Some random thoughts ...

Let me say up front that I would not eat foie gras. Not because I feel some desire to be sympathetic to the physical suffering of ducks and geese, but because their fatty livers sound unappetizing – and unhealthy for human consumption.

To me, the idea that foie gras (along with caviar, if you must know the truth) is considered some sort of elite delicacy is just evidence that having money and a “sophisticated” palate does not automatically translate into common sense.

THEN AGAIN, I am a fan of that Mexican soup known as menudo, and I have known many people in my life who get repulsed at the thought of eating a soup based on tripe – with a pig’s foot thrown into the mix to add some flavor.

So what one manages to consume in the name of nourishment is a personal taste. I suppose in theory I should be pleased that the Chicago City Council this week repealed the ban they imposed nearly two years ago on the serving of foie gras in city-based restaurants. I’m not.

Personally, I find the way in which the political geeks who walk the halls of City Hall went about this issue to be an embarrassment – besmirching the city’s reputation almost as much as the losing ways of the Chicago Cubs.

It was here that the City Council twice managed to make itself look ridiculous -- back in '06 when they banned foie gras and again this week when they strong-armed it back onto the plates of a tiny minority of Chicagoans.

City officials imposed the ban in 2006 amidst high-minded talk of being disgusted by the cruel treatment given to ducks in order to get their livers so that foie gras can be produced. It put the City Council in line with the animal rights activists of the world and gave the government body a touch of sophistication.

WHO KNEW THE “shot-and-beer” type of guys who make up a majority of the City Hall crowd even knew what foie gras was?

But the word going around political circles is that Mayor Richard M. Daley has been embarrassed by the national attention given to the city because of the issue. So he thought he would undo the embarrassment.

But using parliamentary procedures to push for a vote with NO debate permitted is the true embarrassment. If anything, Daley had the city repeal its high-minded moment of sophistication with a political maneuver worthy of the old days of “The Machine.”

And now, people really will laugh at the mention of Chicago, whose officials behaved like a batch of hicks dressed in slightly nicer suits. It looks like one-time alderman "Paddy" Bauler is still right, “Chicago ain’t ready for reform.”

So what other random thoughts am I flushing from my mind so as to clear me out fresh for next week?

I GUESS HE’S ALREADY LOOKING TO TERM TWO: People have accused me of having a morbid sense of humor when I joke that the current War in Iraq will deliberately be dragged on beyond the political terms of the government officials currently in office.

But now, there’s evidence that even the prospective new politicos will use the concept of the United States at war as their on-the-job status quo.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said this week he doesn’t see an end to the war until (at earliest) early 2013, which is about the time that McCain would like to be taking the oath of office for his second term as president.

I guess he’s already committed to being a “wartime” president who will “talk tough” with the rest of the world. In reality, it would make him more of a buffoon, quite possibly making George W. Bush look downright eloquent by comparison.

As far as I’m concerned, that one comment by McCain alone ought to be enough reason to vote for Barack Obama – even though I’m realistic enough to know the U.S. is stuck in this Iraq situation indefinitely. No one (not even Obama) is going to be able to give the American people what they really want – an immediate end to the conflict and return home of U.S. troops.

JAMAICA?!?: I have family in and around Tinley Park and spend enough time in the area to know local residents are disgusted that an arrest has not yet been made in the Feb. 2 quintuple slaying at a Lane Bryant store in the southwest suburb.

I have heard it pass through the rumor mill that the suspect managed to get out of the continental United States, and supposedly was last seen in Jamaica. Who knows if there’s any truth to that? Probably not.

What police are trying to do these days is go over every single bit of forensic evidence, making sure that there isn’t some stray hair or partial fingerprint that could tell them for sure who they are looking for (on the theory that anyone crazy enough to kill five people on a calm Saturday morning likely has committed other crimes).

That got some locals worked up when they saw television news crews hanging around the police station and the Brookside Marketplace, wondering if an arrest of some sort had been made. It hadn’t.

All that came out of it was the words of wisdom of Tinley Park Police Commander Phil Valois, who told the Chicago Tribune and other news organizations that the delay in making an arrest is understandable. “It’s not like CSI. It doesn’t happen that quickly.”

