Does Giannoulias want military veneer?

It strikes me as a bit odd that Democratic Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias is so eager these days to campaign with people of military backgrounds.

Last week, he made an appearance in Chicago with retired General Wesley Clark, while on Tuesday he is scheduled to make appearances in Chicago and Champaign with Tammy Duckworth – an assistant secretary with the Veterans Affairs administration who also was once director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.

MY GUESS IS that he wants to smack down those people who want to criticize him for the fact that in his short life, he never served in any branch of the military.

In fact, the people with too much free time on their hands have in recent weeks been peddling a story that claims Giannoulias – who after finishing college in the United States went to Greece to play professional basketball – somehow dodged a legal obligation to serve time in the army in that nation.

Not that I think the people who want to believe this trite talk really care whether or not he ever served in the Greek army. They just want to enhance the image that Democrats don’t serve in the military, and therefore are opposed to it.

It’s trash talk that deserves to be dumped in the waste basket of life.

BUT THE SUDDEN interest in appearing with people who have devoted their lives to the U.S. military makes me wonder if Giannoulias is taking this kind of rhetoric seriously. I’d hope not, because it is a battle he can’t win.

In fact, about the only way a political candidate of the Democratic Party can deal with this “issue” is to turn it into a non-issue. Ignore it. Let it go away. Because in the end, it really doesn’t matter.

Now I will be the first to admit that neither I nor my brother served in the military. Although we have cousins who did. I also remember the last time I saw an old childhood friend, much of our “catching-up” conversation centered around his oldest son, who was then in the army.

So I appreciate that some people take this seriously. I also realize that for some people (such as one of my cousins who served five years in the Army, including a few months in Kuwait during the Gulf War of the early 1990s), military service is probably their best option for getting ahead in life.

I’M NOT ANTI-military. But I am anti- the idea that it should somehow be a requirement for any sort of advancement in public life. If anything, we probably need a healthy mixture of people in electoral politics who have both served and NOT served in a military uniform of sorts.

The reality of this issue is that perception is everything. Republican candidates get the perception that they are pro-military, and that the Democrats are the opposition to that view. There is little that can be done to change that.

What Giannoulias risks doing by appearing to cuddle up to too many people in uniform is trying to create the illusion that he somehow has some sort of military viewpoint. The truth is that he does not.

If people start thinking that he’s trying to pretend to have more of a military view than he really does, then people who in theory should be his supporters will turn on him. It can hurt him.

BECAUSE PRETENDING TO have some sort of soldiering viewpoint won’t help him gain any kind of traction among would-be Republican voters. The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections ought to be the ultimate evidence of that fact.

George W. Bush ran twice for president against candidates who actually served in the army during the Vietnam conflict. They had legitimate records. Yet the Republican partisans who were determined to put Bush into office went out of their way to denigrate the true military people in favor of the guy who used his connections to avoid having to serve in a combat zone in Vietnam.

Not that I blame him. I wonder if I were alive and of military age back then (I was 2 back in the summer of 1967) if I would have engaged in similar actions.

But as much as the Republican base claims they respect the military, what it really amounts to is that they respect only a certain type of person who serves. Giannoulias isn’t that type of person. He never will be.

TRYING TO PRETEND in any way can only hurt him.

So when Giannoulias makes his appearances with Duckworth, I hope he doesn’t overdo it. In fact, the biggest surprise to me is that Duckworth (who served in Iraq and was wounded in 2004, losing both of her legs and partial use of an arm) is willing to be so visually present.

With the way many people are convinced this is going to be the “gloom and doom” year for Democratic candidates across Illinois (I expect some losses, but not the total annihilation that some GOP partisans have wet dreams about), I’d almost expect her to loom as far into the political background as she could.

So either Duckworth is expecting some political goodwill in return should she decide in the future to run for elective office. Or perhaps she knows something about the public mood that the rest of us are overlooking?

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There are only 57 more days to for us to “ponder” until we reach Election Day

We’re at a special day for that particular subspecies of geeky types known as political observers.

It’s Labor Day, and while some of us have an interest in celebrating a holiday meant to pay tribute to the workers of our society (and some of us are ideologically inclined to think that we ought to be celebrating management instead), what gets us intrigued is that this is the time of year when the public at large will actually start thinking about the election cycle that some of us have been overanalyzing ever since Feb. 3.

WE’RE NO LONGER alone in having an interest in trying to figure out what the candidates stand for, or what their chances are of actually putting together the type of campaign that can actually win.

