EXTRA: A lucky guess

Rod Blagojevich got 14 years as a prison sentence, and I got extremely lucky in that I predicted the sentence correctly. I wish I could claim to have some sort of special legal knowledge.

BLAGOJEVICH: Soon to be just a number


It just struck me that U.S. District Judge James Zagel would see something like 14 or 15 years as a gesture of compassion – considering that the sentence could have been (in his mind) as much as 20 years.

SO NOW, THE former governor gets 90 days to get his affairs in order. He will get to be with spouse Patti on Valentine’s Day, but he’ll be gone from our presence by March 20 – the date of the next primary election in Illinois.

And yes, I will feel some sympathy for his family. Because they are going to be hurt by this. Regardless of whether or not you believe that Blagojevich’s actions truly are criminal in nature (I honestly am not sure), you’d have to be pretty callous to rejoice in that latter fact.

Then again, after reading and hearing much of the rhetoric directed toward former Gov. George Ryan after he went away to prison (and still has just over 1 ½ years to serve) , I am aware that some individuals in our society who like to think they’re decent people are truly cold fish.

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Blagojevich to leave us after Wednesday

Today is likely THE day.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel has said he will use Wednesday to actually impose a sentence against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich for the twenty-something counts upon which he was found guilty in two different trials.

WHICH MEANS Wednesday is “the end” for Blagojevich as a public figure. While I doubt they would immediately take him into custody, it is likely that Milorod will be given a few weeks to try to get his affairs in order – before then being given a chance to surrender himself at whichever federal correctional center he gets assigned to.

We make jokes about Blagojevich and former Gov. George Ryan being cellmates at the work camp near Terre Haute, Ind. But let’s not forget that Ryan got assigned to the location near a maximum-security prison because of his age and health.

Which means Blagojevich could easily wind up a recipient of an “Oxford education” at the correctional center near Oxford, Wis.

Not that it matters much. Incarceration is incarceration, regardless of which facility he gets assigned to. It will be a burden on his wife, Patti, and two daughters.

WHICH SOME PEOPLE will perceive as some sort of cheap shot on my part by trying to bring up family compassion into the equation.

I already have heard countless political and legal pundits say that the family issue means nothing on Wednesday.

I won’t be able to be at the courtroom on Wednesday. Although it wouldn’t really matter much, because I don’t believe anyone will be able to appreciate what goes through the mind of a man in that circumstance.

When all that his life amounted to has collapsed, and a judge imposes what may seem like a random number – of years that must be served before one can dream of having their freedom again.

PERSONALLY, I FOUND it humorous that Blagojevich had his Chicago Cubs fandom in mind on Tuesday. The Chicago Tribune reported that someone asked the former governor about Ron Santo’s acceptance into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Then again, if I were in that situation, I’d probably be trying to think of anything except for the situation in front of me.

Maybe Blagojevich will pass his days away in coming months replaying in his head old Cubs games and watching some of those 342 home runs sailing over the ivy-covered brick walls of Wrigley Field.

But back to Wednesday.

I’M CURIOUS TO see (even though I won’t actually be in the courtroom) how emotional Zagel becomes in actually imposing the sentence. I’m hoping he doesn’t relish the moment too much.

Because there will be more than enough people eager to see the moment and shout with joy. For all I know, it may create more excitement than Santo’s Hall of Fame election did on Monday.

As it was, I noticed that on Tuesday Zagel made a point of saying that the “30-years to life” range for a prison term was correct, while also adding that it, “simply (was) not appropriate in the context of this case.”

It certainly isn’t.

BUT IT ALSO gives me the sense that Zagel thinks the 15/20-year range is being compassionate. So when Blagojevich attorneys say they think four years ought to be a “maximum” penalty, and that perhaps something significantly less would be appropriate, there will be more than enough snickers to go around.

I’ve written before that I believe 3 years for a prison sentence somehow seems right, although it would seem I’m in the minority on this issue.

It’s just that I can’t get around the fact that Blagojevich’s “profit” from his actions that a jury found to be “criminal” was so minimal – and makes me believe that a part of the hostility that will be expressed Wednesday as joy upon the former governor’s sentencing is nothing more than political partisanship run amok.