WHAT A BATCH OF NIT-WITS: How can anyone not think that a t-shirt mocking the physical characteristics and accented English speech of Japanese people is not offensive?

Yet that’s the argument we get from Chicago Cubs fans and the street vendors who peddle the t-shirts at stands outside of Wrigley Field. For once, the Cubs themselves deserve a little praise – using their economic muscle to crack down on vendors who sell licensed merchandise to get them to stop selling the t-shirts.

Yet we have all those unlicensed vendors – who could face arrest for violating copyright laws (the t-shirts are a takeoff on the Chicago Cubs logo, which is property of Major League Baseball. They are justifying their “product” as a way to make money, and something that is “not blatantly racist.”

Yet Cubs outfielder Kosuke Fukudome, the man to whom the shirts supposedly pay homage, has called them offensive. What more do they need to hear?

AND ON A FINAL NOTE: Playboy put together a listing of the sexiest governors in the United States, to be published in their next issue. Our very own Rod Blagojevich did not make the list.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Don’t come crying to me when eating foie gras clogs your arteries and causes (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/us/15liver.html) health problems years from now. Here (http://www.vivacincodemayo.org/recipe.htm/) is a true delicacy.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain wants to convince the roughly one-quarter of the electorate that still respects George Bush the younger that he will not undermine the memory (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hbCmBtngjhCgiSJi5lKfvNXxOqNw) of the war that will be “Dubya’s” political legacy.

More than one quarter of a year has passed since five women were slain at a Lane Bryant store (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-lane_bryant_16may16,0,782025.story) in suburban Tinley Park. Here’s hoping this does not become the 21st Century version of the Brown’s Chicken slayings in Palatine, which took nearly a decade to solve.

Fifty bucks on e-Bay? Some people (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-16-cubs-fukudome-kosuke-chicmay16,0,6636753.story) just have too much expendable cash to spend.

Patti Blagojevich can relax; the strippers hired by Playboy to pick out the “sexiest” governors (http://www.startribune.com/politics/18928314.html) had no interest in her husband. If anything, she’d make a list of the sexiest gubernatorial spouses.

Guillen has healthy attitude toward racist rants directed at himself and other Latinos

Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, whose mouth and fiery temperament have caused him to have to undergo sensitivity training and pay several fines to Major League Baseball, actually has a rational viewpoint on the difference between the way Latino and African-American people perceive slurs from Anglo-America.

More about this perception can be found at the Chicago Argus' sister weblog, the South Chicagoan (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/).

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Gay ‘civil unions’ backers bring ‘senior citizen’ tactic to Illinois General Assembly

At a time when California officials are going to boldly address the issue of whether marriage ought to be legal for gay people, politicos in Illinois may try to sneak the issue in through the back door.

Specifically, supporters of a bill pending before the Illinois House of Representatives this spring to create the concept of civil unions (which gives some of the legal rights to couples that a church-sanctioned marriage already provides) are now touting the notion that it’s not just gay people who could benefit – senior citizens who are widowed and have potential for a new relationship at the end of their lives would also gain.

IN THE IMAGINATIONS of the activists who want this issue to pass, a unique pairing will develop – gay rights activists and the small army of retirees who can be organized by the American Association of Retired Persons and other interest groups that look out for older people.

They will supposedly create a force that will pressure the Illinois Legislature into actually voting for something resembling civil unions. After all, who’s going to say “no” to that sweet grandma-like woman?

In reality, when it comes to the prospect of gay marriage entering a debate, there are a lot of people who will screech and scream – perhaps even a few of those sweet-looking grandma-types.

At stake is what happens to elderly people who are widowed, then get into another relationship in their final years of life. Some of them go so far as to get married, but many do not – in large part because their Social Security benefits would take too big a hit if they were legally joined as one.

SO THEY MERELY live together, although supporters of this new strategy note they suffer when one of the people passes on or incurs a threatening illness. Because of the lack of a legal marriage, the other person in the couple has no legal say in what happens.

A civil union, these people say, is the perfect alternative to marriage in that it would invest each person with a legal say in the other’s future. Hence, civil unions are not just something for gay people anymore.