Now, instead of us being a tad eccentric (if not downright loopy) for caring about the Nov. 2 elections, it will be those few people who persist in trying to ignore the upcoming elections who will be of questionable mental capacity.

We’re literally at the point where we have 57 more days to “shop” for candidates before we make our Election Day purchase (or fewer days, if you’re so enthused about the prospect of voting that you seek out an early polling place to cast your ballot in advance.

It is with this knowledge that the typical person isn’t taking any of this election minutia as seriously as I am (and the ones who are probably need a dose of psychological therapy) that I read the results of those polls the Chicago Tribune commissioned for what are the two top races in this season’s election cycle – U.S. Senate from Illinois, and Illinois governor.

FOR GOVERNOR, REPUBLICAN William Brady has a lead that becomes insignificant when one considers the factor of statistical ties and margins of error. Meanwhile, for U.S. Senate, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk have a literal tie.

Nobody is running away with this, which if anything shows the level of discontent among the Illinois electorate with the current incarnation of the Democratic Party. This is a state whose political and electoral layout is rigged in favor of the Democrats.

Chicago metro so overwhelms the rest of the state that would always prefer the GOP that by all rights, Democratic candidates (regardless of who they are) ought to be doing some serious butt-kicking – particularly since the GOP gubernatorial hopeful came into this having no name recognition beyond McLean County, and the Senate hopeful has the ideologues who dominate the Republicans these days upset that he’s not conservative enough, and many other people concerned that he’s some sort of prevaricator (particularly when it comes to talking about his military record).

In a purely traditional sense, they’re both flawed candidates. Yet they are holding their own in this election cycle where the people who always had an ideological hangup (and for some, it’s racial as well) to Barack Obama are thinking in terms of THIS year being THE year they use Election Day to take things back.

I’M NOT ABOUT to predict what will happen come Nov. 2, other than to say it literally will center around Chicago. If voter turnout is significant in the city and the surrounding inner suburbs (meaning Cook County as a whole), then we’re going to get a significant voter turnout of people who will favor the Democratic Party.

If the urban voter bloc takes the attitude that this election cycle isn’t all that important (a reality among certain types of voters who think only Chicago municipal elections for mayor and aldermen matter), then there will be a sense of the rest of Illinois swelling up to put in place a vocal opposition to the city for the next two years.

Which means that if people in Chicago insist on complaining about partisan political actions taken against our interests by Congress and in Springfield during the next couple of years, it will simply be our own faults if we don’t turn out and vote in significant-enough numbers this year.

I’m not predicting, because I’m not writing anybody off.

I LOOK AT those poll results published during the holiday weekend by the Chicago Tribune, and I see an emphasis on the wrong numbers. I’m not as interested in what percentage of the vote each candidate has now, as much as what percentage of the voters haven’t made up their mind yet.

According to those two polls, it is 19 percent for the gubernatorial campaign, and 22 percent in the U.S. Senate race. Considering that none of these major candidates has a sizable lead, it means this is very much a pair of open political races – and now we have a whole new mass of potential voters who will start paying attention.

It also struck me as interesting that Republican Brady, whom the ideologue pundits would have us think has gained a huge advantage by aggressively campaigning during the summer months, still has a ways to go to get his name recognition up.

That poll has him at 40 percent of surveyed people having “no” opinion of him, and 13 percent claiming to have never heard of him. That is more than half (compared to a combined 32 percent figure for Gov. Pat Quinn – whom only 2 percent of those surveyed claimed to have never heard of.

WHICH MEANS THERE is a mass of people that Quinn can reach out to in order to gain more votes – unless Quinn really thinks he can get away with employing a “rose garden” strategy and assume people are looking to him because he’s the governor.

That would be a mistake. And a part of me can’t help but think that the Pat Quinn of old (the political gadfly who slashed the size of the Illinois House of Representatives by one-third and was regarded as a pest by just about everybody) would be the first to agree with me.

So in the same way I think that Chicago voters will only have themselves to blame if a Republican ideological slate of candidates takes control of Illinois government and tries to use that influence to dump on urban interests (just like they did in 1995), I have to say that if Pat Quinn loses, he has no one to blame but himself.

That is as close as I will come to making a Nov. 2 prediction at this point in time.

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At the very least, Sandberg return would resurrect ‘80s Chicago baseball memories

Ryne Sandberg, the one-time second baseman for the Chicago Cubs who already is a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., received another “honor” on Friday.