Because I honestly believe that is what is behind a significant part of the Blagojevich hostility. Some people are enjoying themselves way too much at his expense for this to be emotionally healthy.

YES, IT’S TRUE. A part of me isn’t going to be pleased with the outcome on Wednesday – even though as I write this, I don’t know what it will be (I’ll predict “14 years” will be the actual sentence – eight years longer than what Ryan ultimately received).

Fourteen years in prison just because someone was offended that you got elected in the first place seems a bit harsh. Even if a judge thinks he’s being “compassionate” by imposing that, instead of 20.

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Can we now move on with Santo, or will some seek the holdout voter?

For those whose view of Chicago is limited to the North Side, it was a day to rejoice. Ron Santo, the one-time Chicago Cubs third baseman-turned-broadcaster, got into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Ceremonies marking his induction will be held this summer, along with those for the other ballplayers and broadcasters who wind up getting into “the Hall” this year.

NOW I HAVE written before that I do not “get” all the hysteria from people with regards to Santo. Personally, I think he falls short of what ought to be a Hall of Fame ball player. Perhaps all those panels of the past got it right in rejecting him.

But this is not a diatribe against Santo. He’s in, and a part of me is relieved that I no longer have to listen to Chicago Cubs fans with a sense of self-torture rant and rage and whine and wail about the “great injustice” that was being done to the man who once had his own brand of frozen pizzas on the market.

Nor is this going to be a diatribe about an injustice being done on one-time Chicago White Sox outfielder Minnie Miñoso – who also was considered for the Hall of Fame, but fell three votes short.

For the record, there were 16 people who had a vote in Monday’s selection, and they were to pick from a panel of eight former ballplayers and two baseball executives. Anyone who got at least 12 votes (75 percent) was in.

SANTO WAS THE only person to reach that standard. He got 15 people to pick him, while Miñoso only got nine – as did long-time New York baseball favorite Gil Hodges.

I’d like to think that Santo gets in, and we can now “move on” from the constant diatribes about what a catastrophe it is that Santo does not have a bronze plaque honoring him in the Hall of Fame’s museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Perhaps it means that Santo’s place in Chicago baseball history is to be the North Side equivalent of Nellie Fox – the one-time White Sox second baseman who had his own struggle to get immortalized in the professional baseball world.

How many remember his 74.7 percent of the Hall of Fame vote in 1985? The same Veterans Committee that made Santo a Hall of Famer on Monday ultimately inducted Fox in 1997.

WHICH MANY OF you have probably forgotten about by now. Because he’s “in,” and nobody really seems to think much about how it happened.

I’d like to think that will be the fate of Ron Santo. He can now be thought of as a Hall of Fame ballplayer somehow superior to his peers in the 1960s – even though his ballclub’s on-field performance sure wouldn’t reflect the fact that they had so many “immortals.”

With the exception of 1969 (which in and of itself is a failure, they lost to the New York Mets – managed by Hodges), the Cubs were a weak team despite having Hall of Fame talents such as Ernie Banks at shortstop (later first base), Billy Williams in the outfield, Fergie Jenkins pitching AND Santo clicking his heels after the occasional Cubs victory.

Then again, he did hit his share of home runs (342 during his career), which seems to influence some people into thinking that Santo was the best third baseman of his era; over Brooks Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles and the Boyer brothers – Ken of the St. Louis Cardinals and Clete of the New York Yankees.

I GOT MY kick out of seeing that while Santo got 15 of the 16 possible votes, Ken Boyer got so few votes that the Hall of Fame wouldn’t even officially confirm a figure.

But my doubts about Santo’s standards (too heavily influenced by the fact that I remember his abhorrent end-of-career stint with the White Sox) seem to be in the minority. He’s in.

So will Cubs fans have the sense to celebrate, relax, and move on? I’m skeptical.

A part of me wonders how many people are going to complain about the fact that this could not have occurred while Santo was still alive. Could that become the new perennial gripe for Chicago Cubs fans (who don’t seem to care at times how dismally their ballclub plays on the field)?