Who’s to say whether that line of reasoning will be considered acceptable? It has been tried in other states, but did not appear to sway many people.

AARP officials in Florida last autumn tried arguing against measures to outlaw gay marriages. They cited civil unions as acceptable, provided that provisions were written into the law to allow heterosexual senior citizens to take advantage of the measure as well.

WHAT HAPPENED WAS that conservatives wound up blasting the attempt to include senior citizens as, “a pathetic, desperate strategy.”

Already, various Internet sites that attract social conservative elements of our society are denouncing the possible use of the tactic in Illinois, making it clear they will not tolerate anything that would (in any way) benefit gay people – which makes this an issue more of trying to keep gay people down than it is of protecting anyone’s legal rights.

The one that caught my attention was an anonymous half-wit who felt the need to tell the world (through the Springfield State Journal-Register newspaper’s reader’s comments section) that without heterosexual marriage, our very essence would be, “out in some farmer’s bean field plowed under with the rest of the sewage.”

So what’s going to happen here in Illinois?

IT’S A GOOD thing that the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Greg Harris (who represents Chicago’s Ravenswood and Lincoln Square neighborhoods) is non-committal about when this issue will come up for a vote.

He thinks he could get enough support in the Chicago Democrat-controlled Illinois House if the measure actually got to a vote. But with all the other potential issues for legislators to dump on each other with, the last thing that House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is going to want is something that stirs up the social conservatives.

He’s already geared up for battle with Gov. Rod Blagojevich on a myriad of personal slights. He doesn’t need another enemy. That is what makes this issue (and strategy) a likely bet to come up in 2009 – if at all.

Perhaps the 2008 elections will help bring on a change in the mindset of our public officials to allow them to view the issue of gay marriage more rationally.

I KNOW. QUIT laughing.

Reality makes that scenario even less likely than the seniors/gay activists working together as an effective coalition to pressure the Illinois Legislature to take action on civil unions.

Which means the interests of gay people in Illinois who want their relationships to have legal status ought to be looking to Sacramento, Calif., rather than Springfield, Ill., for any sort of movement.

IT WAS ON Thursday that the state’s high court struck down the two laws that made marriage a legal option only for heterosexual couples. The court, in its majority opinion, ruled that marriage, “properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual.”

That could result in gay couples from around the country converging on California to get married, then return to their home states to pressure their local political people to recognize the result of their union.

Social conservative activists already are working with their California sympathizers, trying to push for an amendment to the state constitution that would ban any gay-marriage options. That, if they can get it on the ballot and get a majority of voter support, would overrule Thursday’s high court ruling.

IN SHORT, GAY marriage is now an issue that Californians are going to be confronted with – although I won’t be the least bit surprised if it creeps its way into the presidential campaign and the entirety of the United States of America has to put up with the ridiculous rhetoric.

I can already envision Republican John McCain trying to gain the support of people pushing for the constitutional amendment and conservatives trying to tar Democrat Barack Obama as the candidate with the crazy black preacher, the hippie terrorist friend AND who supports gay marriage.

It’s one more thing they can try to pile on him. I would consider it a victory for Illinois (and society as a whole) if voters rejected such ridiculous reasoning and didn’t take the issue of gay marriage into account at all come Nov. 4.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Wearing their “Seniors for Civil Unions” t-shirts, a group of elderly people led by state politicos (http://www.sj-r.com/news/x194397179/Sponsor-Civil-union-bill-would-help-seniors) want to show that civil unions is not just a gay rights issue.

The desire for civil unions is growing (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-xgr-civilunions-o,0,2952794.story) amongst gay people in this state.

The Statehouse Scene in Tallahassee, Fla., already went through this attempt to link senior citizens (http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2007/12/aarp-marriage-a.html) and gay rights activists.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is NOT among the Republican politicos wanting to overturn (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/us/15cnd-marriage.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1210878799-Jj/xwntb5wCqzwzdXIgcMA) the California Supreme Court’s action that legitimizes marriages of gay couples beginning in mid-June.

