of these people.

CRUZ: From govt shutdown to Duck?

These government officials, many of whom aspire to higher offices in the future, are making a conscious choice about whose support they want come those future Election days.

Which is what made a Washington Post story from Friday all the more interesting.

Amongst the political people across the country who have decided to publicly side with Robertson include Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; and one-time Vice Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin.

IN PALIN’S CASE, I’m inclined to laugh. Who expects her to ever run credibly for anything again? But the other two have strong enough presidential aspirations that the day will probably come when the public is asked to contemplate whether either one deserves a stint living and working on Pennsylvania Avenue in the District of Columbia.

The Post also spoke with Ralph Reed of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, who defended the political people who are siding with Robertson by telling the newspaper, “These voters are paying attention, and they are going to remember who stood up.”

Actually, Reed – the one-time Christian Coalition director who himself has run unsuccessfully for office – is correct on this point.

People are paying attention to how these would-be politicians act. We will remember who felt compelled to take this incident as an issue that somehow felt serious enough to take a stand.

WE’RE GOING TO remember those, such as Jindal (who has said he “remembers when TV networks believed in the First Amendent”) who don’t comprehend the concept of free speech to realize that those who disagree also have the right to express that dissent.

Which may come back to roost to the point where politicos will wish they had just kept their mouths shut now.

 

Perhaps they never watched the Disney film “Bambi” and the moment when Thumper told us, “If you can’t say something nice, done say nothing at all.”

  -30-

Do the Sarah Palin sex tidbits really titillate us? Or are they just droll?

Now we know exactly why the Chicago Tribune canned the Doonesbury comic strip for the week.

Garry Trudeau focused this week’s worth of strips on the fact that a new book is coming out next week about "is she/isn’t she" presidential candidate Sarah Palin – one that offers up so-called salacious tidbits about her personal life.

THE DISCLOSURE THAT would have appeared in the newspaper on Thursday was the fact that Palin supposedly once had a fling/quickie/hook-up/whatever you call it with now-former professional basketball player Glen Rice.

Not that Tribune readers were able to avoid the disclosure. For as it turns out, a look at the Tribune’s website Thursday afternoon shows them prominently playing up a review of the book that is the source of this tawdry disclosure – and a whole lot of others that we’re going to chew through in coming days.

Of course, what the Tribune did was take the review written by someone at the Los Angeles Times, which I’m sure they’re going to say means that they never really touched it themselves.

It’s a whole lot of semantics that rivals the rhetoric we’re going to hear from the Palin people themselves in dealing with this book; which her husband, Todd, has already denounced as, “full of disgusting lies.”

WHICH MEANS THE experience we’re all going to endure related to this book is going to be petty and cheap, particularly since the National Enquirer has managed to get itself entangled in this whole story (they’re going to claim they broke this revelation, even though all they did was reported the existence of the book).

Author Joe McGinniss (the guy who actually moved to Wasilla, Alaska and bought the house right next door to the Palin residence) did all the real work (although some have denounced his book as being nothing more than hearsay).



Sometimes, even political people get their own trading cards.



Now I have to admit that my first reaction to hearing a story about former sports broadcaster Palin and a ballplayer was to wonder if this so-called fling took place before she was married.

Perhaps it might be something resembling a story if the word “adultery” could be claimed (and also assuming that the hook-up actually took place) as fact. But in this case, the so-called fling occurred before marriage.

AND I PERSONALLY could care less about Sarah Palin’s social life – particularly incidents that took place more than two decades ago.

Which is why I’m not about to recall the details of where their one-time dalliance took place. It’s really such a common tale – except for the fact that one of the people in the coupling was a reporter-type person (Sarah used to do the sports segments for a local television station in Alaska) and the other was an athlete.

That is a journalistic ethics breach, along with just tacky behavior – if it really happened.

But then again, Palin has always said she got out of broadcasting and into politics because she didn’t want to conduct her life in the ways that reporters are forced to for professional reasons.

IF THIS INCIDENT really happened, it is just more evidence that Palin did the right thing getting out of journalism. And if it didn’t, she probably got easily bored by the tedious, often-nitpicking attention to detail that is necessary to get a story correct.

It means she still did the right thing by getting out of journalism.

What strikes me about this tale is that if it is true, then Palin would probably be best off using the reasoning that was offered up by the Clintons when Bill was first running for president – they admitted to marital difficulties during their lives, but tried to avoid getting into specific incidents.

Considering that the people who are most likely to back Palin’s presidential dreams are the same ones who most detested Clinton’s presence in the White House, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they will not accept it as a legitimate excuse.

IN FACT, I think much of the rhetoric that we will hear about McGinniss’ book in coming days is going to be from people who are determined to ignore what is being written and said about the candidate. They already live in their own world, and don’t really care what the rest of us have to say or think.