IF THAT WERE a legitimate factor, then perhaps we should be arguing about why Miñoso did not get into the Hall. He’s still alive – albeit aging. Who’s to say he’ll still be around when the Veterans Committee gets around to considering ballplayers from his era (1947-72) in another three years?

Or will their gripe be that one of the 16 people who had a chance to vote “yes” for Santo decided not to.

A Chicago Cubs fan-style lynch mob in search of the infidel who doesn’t respect the memory of Ron “Oh noooooooo” Santo.

If Cubs fans got as concerned about their team’s performance on the field as they have about Santo’s Hall of Fame chances throughout the years, perhaps ballclub management would have felt pressure to bring a championship to the Humble Abode of one Elwood J. Blues.

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How important does Walsh think he is?

It strikes me as being incredibly egotistical that Joe Walsh (not the former guitar player for The Eagles) thinks he can make a “major announcement” out of his plans for the 2012 election cycle.

WALSH: He'll tell us today

Who does he think he is? Herman Cain!!!

BUT THAT IS the case with the Congressman from the outer Chicago suburbs, who says he will tell us on Monday which congressional district he will bless with his presence in Washington.

As though the reality isn’t that he’s likely to join Michael Flanagan (not the one-time Baltimore Orioles pitcher) as one-term members of Congress from Illinois whose election wasn’t solely because of an election fluke.

Remember Flanagan? He was the guy who got elected from the Northwest Side back in 1994 to replace Dan Rostenkowski, then was defeated in 1996 when Rod Blagojevich decided he was tired of being a lowly state legislator and wanted to move up to Congress.

Since then, the one-time financially-struggling attorney has turned himself into a Washington-based consultant and seems to be making an adequate living for himself.

WHICH IS NICE, since Flanagan basically was a decent human being who during his two years in the House of Representatives was most likely in over his head with the political mess that came about from the’94 election cycle that saw so many shifts toward the Republican Party – and which will be the subject of much political debate during the upcoming year IF Newt Gingrich actually succeeds in getting the Republican nomination to run against Barack Obama for president.

But a part of me feels guilty about bringing up Flanagan and Walsh in the same commentary. Because I don’t recall Flanagan ever letting his ego get the best of him the way that Walsh seems to enjoy.

Which may be why Walsh felt compelled to make an issue this weekend about his use of Monday as a date to announce which congressional district he will run in.

FLANAGAN: Can't Walsh follow his example?



And I was foolish enough to think that Monday was just going to be another dull day.

NOW AS ANYONE who is bothering to read this likely realizes, the congressional boundaries have been redrawn, and the northwest suburban resident had his current district split into two.

Initially, he planned to run for the new Illinois 14^th Congressional district, which is the one that will contain his McHenry home. That would put him into a head-to-head fight against Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., with the winner of the Republican primary on March 20 likely getting a free path to Congress come the Nov. 6 general election.

But perhaps it is a bit of self-awareness that Walsh truly was a freak of nature (otherwise known as the 2010 Tea Party movement that swept up many rural and ex-urban areas in the country) and that 2012 will be a different phenomenon.

Because now he’s throwing out the hints that he will move at some point (although the rules are so loose that he may not have to relocate for a long while) to another part of his old Congressional district.

HE ENVISIONS BEING the lone Republican running in the new Illinois 8^th Congressional district. That is the one that has no incumbent and likely leans toward Democrats.

It is the one that has establishment favorite Tammy Duckworth and Raja Krishnamoorthi currently facing off for the Democratic nomination come March.

Which means Walsh likely has delusions that the two of them will beat up on each other so badly that the winner of the primary will be bloodied up enough that even HE could win come November.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Walsh used an appearance in St. Charles this weekend to make statements about how he doesn’t want to “give… a district” to a Democratic Party member of Congress. He even used the “boogeyman” image of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., returning as House speaker – IF enough Democrats manage to win come 2012.

SCARE TACTICS. THAT is what the campaign is about, should he decide to make such a move rather than take on Hultgren from his hometown.

