Personal Asides: Public Radio Web Editor on Why He Voted Scott Lee Cohen…Eric Zorn Equivalences Jason Plummer to Cohen: Nice Guy. More.

                                             Feast of St. Jerome Emiliani* 

         

              Good Reason Not to Take Political Advice from CPR                                 

          And the winner for kid fatuousness in journalism is Chicago Public Radio Web Editor Justin Kaufmann who explains his vote for Scott Lee Cohen, the millionaire pawnbroker who Sunday resigned from the ticket.  

         Says Editor Kaufmann:  

      “He did have the best campaign commercial, though, where, in a poorly filmed shot he stares down someone off-screen and kind of yells at them about needing more jobs.  It was effective. I was scared. I voted for him because his tie was loosened a bit and I didn’t want him to stare me down anymore.  I’m like that.”  

          “I was scared…I didn’t want him to stare me down anymore. I’m like that.” 

         We see that, Justin.  

         Also the editorial maturity we get from the outfit that’s supported by  tax dollars and “listeners like--”—others, not me. .    

                 Zorn Equivalences Cohen with Plummer.  

       For someone who yearns…oh how he yearns…to be a full-time political columnist with newspaper, radio and TV outlets instead of a general interest feature columnist…The Tribune’sEric Zorn might just someday get the assignment: if he switches to The Huffington Post or Daily Kos. The other day he did a think piece on Scott Lee Cohen, the pawn-broker ex-Dem Lt. Governor nominee, now resigned who… 

         Admitted to having taken injectable steroids…tried to choke his wife…forced himself on her after she said “no,”,,,was forcibly removed from his house by police…is being sued by his ex-wife for child support after having spent $2 million on his campaign for Lt. Governor…wrote threats in lipstick on his wife’s mirror…maintains the wounds on his prostitute ex-girl friend were self-inflicted and insists he didn’t know she was a prostitute, believing she was a masseuse as he met her in a massage parlor.  

        I impart my congratulations to Zorn who as a brilliant  partisan wants to be sure Illinois Democrats don’t stand alone with such allegations but strives to show equivalence between the two. His reasoning is worthy of David Axelrod at his finest.  

         So in his first paragraph he links Cohen to Jason Plummer, the Republican Lt. Governor nominee.  To Zorn they’re equivalent unknowns.  

        Zorn: “…[V]oters Tuesday nominated inexperienced, unknown [sic] rich guys to be the running mates for their gubernatorial candidates, touching off memories of 1986 when another unknown slipped his way onto a major party ticket.” 

         This shows not a little big-time journalistic Chicago snobbery but  also supreme arrogance maintaining Plummer, of Edwardsville, is inexperienced and unknown since Zorn never heard of him.     

At 27 Plummer is indeed a rich kid, scion of a wealthy family, a U of grad in finance.  He’s had a variety of experiences in business and public policy. Before he got involved in his family’s business he served as a legislative assistant to Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, and a research assistant at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D. C…although I imagine those jobs rate very little in Zorn’s book.  It would have been far better for Plummer to have been a legislative aide to Barbara Flynn Currie, a research assistant for the Institute for Policy Studies and regional grassroots leader of Moveon.org. Then presumably he’d be a quality young man ready to move into the lieutenant governorship.  

        After Washington, Plummer went to work in his family business, planned shopping centers and new buildings.  There’s nothing in Plummer’s background within a country mile of Scott Lee Cohen.  Because Zorn never heard of him…or maybe never heard of Edwardsville for that matter —Jason Plummer is “unknown”: Despite the fact that he served as Republican chairman of Madison county and as a candidate went about the state for eight months appearing in candidates’ forums where debating and from-the-floor questioning is usually intensive. He appeared on my WLS Radio show sparring with veteran Democrat Clint Krislov, a Democratic candidate for comptroller,  who is no slouch at debate forensics. Something Cohen or another son of a rich father, Andy McKenna didn’t do.     

          Where was Zorn when Scott Lee Cohen was running TV ads and billboards all over the state? Did Zorn ever wonder who he is? Mark Brown of the Sun-Times touched on Cohen’s background—although as he cheerfully acknowledges, certainly not enough. At least Zorn’s Trib colleague John Kass, apologized for the oversight and vowed it won’t happen again. Zorn evidently didn’t know about Cohen or think his defects were newsworthy. Perhaps he was satisfied because Cohen was endorsed by Planned Parenthood of Illinois and Personal PAC.    