Although I am inclined to ignore the disclosures made in “The Rogue” because I just think they’re boring. Titillation is cheap when it becomes repetitive.

And in the end, the Chicago Tribune may wind up regretting that they didn’t just run the Doonesbury strips this week – particularly the one from Thursday that told us about the alleged Palin/Rice coupling.

For in that strip, a character refers to the tawdry tale as something that nobody will believe. “NBA trash talk,” in the words of Trudeau, which means Garry may have given us the best assessment of what to think of this incident.

  -30-

Illinois fair pales politically

Wednesday and Thursday will be the political days, so to speak, of the Illinois State Fair. Not that it means much, because people interested in electoral politics will be turning elsewhere for their little trivial tidbits about who is running for what – and who is doing what to whom.

SIMON: The political highlight of the fair?



Our state’s fair doesn’t compare to the state fairs put on by surrounding Midwestern states.

IN SOME RESPECTS, that is a good thing. I doubt any Illinoisan wants the notoriety being directed these days at Indianapolis and the Indiana State Fair. It’s bad enough that a Chicago resident is among that fair’s casualties.

But we’re not going to get the Republican presidential hopefuls passing through Springfield this week – trying to show they are “real” people by devouring as many pork chop-on-a-sticks as they can.

There won’t be any straw polls taken at the Illinois State Fairgrounds that will have the ability to influence who deserves to be called the frontrunner for next year’s presidential election.

Heck, “Dateline SPRINGFIELD, Ill.” won’t even be the primary dateline for political stories in the state of Illinois. People interested in elections will be more likely to pay attention to “Dateline ALPHA, Ill.” where Barack Obama will be concluding his three-day Midwest bus tour.

WILL WE GET a native Illinoisan who gets as brash and bold with Obama as that guy in Minnesota did earlier this week?

By comparison, the political activity at the Illinois State Fair will be subdued.

Wednesday is the day officially designated as “Governor’s Day,” where Pat Quinn officially invites former governors to attend the event – which could be a nice trip down memory lane if you care about what Jim Edgar thinks.

OBAMA: Alpha visit upstaging the fair?



More recent governors have federally-imposed restrictions on their personal freedom that prevent them from being able to be in Springfield on Wednesday.

THERE ALSO WILL be the traditional rallies in which elected officials try to stir up the troops, so to speak. Because Quinn is a Democrat, that party will use the fair on Wednesday. Those of the GOP persuasion will have their rebuttal “Republican Day” on Thursday.

Now I did a seven-year stint at the Statehouse in Springfield, and I covered the Illinois fair every year. So unless somebody has some sort of radical change in the program that they have managed to keep secret until this very minute, I can tell you what will happen.

Quinn will be present, along with other Democratic statewide officials and the few state legislators from central Illinois of the Dem persuasion. It will be a little rally held on a stage erected at the director’s lawn.

It will be hampered by the fact that the Democratic Party in this state is a Chicago-based entity, and there just aren’t many political people who want to make the 200-mile drive to the capital city for the fair. Rahm Emanuel is so unlikely to take time out from his schedule to work the fairgrounds.

THE REPUBLICAN DAY follow-up will give Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford and Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka to shine. Although the Illinois Republican Party is so luster-less these days that it won’t be much of a show.

TOPINKA: The Simon rebuttal?



How many times can we hear Topinka play her accordion before it becomes repetitive?

If anything, the political highlight of this year’s Illinois State Fair is most likely to be the fact that a Carbondale-based band, Loose Gravel (for whom Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon plays banjo), will be among the entertainers at the fairgrounds.

Although they’re not the main musical act. The Oak Ridge Boys will be the name act performing on Wednesday for Quinn’s delight.

YOU MAY THINK that is a moldy-oldie country music act not worthy of much attention. But it is a step up from the Thursday night entertainment – the Abe Lincoln Quarter Midgets auto racing.

One might wonder if the fair organizers deliberately scheduled the oddball entertainment for Republican Day. They may have. I recall how back in the 1990s when the fair had GOP-appointed officials, the rebuttal Democrat Day was usually the one day that didn’t get ANY entertainment scheduled on the main stage.

These last few paragraphs may have sounded like a bunch of boring rambling. It is because the fair’s political events are usually kept so separate from the mass of the fair that I always wondered if the people attending the event were even aware of any political people being present?

There certainly won’t be anything happening at the fairgrounds that will get national attention.  I’d be amazed if we get any Mitt Romney sightings in Springfield. We’ll have to settle for sightings of a woman who sort of looks like Michelle Bachmann (crazy eyes and all) if you have a few beers, then cover your left eye.

THE CAPITAL CITY will have to settle for the fact that Sarah Palin – who was riding around the Midwestern U.S. on her own bus earlier this week – included a brief appearance in Springfield, and even included a stop at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. She got to check out the Lincoln artifacts and now probably thinks she's just like Honest Abe; who during his own lifetime was disparaged harshly by his opponents and didn't receive his acclaim until after death.