Jacksons at odds with Secret Service

In defending themselves against an attack by the Rev. Jesse Jackson (and his member of Congress namesake son), the Secret Service took what people with a sense of history that goes farther back than 10 minutes would consider to be an ironic view.

Jackson is pushing to get copies of e-mails sent between Secret Service agents, contending they contain twisted jokes at his expense.

HOW DO THE feds explain this? They point out that they offered Jackson protection during his two bids in the 1980s for U.S. president.

“We are proud to have provided protection for Rev. Jackson during two presidential campaigns and will work with Congressman Jackson’s office to make sure we address all of their questions and concerns,” the Secret Service said, in a prepared statement.

How many of us remember that this is not the civil rights leader’s first run-in with the Secret Service, which managed to offend him with the way it provided that security for his presidential campaigns.

Or does the Secret Service think we’ve managed to forget the significance of “Pontiac.”

FOR THOSE TOO young (pretty much anyone under 21) to remember, Jackson (the elder, not the South Side congressman) became upset when he learned that in internal communications between Secret Service agents, he was referred to by the code name “Pontiac.”

Secret Service officials at the time claimed the code name for Jackson was randomly chosen, but Jackson suspected that some “law and order” type within the Secret Service management had a twisted sense of humor in applying the name to him.

It turns out there is a half-wit old joke (the kind that our grandfathers’ generation would have chuckled over while guzzling beers in the bar), the punch line of which implies that black people are too ignorant to realize that a Pontiac-brand automobile is NOT a luxury car like a Cadillac.

Of course, Jackson’s complaint back then created the outcry from people who want to believe they are defending the right of free expression (but are really just showing their ignorance) who said he was taking the matter too seriously.

IT EVENTUALLY FADED out of the news cycle, and is now one of many incidents that can be rehashed when recounting the life of Jesse Jackson, although the people who downplayed the “Pontiac” crack are the ones who most want to remember that the same Jackson once was quoted by the Washington Post as referring to New York City as “Hymie-town” on account of its significant Jewish population.

So how you view those incidents (and which ought to be given priority) says a lot about how you will think of the latest incident.

The SouthtownStar newspaper in the Chicago suburbs reported that Jackson (with the influence of his son’s position in Congress) is filing a Freedom of Information request to force the Secret Service to turn over the e-mails.

Those messages reportedly contained a joke, the punch line of which was that an airplane crash involving Jackson and his wife would be, “neither a great loss nor an accident.”

THE SUBURBAN CHICAGO newspaper also reported that the e-mails also contained racially offensive material not specifically mentioning Jackson and also some explicit pictures of inter-racial couples.

There is a bigger picture here – 10 Secret Service agents who are black are filing a lawsuit against the federal government, contending that the management of the agency that protects the president and other prominent officials in this country runs the agency in a racially ignorant manner.

The African-American agents actually got ahold of the e-mails that were passed around among their white colleagues, and submitted them as part of their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

For their part, Secret Service officials are not denying the existence of such e-mails. They contend the messages were sent from someone outside the agency to individuals of the Secret Service, and should not be considered representative of the agency’s official stance on any issue.

YET THE FACT that “cop humor” (which bears a serious resemblance at times to “gallows humor”) could find anything humorous in gags about airplane crashes is discouraging.

It is particularly despicable coming from the agency that was supposed to be prepared to give up its own agents’ lives to protect Jackson when he ran for president. “The Secret Service is charged with investigating threats, not initiating them,” Jackson Jr. said, in a prepared statement.

It also is the absolute wrong image for the Secret Service to be hit with at a time when a bi-racial man (which to the bigots means “black”) is on the verge of getting the Democratic presidential nomination.

THERE ALREADY HAVE been some racial tensions and concerns that Barack Obama could be a larger-than-usual political target on the campaign trail, although Obama himself has tried to downplay such talk and says there have been no explicit threats.

But we already have some people engaging in conspiracy theories galore about how Democrats could plot to take away the presidential nomination from Obama – even though he is likely to finish the primary season with more votes and delegates than opponent Hillary R. Clinton.

Just imagine the conspiracy talk that would occur should people get the perception that the Secret Service would somehow not do their jobs and would not protect a President Obama (or even a Candidate Obama).