Then again, I have noticed various e-mails feeding into my box during the past week from Krishnamoorthi backers, trying to create their own image of an out-of-touch Walsh – making sure he remains irrelevant should he decide to get into that campaign that would have him seeking support from Cook County voters.

And you just know that the child support issue involving his ex-wife isn’t going to go away – no matter how much Walsh tries to scream and shout it away. It’s going to be an ugly campaign, as Walsh tries desperately to avoid becoming the next Mike Flanagan – that one-termer whose perception amongst his colleagues never amounted to much.

Then again, maybe I owe Flanagan an apology for bringing his name up in the same context with Walsh. After all, I’m not aware of Flanagan ever having a headline like Judge scolds Rep. Joe Walsh in child-support case with ex-wife appear like Walsh has.

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What an un-likely duo

I must admit to getting a bit of a giggle at the way the names of Rod Blagojevich and Jesse Jackson, Jr., have become intertwined these days.

BLAGOJEVICH: Four more days

The former Illinois governor is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday for his criminal convictions that center around claims he was willing to give his appointment for a U.S. Senate seat to whomever would make it most worth his while.

THERE ARE MANY people who believe that the congressman from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs was more than willing to make the “payoff” in order to get a political promotion.

Which is funny because I remember all the ill-will stories that got written up back in the days after Barack Obama won election as president and gave up his U.S. Senate seat from Illinois – for Blagojevich to fill.

I recall thinking that in many ways, Jackson was the obvious choice for the post. He is the person who should have received the gubernatorial appointment – IF Blagojevich were at all interested in public service and the good of the people.

But there were the grudges between them, with Blagojevich feeling that he would be turning Jackson into yet another political person who surpassed him in public prominence (just like Obama).

WHICH MAY WELL be the real reason why Blagojevich played such hardball and was demanding of Jackson people in considering him for the post. If he’s going to get pressured into appointing someone he can’t stand, then he had better gain something from it.

Although considering the Blagojevich persona and the general mentality of hardball politics, it wouldn’t have shocked me in the least if Blagojevich would have demanded some extravagant “price” for consideration – only to turn around and give the appointment to somebody else!

Which makes the whole idea of this position being “sold” to the highest bidder seem a bit ludicrous.

JACKSON: Conduct unbecoming?



But that is what many people want to believe – although I generally find that the most vociferous of the Blagojevich critics are people who didn’t like him in the first place. Which means they’re just happy to have something else to criticize him with – instead of the usual old partisan trash-talk.

AS FOR JACKSON, there are those people who are convinced that the only real injustice taking place these days is that federal prosecutors seem to have closed this particular corruption case WITHOUT filing any criminal charges against the congressman from Illinois’ 2^nd Congressional district.

Those people want Jesse, Jr., heading to jail just like Milorod – who will get to spend Tuesday making his personal statement and will learn on Wednesday just how close to that 15- to 20-year prison term recommendation U.S. District Judge James Zagel will go along with.

I’m willing to bet now that Zagel’s sentence will be closer to that figure than the 4-year term that defense attorneys say would make more sense. We’ll have to leave it up to appeals courts to determine whether or not prosecutors are being too overzealous in this particular case.

But Blagojevich isn’t the only one having a depressing weekend (this being his last one as a free man who won’t be required to identify himself by a number instead of name).

JACKSON IS GETTING his own reminders of how twisted this affair has become.

For while prosecutors are not seeking criminal charges against him, the House Ethics Committee said Friday it is not about to drop the matter.

Jackson’s Congress colleagues have been investigating the matter off-and-on, and says now it is going to continue its investigation. After all, he might not have committed a crime, but Jackson may still have engaged in conduct unbecoming a member of Congress.

Although the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Jackson said in a letter than he “acted honorably” in his attempts to persuade Blagojevich to let him be the next senator from Illinois.

WHICH WOULD HAVE been a nice boost for him – since he has held his current political post for 17 years now. At age 46, he is the type that would have ambitions and want to work his way up to a post that makes him one of the top people on the local political scene – rather than just someone who is “top dog” in his home neighborhood.