He is Manager of the Year for the 2010 season in the Pacific Coast League. That is the top-level minor league where Sandberg has been manager of the Des Moines-based Iowa Cubs, in large part because of the fact that the team remains in contention for a playoff spot this season even though a large number of his ballplayers made the jump from Iowa to Chicago this season.

IT SEEMS SANDBERG, who has spent the past four seasons managing minor league affiliates of the Chicago Cubs, is developing a knack for the job. It is no secret he wants to do the same thing at the major league level some day.

And it also is no secret that Sandberg is one of those ex-Cub ballplayers delusional enough to believe that the Cubs organization itself is somehow special. In short, Sandberg wants the job that opened up when Lou Piniella left the team last month (former coach Mike Quade is the interim, with little chance of keeping the job permanently).

In theory, I can comprehend the hesitancy of the Cubs management to make Sandberg their field manager. They’d like to think they could get someone who has previously had a major league managerial job.

Yet I can’t say any of the names that I have been hearing of former managers who may be willing to come to Chicago would truly be any more impressive than that of Sandberg – who if anything has a unique value to the Cubs organization that they should try to take advantage of.

IT MEANS THAT I don’t think names like Eric Wedge (formerly of the Cleveland Indians, whose highlight was nearly catching the Chicago White Sox in 2005) are really any better. Anybody who thinks that Joe Girardi would give up a job managing the New York Yankees to be the with the Cubs is being delusional. Besides, all that would likely happen if he really DID make such a move would be that his name would go alongside those of Piniella and Gene Michael as Cubs managers with Yankee ties who failed in Chicago.

Although I personally could care less about the Cubs, I must admit to being impressed by the level of dedication Sandberg has shown to trying to learn the organization and gain the “experience” that allegedly is needed to manage a major league baseball club.

Which is why when I see ESPN Chicago reporting stories headlined, No front-runner for Cubs job, I have to wonder who in management has developed such a big ego that they think the baseball world is supposed to come crawling to him.

A part of me says just give Sandberg the post, and start working with him toward trying to rebuild for the future. At least he already has a handle on what potential, if any, exists within the Chicago Cubs minor league system.

HE MAY WIN. He may not. There’s no guarantee that anyone will be able to overcome the Chicago Cubs funk in the next few years. The idea that the Cubs seem to want a guarantee that their next manager WILL win a National League pennant (hasn’t happened since 1945) and a World Series (not since 1908) is absurd.

At the very least, it would be entertaining from a fans perspective, particularly those people who grew up here in the 1980s (I was already off at college by the time Chicago’s teams won their first division titles ever, and have no desire for a ‘70s-style managerial match-up of, say, Jorge Orta and Larry Biittner).

Because we literally would have both of our city’s ballclubs being managed by popular former All Star players (Guillen for the White Sox, Sandberg for the Cubs) from that era.

Considering that Guillen’s White Sox coaching staff has ‘80s stars like Harold Baines and Greg Walker, it makes me wonder the potential for a Cubs coaching staff under Sandberg. Gary Matthews? Keith Moreland? Maybe bring Rick Sutcliffe back into a uniform and away from sports broadcasting. Or maybe Steve Trout needs a job?

AT THE VERY least, it would give those fans of a certain age a lot of chances to reminisce in the event that the current ballclubs turn out to be disappointing on the field.

Perhaps we could even settle, once and for all, that baseball “debate” of Chicago fans from that generation – which team was better?

’83 White Sox, or the ’84 Cubs – both of whom won their divisions, but then got knocked out of the playoffs in ways that make the names Jerry Dybzinski and Leon Durham amount to little more than “Mudd” in our memories.

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EXTRA: Superficial, or not?

How does gubernatorial candidate Scott Lee Cohen seriously expect to win come Election Day when he still has all those awful stories about his personal life (which he can’t honestly deny) swirling about?

The strategy seems to be to ignore it to the point where he hopes that the electorate has such a short memory that they won’t bother to recall it on their own, while also getting his name out to the public in so many ways that some voters may well walk into the voting booth on Nov. 2 and recognize his name before any others.

I HAPPENED TO be driving along Interstate 80 near the Illinois/Indiana border on Friday, and noticed several of the billboards were advertising the Cohen for governor campaign. What caught my eye is that these were the digital billboards, meaning they weren’t just some poster pasted up that the weather would eventually pick away at.

My point being that this kind of advertising costs money, serious campaign dollars. Which means Cohen is likely paying for this out of his own pocket – which was the strategy he used during the primary for lieutenant governor to outspend (just over $2 million) all the other Democratic campaigns for that office put together.