REGARDLESS OF WHAT one thinks of the legitimacy of such talk, the fact is that conspiracy theories do not need hard fact to be taken seriously by some people. This is one theory that could easily fly out of control – unless federal officials were to go out of their way to squash it now.

And if that means some agent gets disciplined for passing along to a colleague one of the many stupid content e-mails he receives during a typical day instead of using his sense and automatically deleting it, then so be it.

This is a case where we have to take the Jacksons seriously because it is the right thing to do, and not just because Jesse Jr. has a position in the federal government that makes him possible to ignore.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Rev. Jesse Jackson is back in the news with his grievances against (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/05/14/jacksons_seek_secret_service_e-mails/2547/) the Secret Service.

African-American Secret Service agents used the e-mails derogatory to Jackson as evidence in their own lawsuit (http://tinyurl.com/6dawbw/) against their employer.

The presidential campaign of Barack Obama (which has the support of Jackson Jr.) is not going to be the “race free” campaign (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051203014_pf.html) some people naively hoped for. It (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/may/14/barackobama.uselections2008) could get ugly, which makes this latest incident involving the Secret Service all the more regrettable.

Somebody has put a lot of time into cataloguing racial and ethnic slurs, including the double meaning (http://www.johncglass.com/racialslurs.htm) of the word “Pontiac.”

Can Newsday offer Sun-Times a lesson?

So does this mean that the fate of the Chicago Sun-Times (provided that its ownership doesn’t ultimately decide they can get a better tax break by folding the paper than they would a sale price by selling it) is to be a sister company to Comcast Cable?

If Tribune Co.’s recent sale of Long Island-based Newsday is any indication, it could be.

THE BIGWIGS WHO run the nationwide information and entertainment conglomerate from the gothic tower on Michigan Avenue recently dropped their interest in Newsday from controlling to just over 3 percent.

Newsday is now controlled by the people who run Cablevision, which is New York’s answer to Comcast – controlling what people get to watch on television and charging excessive rates for hundreds of channels of mediocre programming.

Yet to listen to Cablevision executives, they see Newsday as a brand name that they can leach off of in putting together news-oriented products on the Internet, and perhaps on television.

“Newsday TV” – a cable television channel that provides intensely local news programming unlike what is offered by the network owned-and-operated stations in New York City. That is one vision of what could become of the newspaper property in the New York suburbs that Cablevision has just acquired.

SOMEHOW, I DOUBT they paid over $600 million just so they could operate printing presses on Long Island.

For those of us who wonder the fate of newspapers, this is probably it.

The simple fact is that newspapers do have tremendous archives of material (unless they were short-sighted and turned it all to mulch). They provide more detailed accounts and better information than any other form of news media.

So it would make sense that people would want to turn that credibility developed over decades into a news product that can be used on other mediums.

TELEVISION IS THE most obvious – trying to feed off the credibility of newspapers, combined with the video skills of the broadcasters who also are losing viewers to people who’d rather sit in front of a computer screen (or, in some cases, would rather have a little audio and video snippet fed to their cellphone) to get a story.

I can see it happening in Chicago too.

Tribune Co. was always big on pushing the concept of “synergy,” getting their newspaper people to take their local television stations into account when rooting around for stories, while also getting their broadcasters to undertake projects that promoted the image of their local newspapers.

The big problem with Tribune in recent years wasn’t that synergy itself was a bad concept. It may have been that Tribune was trying to do too much in too many places, all in its attempt to create itself into a national media company.

THERE IS A natural tie between the Chicago Tribune and WGN (both the radio and television versions) that allow for Chicagoans to accept the notion that they work together. It is why the concept of ChicagoLand TeleVision seems logical – even though poorly executed at times.

Such a bond has never existed in Los Angeles between the Times and KTLA-TV or in New York between Newsday and WPIX-TV. (Whether Tribune could have succeeded if they had never sold off the New York Daily News is a different debate for another day).

Cablevision, which already provides television programming and sports in the New York area, would have a logical tie to a New York newspaper. The fate of newspapers that manage to survive in some form is probably to develop as many local ties and offshoots as possible.