       The other day one of Zorn’s journalistic ilk, Lynn Sweet of the Sun-Times angrily demanded of Mike Madigan the Dem state chairman why Madigan hadn’t vetted all the candidates…and because he hadn’t in Cohen’s case suggested the Dems get a better chairman.  

         Gee, I hate to be defending Madigan but that’s what I thought we had media for. Having Zorn’s and Sweet’s papers come out after Cohen was nominated with the full story was not very helpful being it was too late. For that matter where was the Trib’s high exalted chief political guru  Rick Pearson who’s made a career of worrying who Jack Roeser (no relation)   supports with his legally reported funds that Pearson must have dozed when Cohen sneaked under the gates in what appears to be Pearson’s own party.   

       In trying to suggest equivalence between Cohen and Plummer Zorn resembles one of those candidates in duplicity—and it’s not Jason Plummer. 

                                  Berkowitz for the Persecution.  

         Last night on my WLS program, Jeff Berkowitz sided with Zorn’s contention that Plummer is a nobody—pointing out as proof that Plummer turned down an invitation to be on Berkowitz’s access television program…a sure way to lose Berkowitz’s…ahem…objective journalistic (his words) approbation.  As a state senator. Barack Obama did do Berkowitz’s program and since then has been rated supremely high on JB’s objective journalistic card…Berkowitz having agreed with the president that thus far he scores B+ in accomplishments.  Be that as it may, then the program veered in the direction of personal abuse.  

         The program’s title “Political Shootout” could well have been re-titled “Personal Assault” when Berkowitz cited anonymous supposed criticism of a fellow panel member without journalistic verification.   In more than a quarter century of broadcasting, I have never witnessed an allegation made against the character of a panelist  with no basis in fact supplied: a stunner coming from one who maintains he’s “an objective journalist.”  
 

                            Edgar Folds, Says Brady Will Win. 

        Former Gov. Jim Edgar who backed Kirk Dillard says Jim Brady will win because Brady is ahead by some 400 votes. I don’t know where Edgar gets that stuff—evidently basing it on who’s ahead on election night—the  shallowest kind of determination. I was in Minnesota state government when we had the longest gubernatorial recount in the history of the U. S. which lasted four months, spanning to March, 1963 from November, 1962.  My boss, the Republican governor, was ahead by 300 votes on the supposed final tally on election night. The recount discovered that the Democrat who ran behind us won by 91 votes out of 1,200,000.  See, Mr. Edgar, you’ve had no experience with recounts but let me remind you election night returns are not necessarily determinate. And it would have been nice of you…given that you endorsed Dillard so highly…not to toss in the towel before all the votes are counted. 

        More examples of recount turnarounds. 

        On election night 1960 John Kennedy was reported to have carried California over Richard Nixon by 37,000 votes. A recount there showed Nixon carrying it by 36,000.  

      In Hawaii Nixon was called the winner by a little over a thousand votes but a recount showed JFK won by 115.  In New Hampshire in 1974 for the U.S. Senate, Republican Louis Wyman defeated Democrat John Durkin by 355.  But a recount showed plus 2 for Wyman.  (The state ran the election again which Durkin won by 27,000.)   

         Then, of course, there was the famous Bush-Gore election of 2000. The see-saw election night tally switched by the hour, then the minute, then the week and finally landed in the U. S. Supreme Court. Ten minutes after the polls closed, some of the networks called Florida for Gore.  Then at 2:30 a.m. the next morning, the networks reversed themselves and called it for Bush with Bush appearing to lead Gore by more than 100,000.  Then at 4:30 a.m. Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach narrowed Bush’s number to a little over 2000 over Gore. A week later as more ballots were tallied, Bush’s lead dwindled to a little more than 300 over Gore.  Then military votes upped Bush’s margin to 980.  More counting and Bush held on by 537. 

        Gore who had conceded to Bush rescinded his concession and called for a recount.  Gore was supported by the Florida Supreme Court. As the possibility of a recount seemed to threaten what was called the “Safe Harbor” deadline of Dec. 12 and inauguration day grew nearer with the possibility of no president, the U. S. Supreme Court overruled the Florida Court and called a halt to the recount.  The Court signified that Bush was the winner and carried Florida although in popular votes it was Gore over Bush by 543,895.  The controversy over that carried over and is still a sore point with those who never accepted Bush’s election.  

        That’s why for the life of me I can’t fathom Edgar’s statement  that Brady’s already won when 5,000 plus ballots are out even before a recount is required.   

                          Here’s Skippy with His “Perspective.” 