Yet the irony is that Jackson isn’t going to get that bump up. He likely can continue to get re-elected to his congressional seat in coming years (although he’ll probably have to put up with wiseacres like former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson challenging him every election cycle). By the time that enough time has passed that people will look beyond this, Jackson will be an aging politico.

He may well become mayor of Chicago someday. But he’ll likely be of an age where he’ll be lucky to get one term in office – instead of the couple of decades that might have been possible if he could have run a credible campaign in this year’s elections.

For an ambitious person like Jackson, that might well be the biggest punishment – much more than any future censure by the House of Representatives.

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Ideologues are doing a good, enough job of shooting themselves in the foot

Sometimes, I think the way to go about opposing that segment of our society that is determined to keep us socially in the 19^th Century is to do nothing.

Because at times, the conservative ideologues among us do a good enough job of making themselves look ridiculous.

PART OF IT is because political people in general have a tendency to figure out how to say something stupid – no matter how much they try to avoid it.

But even those who don’t aspire to hold government positions manage to find a way to step in it and make something relatively harmless into a MAJOR CRISIS ISSUE!!!!!!!

It seems like we have learned nothing from the late 1960s, where many of those Chicagoans who eagerly opposed Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies being in the city in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention held in ’68 sound so stupid in retrospect.

Did anyone seriously believe that the city’s drinking water supply was going to be contaminated with LSD?

PROBABLY ONLY THE same kind of people who seriously think mayhem is going to occur at next year’s Gay Pride Parade in the north lakefront neighborhoods – on account that the new route is going to take it right past a Catholic church.

That will be Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Belmont Avenue, where church officials are trying to avoid sounding bigoted in their complaints about the new parade route – which actually was designed to reduce the amount of foot traffic in the Lakeview neighborhood come the 2012 version of the parade.

But now, we’re going to have little children attending church while the parade goes marching by. Parents will have to squirm as they come up with an explanation for much of the gaudy behavior that takes place during the Pride Parade every summer in Chicago.

The reality of this particular event is that it is harmless. It usually polices itself rather well – despite the crowds in the hundreds of thousands of people who turn out to either watch the event or participate in it.

BUT WE HAVE church officials insisting that there will be traffic and public safety problems created by having a parade pass by Belmont Avenue.

The fact that this church is going out of its way to say that its’ stand is not against homosexuality in and of itself is just too reminiscent of that old Seinfeld line (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” while going on and on about heterosexuality).

It seems to me that the people who really expect some sort of orgy to come marching right by the church during Sunday services are the children of those who couldn’t figure out that tainting Lake Michigan with LSD would take such a large quantity of the drug that there’d be no way to “sneak” it into the city.

A “pinch” of LSD isn’t about to turn a 9-million-person metropolis into a batch of drug addicts.

YET THERE IS another reality. The people of Our Lady of Mount Carmel are NOT the most ridiculous sounding individuals this week.

That title goes to the people of the Illinois House of Representatives who dumped all over state Rep. LaShawn Ford, D-Chicago, for his purely-symbolic resolution in support of the Occupy Wall Street activist movement – particularly those people who have taken to gathering around LaSalle and Jackson streets in Chicago.

Ford, in his resolution, says he sees the effort as “continued peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights.”

Legislators usually grant each other votes of support for these resolutions – which have no power as law but allow for statements. This time, they turned on him – giving it a 37-58 vote (far short of the 60 votes of support any bill needs for approval).

STATE REP. ROSEMARY Mulligan, R-Park Ridge, who usually shows some sense of having common sense, claims she has heard of people who are afraid to go to downtown Chicago because of these activists – although I suspect these people are just scared of going anywhere where there would be large numbers of people unlike themselves.

For the only truly scary aspect of downtown Chicago is the ridiculously-high price of legally parking one’s car.

Then, there’s state Rep. Ed Sullivan, Jr., R-Mundelein, who harps on an issue I have seen many ideologues rant on when it comes to the Occupy Wall Street protests – they’re criminals, and some are rapists.