It’s not like there are just a few cheap posterboard yard signs being erected for Cohen on front lawns (although I must admit when I was at U.S. Cellular Field on Sunday to see the Chicago White Sox lose 2-1 to the New York Yankees, I was more amazed at the number of Cohen campaign signs I saw throughout the Bridgeport and Armour Square neighborhoods).

Which means I won’t be surprised to see Cohen on television soon, using campaign ads to further peddle his name to the public and make it appear that he is the equal to either Pat Quinn or William Brady. And yes, if his website is any indication, he’s going to keep letting us know how he has organized job fairs, which does create the superficial image of a person trying to help others find work.

AT A TIME when many people are concerned about the economy, it may play better than Quinn trying to remind us that his Republican opponent is the one favored by the conservative ideologues who truly would think nothing of trying to impose their own social agenda through a series of partisan bills.

I still remember 1995, which is one of the most whacked-out years the Illinois General Assembly and state government ever experienced. It took the Illinois Supreme Court the next few years to strike down the most ridiculous of the measures that got passed into law during that brief era of Republican domination of Illinois state government.

Personally, I don’t think Cohen can win the gubernatorial election. But he may create the climate where a Brady campaign can win with less than 50 percent of the vote, all because Cohen is putting up the veneer of a legitimate candidacy, which means I (once again) have to say that political people disregard Scott Lee at their own risk.

The only difference is, this time people won't be able to blame news-gathering organizations for their lack of knowledge about Cohen.

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Street gang leaders think they’re being singled out for abuse by law enforcement

Reading the Chicago Sun-Times, I couldn’t help but detect similarities between the rhetoric coming from men who admit they have ties to Chicago street gangs and other people who get in trouble with federal law enforcement officials – most recently our state’s former governor, Rod Blagojevich.

Now before anyone gets all bent out of shape, I am not suggesting that Blagojevich is a thug. I single him out because he's the most recent person in the public's mind to complain that "the Feds" are picking on him.

IT IS JUST that the gang leaders got a writeup in the newspaper for their thoughts about a recent attempt by Chicago Police and federal prosecutors to talk with gang members and let them know of the harsh consequences for violent actions that can be traced back to gang activity.

That meeting on Aug. 17 at the conservatory in Garfield Park (a beautiful place that scares many Chicagoans because of its proximity to neighborhoods with strong gang activity) has caused some politicians (although not Mayor Richard M. Daley) to denounce the police for allegedly “negotiating” with gang leaders.

In my mind, the kind of talk that came out of that meeting doesn’t sound like negotiations more than ultimatums. Indeed, the Sun-Times writeup on Thursday that previewed a press conference held by the gangs to try to gain television attention indicates the gang leaders who were present last month remain upset.

They say they were tricked into attending.

WHAT THEY ALSO had to say was that the Chicago Police don’t understand the present-day structure of streetgangs – preferring to think of things the way they were 30 or 40 years ago.

Those gang leaders (some of whom say they really don’t lead their gangs anymore because no one would listen to them if they did) also claim that the federal government, by making threats of using the RICO statutes designed to take down the Outfit and organized crime is singling out poor, black people who have little say over the levels of violence that are taking place on the streets of Chicago.

The bottom line? The federal government is a bully who doesn’t really comprehend the way things work on a day-to-day basis.

That just sounds so much, to me at least, like the rhetoric we have been getting from Blagojevich – who tells us the federal government is trying to break him when he didn’t do anything that should be considered wrong.

WHICH TO ME makes the gang leader rhetoric a lot of weak-kneed whining.

Not that I can blame them for being concerned. Because the federal government has shown on many occasions that when a U.S. attorney gets it into his head that he wants to use his authority on you, he’s probably going to find something improper.

The threats of incarcerating gang leaders for actions their so-called subordinates have committed, then using those same actions to seize any assets the gang leader family members may have is harsh. It is very mean-spirited.

Then again, it probably will take some borderline draconian action to get through to the gang types in our city that their behavior needs to change.

BECAUSE THE CURRENT problem with gangs is that we have severe enough problems in certain segments of our society that some people wind up fearing the misery they will suffer from not being part of a neighborhood gang more than they do any legal repercussions they would face by being a gang member.

Which is why I really don’t understand the political people, such as many white members of the City Council and Gov. Pat Quinn, who are determined to think of this latest approach as somehow dignifying the existence of the gangs.