If this means the day will come when Tribune Co. is nothing more than its Chicago properties, that is probably a good thing. People in the news business have long accused Tribune Co. of taking on actions that hurt their properties across the nation because they were more concerned about propping up the Tribune and WGN.

PERHAPS A CHICAGO-focused Tribune Co. (instead of having to worry about how the Los Angeles Times’ long-standing financial difficulties will drag down the company as a whole) will figure out a way to succeed. Perhaps Los Angeles-oriented ownership is best for the Times.

And perhaps Cablevision (a company that knows nothing of newspapers but understands the New York market) can figure out the way for Newsday to exist long-term.

So that takes me back to the original concept of this commentary – what about the Sun-Times?

If that news-gathering entity is to have a long-term future, it is going to be in the form of a business entity that wants to develop a Chicago-specific news product.

THERE ISN’T GOING to be some out-of-town newspaper tycoon with deep financial pockets who will come in and take over the Sun-Times out of some deep moral concern for the information needs of the people of Chicago. Newspaper tycoons only spend money on publications in markets with no competition.

Its future owner is going to be someone who wants to peddle information about Chicago and who thinks that the brand name “Chicago Sun-Times” still carries a lot of weight and could give instant credibility to any new venture.

Some people think the Sun-Times could follow the lead of the Capital Times newspaper of Madison, Wis., which recently converted itself to a once-a-week newspaper whose primary focus is now (http://www.Madison.com/tct/) its website.

I personally see this vision of Comcast deciding it can make money off a Chicago-oriented cable news channel (they already do Comcast Sports Chicago, channel 37 on many cable systems across the Chicago area).

THEY COULD HIRE up a new crew of kid broadcasters and put together something on the cheap, like they do with the local news interview inserts that run every half hour during the day on CNN Headline News.

Or they could use the brand and resources of the Sun-Times to give themselves some instant credibility – creating the image of more in-depth news than that offered on the conventional local television stations.

In fact, we could someday see the Chicago Newspaper War converted into something that is not fought on newsprint – Tribune-owned CLTV takes on Sun-Times/Comcast, with the two channels trying to convince the news consumers of this area that they offer the best, most-detailed report.

Both would probably also have web sites, and that would be where the archives of the two newspapers could be found – digging up the actual news accounts to provide the first-hand reports of when the significant events of Chicago took place.

SUCH A COMBINED Internet/broadcast combination is likely the future of our local news media. If Comcast isn’t the company to do so, perhaps someone else will take on such a venture.

Some will argue that it is just inevitable that Chicago will become Tribune Co. turf. Their products will control our local news reporting. I disagree, because I know there is a significant portion of the Chicago news consumer who (for whatever reason) wants nothing to do with Tribune and ignores its properties. There is a large enough market for a competitor. Money can be made by a sharp operator, particularly if they can combine newspaper expenses with their other media operations.

Of course, we’d have the inevitable battle over what to call such a new venture. Sun-Times/Comcast sounds right, but I’m sure there are those who would insist on putting the corporate Comcast portion first – just like it became AOL/Time-Warner when those media properties tried a joint venture a few years ago.

I must admit that while I will miss the feel of newsprint (and the concept of stories laid out on big pages in easy-to-read formats), I find such joint ventures a much more pleasant concept of the media future than the idea of the newspaper legacies dying out altogether and news reports falling into the hands of corporate types who think the First Amendment exists solely to let them sell advertising at overpriced rates.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Cablevision officials are trying to figure out how Newsday can help their (http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzdola135684073may13,0,6390185.story) media properties become a larger company as a whole.

It will take drastic measures to prevent the brand name of the Chicago Sun-Times (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-earnings-may09,0,5984608.story) from joining the ranks of the Chicago Daily News, the Herald-Examiner or the original Chicago Argus – namely, that of defunct newspapers.

When it comes to Chicago 'celeb' trials, Kelly tops Rezko in public's eye any time

This has the potential to sound trite and trivial, but the criminal trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko isn’t Chicago’s “Trial of the Century.” It isn’t the biggest criminal case of this decade.

Heck, it isn’t even the biggest criminal trial to take place in the Second City this week.