Not that we’ve had any of that among the Chicago versions of these activists. But who wants to let the facts get in the way of a rant (particularly since the few cases of sexual assault have involved participants in the protests).

IT’S CERTAINLY NOWHERE near the image of Occupy protesters raping and pillaging every woman they encounter on the street, or breaking downtown store windows for massive looting.

It there were, we’d probably have police activity similar to what occurred in ’68 – the activity that ultimately got labeled a “police riot” just over four decades ago and would be even-more over-the-top if applied in ’11.

Not that this commentary is totally fair. Because it makes it appear that Sullivan and Mulligan are somehow the most outrageous of the batch of legislators who felt compelled to speak out against this issue. Anybody who wants to get the true sense should check out the Capitol Fax website.

Perhaps it is because these activists are speaking a little too close to the truth with regards to the allegiances some political people have when it comes to balancing business and social concerns?

FOR SULLIVAN USED the word “un-American” to describe these protesters. Which is way too similar to the rhetoric used all those years ago to describe the Yippies – all too many of whom grew up into respectable citizens in our society.

Is that what we’re destined to repeat – these protesters maturing into proper people while they oppose grouchy grandpa-types who truly seem to want to live in the past?

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Dixie Square shopping mall: More notable in death than it ever was in life?

I’ll believe it when I see it. Reports are going about that the remains of the one-time Dixie Square shopping center in south suburban Harvey will finally be torn down.

Supposedly, the contracts for the demolition will be approved some time during this month – with work to begin shortly thereafter.

I’M SKEPTICAL BECAUSE there have been so many instances throughout the years when people have talked about clearing away the structure that was a shopping center for about 12 years until 1979 – but now sits just off of Dixie Highway (Western Avenue, to city-folk) in a physical condition that goes far beyond decrepit.

Collapsed is more like it.

Heck, I was on hand (as a reporter-type person) just over a year ago when Gov. Pat Quinn (seeking re-election) offered up state aid to help Harvey turn the one-time shopping mall into a site that would benefit the local economy.

Not that his appearance (which may have helped Quinn get an overwhelming number of the area’s votes against opponent William Brady) has done much to speed up the demolition process. Because the ultimate significance of the Dixie Square shopping center has nothing to do with its time as a place of commerce and business.

WE’RE ALL THINKING of those scenes from The Blues Brothers film in 1980 where the one-time Mount Prospect police car goes crashing through the shopping center, with Illinois State Police troopers in hot pursuit.

Yet whenever I see that film and watch those particular scenes, I can’t help but think of how un-realistic they are – and NOT just because of the sight of a police chase taking place in a shopping center.

Dixie Square NEVER looked this good



I don’t ever recall the Dixie Square mall being as nice, as detailed, or as varied in its selection of stores as it appeared to be in that film. I never would have expected to see “the new Oldsmobiles” in this year at a visit to the mall.

Although I’ll be honest, the one recollection I have of shopping at Dixie Square was a limited visit. My mother and her friend took me and the friend’s son (who was also a childhood friend of mine) to the official Boy Scout store located there so as to get the uniforms we needed for our couple of years-long stint in Cub Scouts.

MAYBE THERE WAS more to that shopping mall than I recall. Although I am skeptical that there was.

My memories are of a second-rate retail center that was dwarfed by the (still existing) River Oaks Shopping Center – located in nearby Calumet City. That was the place where serious shopping took place – and where one could find auto dealers located nearby.

Which is why it was available for the setting of such an outrageous scene in The Blues Brothers. If it had been a thriving shopping center, nobody would have given serious thought to letting it be used for the destruction that was caused during the film.

And if not for that film, who would even care about what became of this site at 151^st Street?

THAT IS WHY it is sad that this site, which in theory has a central location within the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs that could have made it a prominent retail collection, has spent the past few decades rotting away into nothingness.

For its own sake, I hope the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association is capable of getting its act together and hiring a demolition company that can finally take down what remains of Dixie Square.

Because a part of me has always wondered if the inaction toward destruction and re-development would last so long that this structure would literally collapse on its own before the wrecking ball ever got around to it.

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