         I don’t welcome Walter (Skippy) Jacobson back to Channel 2 with his “Perspective” not because Jacobson is old (at nearly 74)—but because his flighty misnamed commentaries are prosaic, cliché-ridden and as flat as a soufflé that, having fallen once, cannot rise again.  His prima donna temper tantrums have been legend around TV studios and for the life of me aside from the conventional Lefty instinctively-held and un-researched baseless hunches he brings to the task, I cannot see his value in the  slightest.  Then there’s his idiosyncratic moods.  

         One of them came home to me quite a few years ago when I was supposed to appear on his Sunday AM TV panel.  As we were getting mike’d up for the telecast he mentioned that since I am Catholic I might  as well explain the details of virgin birth to him.  With seconds to go for a program that would, presumably deal in politics not the sinlessness of Mary, I gave it a reasonably good try saying that since she is called by Catholics the Mother of God, she would have to have given birth not to a mere man but to God Himself—known as the hypostatic union—the procedure where the two natures of Christ were joined together in the humanity evolving in Mary’s womb so as to present the whole Christ.  

       All Greek to Jacobson.  

      He shook his head and said “I still don’t get it. I still don’t get it.”  As if the theology that began to be formulated after the crucifixion and perfected by Augustine and Aquinas totaling more than 2,000 years was spurious if Skippy couldn’t grasp it within ten seconds following its explanation. 

           I wondered as the red TV camera lights went on whether we’d continue this for the edification of the audience. But no, we swung into a far more prosaic conversation about mundane politics. 

            What a strange, arrogant little man. 

       ____________________________________________________

*: St, Jerome Emiliani [1481-1537].  Born in Venice he was a carefree, profligate soldier, rising to commandant of the League of Cambrai forces at Castelnuevo near Treviso. When Castelnuevo fell to the Venetians he was captured and imprisoned. He escaped and reformed his free-wheeling lifestyle and was elected mayor of Treviso but eventually returned to Venice where he was ordained a priest in 1518. Venice was hit with a plague and famine which led Jerome to become a leader in the drive to feed and supply medical care to orphans who were left parentless by the scourge. He founded orphanages and a hospital at Verona as well as a refuge for prostitutes.  He founded an Order known as the Clerks Regular of Somascha named after the town where they formed their first house devoted to caring for orphans and the destitute.  He contracted the plague while caring for the orphans and long after his canonization was designated  Patron of Orphans and abandoned children in 1928..

Barf Unlimited from the Dinosaur Media: Topinka’s Dog Has Cancer!...Katie Couric Romps in Jewels for Harper’s Bazaar Cover, Pretends She’s Making Out with Diane Sawyer’s Hubby! More.

                            Feast of St. Agatha*

       

               And You Wonder Why the  Sun-Times is Dying?
                                   1.  La Boheme 

        You get a good idea why rummaging through Trivia-Pop.  

      Sneed, in the Sun-Times bursts in with another Judy Baar Topinka exclusive! Topinka’s dog, coyly named “Bella Beagle”…the same one who went wee-wee in 10 countries…has just had cancer surgery!  So the woman Sneed calls “irrepressible” (barf) spent election night eating a can of tuna fish caring for the perp—so she phoned in to Sneed. 

       Also: news flash Topinka who loves caffeine, drank six large coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s and a mini-mart on election day. Not Starbucks, mind you.   These gossip column leaks (pun intended where Bella Beagle is concerned) are manufactured in concert with Sneed to build the Topinka political brand—colorful, witty, zippy lady.  In lieu of issues. And the poor mouth is devised to distract from the $150,000 a year in state    pensions plus another coming from the RTA board which has made Topinka a very wealthy lady.  Money deserved if she had a head for public policy. She doesn’t.  Her state treasurer’s constitutional officer job is better filled with a professional who knows something about investing—not puppies. The same for the job she seeks—comptroller.  

         Because she isn’t very good at issues (although she served as state Rep, state Senator and state Treasurer)…so bad in fact she faced Rod Blagojevich with zilch ideas (her idea to cut the budget was to eliminate the warming rods under the sidewalks to Blago’s mansion)…she’s cutesy pie-like turned herself into a (supposedly) lovable human brand: Penny-pinching Bohemian lady who pinches pennies (ergo the Dunkin Donuts, McDonald’s touch) to convince you she’ll do the same as state comptroller, the post she’s been nominated by a mindless GOP electorate for. 