REZKO (WHOSE CRIMINAL proceedings appear to be wrapping up this week) will have to take Second Billing to the true Top Trial of Chicago – that of musician R. Kelly.

In the minds of Chicagoans, the Kelly trial will prove to be more interesting than anything that has come up during the Rezko case. Only the most hard-core of conservative Republican partisans in search of facts that can be distorted into political dirt will think Rezko takes precedence.

Actually, even most of those moralists will be more appalled by the Kelly case.

The simple fact is that sex will always top politics – particularly when the political corruption trial is one that involves arcane procedures that many people do not truly comprehend.

WHEN COMBINED WITH the fact that the Rezko case did not produce the political dirt that social conservatives wanted against Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, the fact becomes that the trial of Rezko amounts to something that “real people” have to be reminded is something they should be concerned about.

The Kelly case involves no such reminders; sex and sleaze will automatically gain the attention of the public – thereby making the criminal courthouse on 26th Street the focal point of the Chicago legal world, shifting away from the Dirksen Building downtown.

Now personally, I could care less about the Kelly case. His music doesn’t interest me much, nor do any tawdry details about his personal life. I have never felt compelled to go searching for “The Video” that shows him committing acts that are illegal only because of the age of the girl.

In the words of a California defense attorney, I guess I am one of the people “living under a rock.” But I can appreciate that simplicity will make the Kelly story an easier sell to the American public.

WHETHER THAT MAKES it an easy conviction for the prosecution remains to be seen.

Kelly’s biggest advantage is that so much time has passed between the time “The Video” was made, the time he was indicted and now, the time when the case actually goes to trial.

The 14-year-old girl in the video is now a 24-year-old who claims she’s not the girl in the video. The visual image that jurors will get to see once they are picked is of a young woman, not a child.

They are going to have to make a lot of assumptions in order to find Kelly guilty. I’m not saying they won’t do that – the kind of people who usually wind up getting picked to juries are the types who are willing to assume that prosecutors do not go after people for no good reason.

BUT THERE’S A lot of room for a crafty defense attorney to create “reasonable doubt” as to the validity of the charges, which basically amount to having sex with an underage girl. The video itself is irrelevant – except that it allows jurors to actually watch the incident.

Their verdict will center on determining whether the act ought to be considered criminal. Public perception will depend on how credible the prosecution’s behavior is, since many of the fans of Kelly’s music are inclined to believe the case is being trumped up against him and his attorneys have gone so far as to say they would like to have some jurors who understand the technical aspects of doctoring videotape footage – to enhance their argument that the video is not truly what it appears to be.

By comparison, the Rezko case is extremely complicated.

Rezko’s attorneys would like us to believe it is just a case of a person who brought together business interests and government officials so they could do what political people often jokingly refer to as “the people’s business.”

REZKO, THEY WOULD have you believe, is little more than a lobbyist.

Of course, it is not that simple. The details are where most people will get that glassy-eyed look on their face, and shift their attention from the Dirksen Building to the Criminal Courts building.

One of the most damning bits of testimony during the Rezko trial involved former Illinois Finance Authority Chairman Ali Ata, who held the position with a salary of over $100,000 per year for just over one year.

Testimony he provided (as part of a plea bargain to get a lesser sentence for his own criminal charges) indicates he got the job after making two $25,000 contributions through Rezko to Blagojevich’s political campaigns.

SUPPOSEDLY, THE DONATIONS were made with the understanding that Ata would get the government job – which would put him in a position to make business contacts and potentially enrich himself further in the future.

Be honest. Reading through that, your mind probably started to doze off until the thought of R. Kelly taking his pants off snapped it back to attention.

What was supposed to be the “sexy” (not literally involving intercourse, but tantalizingly interesting) part of the Rezko case was the involvement of Obama, who knew Rezko, considered him to be something of a friend, and who took a financial loss in cooperating with a real estate transaction that increased the value of the property on which Obama’s home in the Hyde Park neighborhood sits.

There’s no evidence Obama did anything to help Rezko. But Rezko was the type of guy who established his political contacts so he could call in favors – including one or two from Obama at some point in the future.