As though if we pretend hard enough, the gangs will cease to exist in reality. It sounds to me like the older Cuban exiles who want to pretend that Fidel Castro never really took over the country, and that it is just a matter of time before he leaves and things return to the way they were 60 years ago.

Somehow, I suspect if Blagojevich himself thought anybody would care what he thought on the issue, he too probably would be denouncing the Chicago Police Department and Superintendent Jody Weis for this latest act.

ACTUALLY, I CAN’T help but wonder about one aspect of the gang leader comments that came out on Thursday. They claimed that the old days of strictly-structured gangs is history – the feds in Chicago broke them in recent decades.

Putting people like Larry Hoover and Jeff Fort (founder of the El Rukn gang that would have us think they were merely being good Muslims) away in prison for lengthy terms (the 63-year-old Fort likely will never be free again in his life) broke up the structure to the point where they say there really is no high-ranking leader who can pay for his subordinate’s crimes.

I don’t know how accurate that statement is. But I do find it believable that some young punk kid isn’t all that concerned what an old man like Fort thinks, or what anyone outside of his immediate block thinks.

In fact, I find it the kind of clueless attitude that would result in billing their “press conference” (I had no intention of going) by saying it is about “unconstitutional, guilty before innocent, premeditated arrest and indictment” by the Chicago police.

THEY EVEN GO so far as to accuse Weis (the guy whom some politicians would say is being too weak on this issue) of using “Jon Burge-style tactics” in dealing with them.

It sounds too much like the cheap rhetoric we get from many other people who have their own issues with the law. Which means that the meeting with gang leaders may well have served its intended purpose – it delivered a message that the gangs are being closely watched.

Which is what everybody in our society ought to want.

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There is a new tactic to try to get George Ryan out of prison – will it work?

Requesting clemency from a now-former president in the final weeks of his administration didn’t work for George Ryan. Neither did appealing to the current president’s sense of home loyalties and creating the image of a doddering old man whose health could take a turn for the worst at federal taxpayer expense.

So perhaps it should not be a surprise that the people who are willing to publicly back Ryan these days (whose numbers are far greater than the total who will ever say they support Rod Blagojevich) are trying a new tactic.

THEY’RE APPEALING TO a sense that perhaps Ryan has already served his prison time, and ought to be released.

That is the basis of an appeal attorneys for Ryan filed this week, saying that some of the charges upon which he was convicted ought to be dismissed and that he has served enough time at the Federal Correctional Center near Terre Haute, Ind., to satisfy what remains.

It is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer to decide whether or not there is any legal merit to Ryan’s claim, and while a part of me thinks it is a totally reasonable request, I am not convinced she (or any other judge) will be inclined to grant it to him.

Which means if I had to put money down on this, I’d argue that Ryan will remain inmate 16627-424 for quite some time.

WHAT IT COMES down to is that ruling made by the Supreme Court of the United States earlier this year with regards to criminal convictions based on “honest services” – the belief that a person who fails to perform up to his best abilities on the job is committing an infraction worthy of criminal charges and prison time.

That ruling specifically related to officials with Enron whose behavior cost many people their financial livelihoodm, but the nation’s high court went so far as to restrict the ability to use such laws in public corruption cases.

Then, one-time newspaper publisher (and Chicago Sun-Times executive) Conrad Black was able to use that ruling as the basis of having a federal judge in Chicago knock some time off of his prison term – allowing him to be released. Conrad is a free man.

Which is what George Ryan – who has been held in federal prison for nearly three full years – wants to be.

RYAN WANTS US to believe that the charges upon which he was found guilty that rely on the “honest services” concept (the idea that by ignoring the fact that his Secretary of State employees were soliciting bribes from unqualified drivers, he himself was committing an illegal act) ought to be disregarded and downplayed.

When one considers that the bulk of the counts against him were based on the concept, it becomes clear that Ryan’s 6 ½-year prison term would be so significantly reduced that he probably would only really owe the federal government a year or two of his life in incarceration.

And as I pointed out earlier, he already has served 34 months in prison.

He wants us to think he did the time. Which means George Ryan is focusing less on getting his conviction overturned than he is in just trying to get out of the Terre Haute federal penitentiary (which fans of The Blues Brothers will point out serves a terrible cabbage roll to its inmates) any time sooner than his scheduled release date of July 4, 2013.

I POINTED OUT that last tidbit about having served the “time” because I have lost track of the number of people whose response Wednesday to Ryan’s request is to quote that old Baretta cliché, “Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time.”