        Bella Beagle and the can of tuna fish are to make you forget she’s a  very rich lady ready for after-political life with an obscenely rich taxpayer-endowed pension plan—to become much more which after she finishes as state comptroller (where she intends to perch on the taxpayer’s dime for at least another decade) hoping when retiring to haul down at least $200,000 per annum totally.  Sneed dutifully plays along with the branding…reporting the `60ish un-stylish Bohemian Girl bit—cause Sneed’s in that age bracket herself.  Two irrepressibles. 

   Perky Katie Couric: Up to Her Jeweled (Censored) in Harpers Bazaar.

                        2. Come to the Weimar Republic Cabaret!   

        After years of portraying cute little fuzz-ball Katie Couric as a deep…very deep…intellectual anchor of the CBS News, Katie dashes the brand to bits by exulting that she’s soon to be on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar posing dripping with jewels and fine clothes.  Katie earns $14 million a year and CBS is denying even a teensy salary cut via cue tip down to $13.4 million to show compassion for the legion of highly trained reporters earning $70k who have to be let go because of Her Cuteness’ salary.  No—Katie will get it all. Let `em out of work eat cake. 

           Moreover, she’s soon to meet with ABC anchor Diane Sawyer because you know they’re in the same racket. Katie hasn’t really spent time with Diane but not long ago she pulled a great trick on her.  The day Diane gave up her Good Morning America AM anchor to go nightly, Katie did a video to be played at her going-away party. You’ll love this! The video had Katie smooching on her office luxurious wraparound couch with Diane’s husband Mike Nichols when…all of a sudden…ABC’s investigative reporter Brian Ross breaks  into her CBS suite!   

            All this fun at a time when we’re 10% unemployment, jobs are vanishing, we’re in two wars, Haiti is rolling over and dying and Ahmadinejad has sent a space rocket to the moon to show he’s got the stuff to fire a missile to detonate the West. But with the dinosaur media, let the good times roll! 

                       Ralph McInerney: Philosopher as Actor. 

           All good teachers are actors. My wife and I took the Great Books course taught by its founder, Mortimer Adler.  Because he was a great…superb…teacher, Adler violated the canons he himself had laid down for teachers of the Great Books.  Such teachers are supposed to be merely the first among equals, asking students’ opinions on the readings without tipping a hand as to what should be believed. 

            Adler was indubitably right and of course his suggestion as to be tabula raza was wrong. One of the greatest teachers I ever had was Ernie (for benefit of those who are new here, he was Fr. Ernest Kilzer, OSB, professor of philosophy and theology at Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota during the time I went there—and had him all four years—1946-50).  I refer to him now…as we did then (but behind his black cassocked back) as Ernie. 

             One day in discussing Aristotle on Politics and thoroughly dissatisfied with our answers, Ernie  said exasperatedly after hearing many incoherent amateur analyses of the Greatest One: “Think of me as Aristotle!”  It was perfect and for the better part of two hours, Ernie answered questions from the class as Aristotle would. We did think of him as Aristotle and we conducted a virtual news conference with Aristotle—asking him what he thought was the purpose of life, the essence of truth, happiness, virtue.  Aristotle batted forth his answers and got into deeply intellectual but enlivening disputes with the class.  We learned far more than way—with the professor simulating the person he taught—than by any other method. 

            The late professor of philosophy at Notre Dame, Ralph McInerney did the same with Thomas Aquinas. He never said to his classes or audiences (of which my wife and I were part of at least twice in his later years) but he in fact personified Aquinas. And while he never declared…as did Ernie “think of me as Aquinas”—we did. McInerney was truly a great professor who came to his trade through an earlier life of hard knocks. But like Ernie, he was the embodiment not just of the scholar he elucidated but the institution he served.  Ernie was the old Saint John’s. Sadly that Saint John’s is no more.  McInerney was Notre Dame (in the same way as Charles Rice is Notre Dame).  

              McInerney would never duck from the religious embodiment of life. He talked natural law but he always maintained that natural law is meaningless without connection with the Natural Lawgiver who is God. When he spoke of Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God he would say…you’re driving your car and suddenly ahead of you the railroad gates go down and red lights begin to flash. You stop and wait. But what if an empty freight car rolls by without any engine? Would you not wonder what makes that freight car move? Ergo: IT CANNOT BE! There has to be an engine that impels the freight car to move!  Thus we never see just an empty freight car move. We see a long line of freight cars…sometimes an un-enduringly long line.  But we know that this line of freight cars cannot go on for infinity because truly a line that has no beginning cannot move. So there must be a beginning, an engine that impels the freight cars to move… 

               An engine that is of itself UNMOVED and is the source of all movement. Therefore in all things it is essential to discover the Prime Mover and to understand that to reckon there is no Prime Mover is to court madness. But to understand the Prime Mover is God is the beginning of all wisdom. 