IT NEVER WENT beyond that. Only the most hard-core social conservative Republican is going to bother dredging up Rezko’s name during a general election campaign against Obama, because his involvement in the trial was so miniscule.

It would take so much time to fully explain why people should care that Obama and Rezko knew each other that a candidate would risk putting the potential voters to sleep. Besides, the Obama critics have the name of Jeremiah Wright to toss around to scare rural America with.

They don’t really need the Rezko name anymore, although I couldn’t help but notice a Gallup Organization poll released Monday that showed Obama’s former pastor had the potential to hurt his campaign to about the same degree that President George W. Bush would have a negative impact on the chances of Republican presidential opponent John McCain.

So on Monday, the day that was the beginning of both jury selection for the Kelly case and closing arguments for Rezko, one might argue that triviality prevailed.

SERIOUS POLITICAL SCIENCE gave way to tawdry sex (with a video). By year’s end, more people will remember the upcoming Kelly case than will remember anything about Tony What’s His Name?

And for those people who are actually involved in the coverage of the trials, there is one significant advantage to shifting the focus from the federal building complex in the South Loop out to 26th and California – lunchtime.

The Criminal Courts building sits in between an Italian district that has some real great old world restaurants and some of the most authentic Mexican food (try Taqueria El Milagro, about one block west of the courthouse) in the city, unlike the Dirksen Building which is surrounded by some of the greasiest (and not in a good way) fast food stands imaginable.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: MTV is focusing its attention on Chicago for the Kelly case. Do you (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1587252/20080509/id_0.jhtml) believe they’d come here for Barack Obama?

For the half-dozen or so people who ever seriously believed that Rod Blagojevich had a chance to become (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/us/12illinois.html?hp) president of the United States, that dream has died for good with the Rezko affair.

We won’t see “Exposing Daley” soon

WBBM-TV seems to have found a new franchise – “Exposing Xxxx Xxxxxxxx.”

It was a few months ago (Nov. 29, 2007, to be exact) that the CBS-owned television station in Chicago aired “Exposing Rod Blagojevich,” a nearly 8-minute report (or about one-third of the total newscast) that detailed just how unpopular Gov. Rod Blagojevich has become.

MONDAY NIGHT, WE viewers of WBBM got to see political reporter Mike Flannery (with help from producer Ed Marshall – a long-time Chicago broadcaster who did a brief stint as former Illinois Comptroller Loleta Didrickson’s press secretary) do another similar report. This time, it was “Exposing Todd Stroger” – a 6-minute report that told us just how unpopular Cook County President Todd Stroger has become.

There wasn’t anything terribly new – or at least nothing that those of us who pay attention to the Chicago Sun-Times didn’t already know. Todd has several relatives and friends in mid- to high-ranking positions on the Cook County government payroll, all of who receive salaries of at least $100,000.

About the most interesting tidbit I got out of the WBBM report was that Stroger works out of a fancy office with an incredible view of Lake Michigan – just like a lot of other people who work in downtown Chicago.

THE LOGICAL NEXT step would be “Exposing Daley.” If one is going to go after the governor and the county board president, then “getting” the mayor of Chicago would be the natural completion to the trio of political powerhouses.

Somehow, I doubt there will be any such report.

Getting people to take pot shots at Blagojevich and Stroger is ridiculously easy. In fact, the trick for a reporter-type is to figure out which critics actually know what they’re talking about – and which are just sore losers.

TAKING SHOTS AT Daley is a different matter – Hizzoner Jr. has the ability to crush anybody who tries to speak out against him, which will inhibit the number of people willing to go on camera and talk political trash. WBBM would literally have to resort to putting Daley critics in the shadows and distorting their voices to even consider getting them to talk.

In short, it isn’t going to happen.

We have a better chance of seeing “Exposing Madigan” (take your pick, Mike or Lisa) or “Exposing Obama” before we see anyone go after the Man on Five.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: For those who missed it, “Exposing Stroger” will live on forever (http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/exposing.todd.stroger.2.722376.html) on the Internet.

“Exposing Blagojevich” was entertaining by television news standards, but it hardly broke much (http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/exposing.rod.blagojevich.2.598424.html) in the way of new ground.