The new family portrait? Photograph provided by Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.



That photograph of her and the Palin family with the Lincoln family figures taken by museum officials and posted on their Facebook page is most likely the political highlight of our political scene this week.

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It’s the guns, stupid!

President Barack Obama is the master orator whose words this week helped soothe the tensions caused by weekend shootings in Tuscon, Ariz., while presidential  dreamer Sarah Palin is the feisty dame whose words know how to fire up her segment of supporters.

DALEY: Getting to the point



Yet leave it to one of the biggest rhetorical stumblebums of the contemporary political scene to get straight to the point of what matters when it comes to the aftermath of those shootings of nearly 20 people, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., that left six dead.

I’M TALKING, OF course, about Richard M. Daley, our long-time mayor who goes off into retirement come May 15.

On the same day that Obama traveled to Tuscon to deliver an address at a memorial service that is being praised for offering comfort to the afflicted and that Palin managed to afflict the comfortable with her mention of the phrase “blood libel” (she doesn’t like all the people who imply her nasty rhetoric has anything to do with the angry mood of our nation these days), Daley had his own thoughts about the issue.

Daley went straight to the point in refusing to blame Palin, or anyone else. For Daley – whose city is actively resisting efforts to make it easy for any resident to purchase a firearm – it’s all about the guns.

“People can shout and say anything they want,” Daley told reporter-types at City Hall. “But they have no right to buy a gun … that has a clip of 15 rounds.”

THAT WAS JUST part of his rant against people who are trying to assess blame against Palin, or other conservative commentators, or any other individual. The man whose home city for nearly 30 years banned possession of firearms by anyone within city limits wants to ignore the commentators who say nasty things and focus on the people in our society who probably should not have access to firearms.

“It’s not the rhetoric,” Daley said. “It’s the right to carry these guns or have guns like this that kill people, and that’s what that individual did.”

PALIN: Get her a better speechwriter



For once in his professional lifetime, Daley hit the hammer on the head – rather than give us a rhetorical stumble (Remember the ‘rat in the sandwich’ line when he was talking about unsanitary restaurants?) that leaves us scratching our heads trying to figure out “What did he mean?”

Perhaps there is something about our local politicos that makes them perceive this issue more clearly. For I couldn’t help but notice that in the initial spurt of public dialogue on Sunday, while many other people were talking about restricting Internet discourse or talk radio rabble, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., was the one person who publicly noted that the gunman in this particular incident had ammunition clips giving him access to 90 rounds – far more than was necessary for anyone to seriously say the pistol was for self-defense.

WE OUGHT TO be having a serious discussion in this country about firearms. But I am aware of the realities of some people in our society who are determined to think that somehow, the ability of a rural man to have a rifle that he uses to hunt will somehow be impeded by restricting the use of a firearm best suited for combat.

I’m also aware that many of those people are in the small segment of the population that takes kindly to the image that the former Alaska governor has crafted for herself. I’m also sure they are the ones who are outraged that the majority of people are now condemning her for her “blood libel” trash talk.

She is trying to claim that people are libeling her with the blood of those killed and wounded in Tuscon – which is a gross overstatement, while also playing off the original use of the phrase. It ties into the old anti-Semitic rants and tales that claimed Jewish people literally dipped their matzos into the blood of dead Christian children on Passover and other significant holidays.

I’m willing to give Palin the benefit of the doubt that she didn’t know that original meaning of the phrase. I know she went to college (several of them, as a matter of fact) and isn’t the stupidest person on the planet, but she also doesn’t strike me as one who has much curiosity about life beyond her specific segment of society – and I don’t expect she knew many Jewish people while living in Alaska.

SHE PROBABLY JUST thought it was a nasty-sounding line she could toss out to get her backers excited.

Considering that her original intent in scheduling an address of any kind on Wednesday (even a video post on Facebook) was to cut into the coverage of Obama trying to calm the nation by appearing at the primary memorial service in Tuscon, I think it only appropriate that her rhetoric backfired on her – and now she gets to take a few hits in return for trying to feed her public persona off the pain being experienced by those in Tuscon.

OBAMA: Did he bring us together?


You just know that in some peoples’ minds, Wednesday set the tone for a potential Obama/Palin presidential campaign in 2012. Obama brings us together, while Palin divides us.

Like I have already written, Daley has zeroed in on the practical reality that this incident ought to be a call for gun control measures to be reviewed. Although I feel I must credit Obama for one moment of inspiration in his own rhetoric.

CITING CHRISTINA TAYLOR Green, the 9-year-old granddaughter of former Chicago Cubs general manager Dallas Green, the president pointed out the accomplishments she achieved in her short life, then said, “I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it.”

That is an inspirational goal we should all strive for.

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