But it does go to show how anything that even slightly resembles compassion toward Ryan is going to tick off a certain segment of our society – one that is determined to take a harder line toward the former governor than they would to many other people.

So it will be with some interest that I wait and see when Pallmeyer holds a hearing to allow attorneys (including former Chicago-based U.S. attorneys James R. Thompson and Dan Webb) to argue the merits of this particular request (and allow the prosecutors to dump all over it). Because I can’t envision any judge being that eager to have her (or his) name on an order that sets George Ryan free. At the very least, it will tick off those prosecutors who will perceive it as a challenge to their authority – and their conviction records.

It also would outrage that segment of the public that, for politically partisan reasons, wishes Ryan could be required to serve more time (not less). Even though it probably is the right thing to do, nobody – not George W. Bush or Barack Obama or anyone else – wants to put their name on the piece of paper that shows compassion in this case.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Will Hawaii reclaim Obama from 2nd City?

A part of me always wondered if Barack Obama and first lady Michelle would spend their retiring years living in Honolulu – deciding like many other people to live in a warm-weather climate for those Golden Years.

It would seem I’m not alone, as there already are people in Hawaii who are trying to get the Barack H. Obama Presidential Library of the future built on that Pacific Ocean island, instead of where many of us would have figured it to be located – in the Hyde Park neighborhood, possibly as part of the University of Chicago.

IT IS EARLY, so it should not be a shock that nobody in Chicago has taken much in the way of action to try to get the library located here. Which is why Hawaii officials are hoping that getting an early start will allow them to one-up Chicago.

The state Legislature earlier this year approved a resolution saying it thinks the Obama library should be in Hawaii – on account of the fact he was born and (largely) raised in Honolulu, and up until two years ago still had a grandmother who lived there.

Officials with the University of Hawaii, the alma mater of both of his parents, are creating study groups to pick a site for such a library/museum that would glorify the four (or eight) years of an Obama Administration.

Hawaii officials also will meet next week with officials of both the National Archives in Washington the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., in hopes they can get advice about what they need to do in order to develop a proper presidential library.

ALL OF WHICH makes me wonder if Hawaii will get such a jump on Chicago that the city won’t have much of a chance to play catch-up when the time does come to give serious thought to where the Obama years are best remembered.

Personally, I think any Chicago site can hold its own to anything in Honolulu, particularly since I would think a site on the mainland in the city that is the transportation hub of the United States would be more easily accessible.

But when one considers that the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum is in an isolated place like Grand Rapids, Mich., Honolulu comes off as looking downright attractive. I would think the number of kooks who come forward to picket an Obama library/museum of the future in Hawaii would be fewer than in most places.

What other events were floating through the air along the shores of the southeastern corner of Lake Michigan?

HIZZONER JR. TELLS WEIS CRITICS TO PIPE DOWN: Mayor Richard M. Daley said he wishes people who are trying to make an issue out of Police Superintendent Jody Weis meeting with streetgang leaders would lighten up on their criticism.

Weis had a meeting last month at the conservatory at Garfield Park, in hopes of letting gang leaders know just how miserable federal prosecutors could make their lives if violence continues to be committed by gang members.

Aldermen Bob Fioretti and Joe Moore said earlier this week they think it is inappropriate to do anything that could be perceived as granting recognition to the gangs, with Fioretti saying it amounts to, “negotiating with urban terrorists.”

But Daley said Tuesday he is willing to have his police chief try anything if it can help reduce violence. “If you can save one life, you’ll sit down with anyone,” he told reporters.

NUMERO NOVENTA Y NUEVE: For the next month (or two, if the Chicago White Sox actually make it into the playoff picture), uniform number 99 will sit his dreadlocked buttocks on benches around the American League, and will hit an occasional home run on behalf of the South Side.

That will be Manny Ramirez, the man whom some baseball fans once thought would be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame (along with one-time Boston Red Sox teammate David Ortiz), who officially joined the White Sox on Tuesday in Cleveland.

I doubt the Ramirez presence will make much of a difference when it comes to the lines of statistics, although his presence for the month of September will make what could be an otherwise dreadful month a little more entertaining. At age 38, Ramirez just isn’t what he once was with the bat.

Then, when Ramirez leaves for whatever cellar-dwelling ballclub is willing to give him a big-money contract for 2011 and beyond, we will be able to add Ramirez to the list of one-time star ballplayers (Steve Carlton and Ken Griffey, Jr., to name a couple of recent cases) who extended their careers on the South Side. And uniform number 99 will likely wind up being retired by default (since I don’t know who else would want to wear it).

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