               Thus the McInerney style of describing Aquinas’ first rule to prove the existence of God—From Motion. 

               Essentially, we are all the richer for having McInerney and fortunately we will always have him.  His lectures about Thomas, about Dante, about the other philosophers are all on video tape at EWTN.  McInerney is far luckier than was Ernie whose lectures only are video-taped in my mind.  We need to pray for the repose of the soul of Ralph McInerney…truly one of the great professors, actors and lecturers of the contemporary West…and pray too that the people at EWTN will re-issue the tapes of his representation…his acting out…the great thinkers of our time. 

    _______________________________________________________

  *: Feast of St. Agatha [Date Unknown].  What we do know about her is that she was born beautiful—which for a girl who consecrated her virginity to God was a great tragedy. Born in either Palermo or Catania in Sicily, she belonged to a wealthy and powerful family.  When she would not yield her virtue to a consular named Quintian he brought her before him and heard her pray aloud “Dear Lord of all, thou seest my heart and thou knowest my desires. Do thou alone possess all that I am. I am thy sheep: make me worthy to overcome the Devil.” Quintian ordered her handed over to the aptly named Aprodisia, a wicked woman who with her six daughters ran a bordello. Dissatisfied with her resoluteness, Quintian ordered that she be stretched on the rack and tormented with stripes the tearing of her sides with sharp hooks. Enraged at her cheerfulness, he ordered her breasts to be crushed and cut off…after which she be imprisoned in a dungeon with no food or medical care. 

         Legend says in the dungeon she had a vision of St. Peter who provided her dungeon cell with a bright light and consoled and healed her. Four days later Quintian caused her to be rolled naked over live coals mixed with broken potsherds. As she was carried back to prison she prayed, “Lord, receive now my soul.” Then she breathed her last. In medieval art her severed breasts are portrayed as in a dish. Later they were mistaken for loaves of bread, starting a practice of blessing loaves of  bread on St. Agatha’s feast which were brought up to the altars on dishes. In Sicily she was credited with having stopped eruptions of Mt. Etna by causing bells to ring.  Accordingly the guilds of bell makers took her as their patroness. Two 6^thcentury churches in Rome were dedicated to her and she is named in the canon of the Mass.

Thoughts While Shaving: Bill Brady Owes McKenna’s Negative Ads Big Time…“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” But Gay Media Pressure’s On to Foist Social Engineering in the Military.

          Feast of St. Andrew Corsini*

        

                                         Thanks a Bunch, Andy.

            The best analysis of what led to the virtual tie between Kirk Dillard and Bill Brady comes to me from a number of people who seem to agree with Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax. All along the smart prognosticators were saying it’s going to be knife-edge between Dillard and Andy McKenna.  Brady was regarded as not being sufficiently funded etc. True: then McKenna started in with the very negative ads zeroing in on Dillard and Jim Ryan. 

            The ads were too tough coupled with the fact that Andy was unwilling to go to many debates to fight for himself but let the negative commercials with a deep rolling baritone voice-over do his work for him. So psychologically many TV viewers got a bad taste in their mouths for both Dillard and Ryan.  Then after examining who was sponsoring the TV spots and seeing it was McKenna, they drew a bad conclusion about the negativity.  So in their winnowing out the list of recipients for their support, they dropped (a) Dillard, (b) Ryan and chose (c) Brady who didn’t run many commercials but who didn’t say anything bad about anybody. 

           Which if you follow that rationale means that Bill Brady owes a whole lot to Andy McKenna—or rather Big Andy, Sr. who bankrolled the kid’s campaign and paid for the commercials. 

           Interesting, what?
                  Excruciating Gay Pressure to Repeal DADT in Wartime.  

           If you think gay rights doesn’t have clout, think again. Feb. 2^nd’s presentation of  Fox News’ Special Report had the entire panel…which usually tilts rightward…supporting President Obama’s State of the Union pledge to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) which bans outwardly professing homosexuals from serving in the military. Charles Krauthammer, andWeekly Standard columnist Stephen Hayes…usually opposed to radical social experimentation—especially in the military—especially in wartime—all joined in an anvil chorus to support the innovation.  Why?   

        I can understand the bending of the secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs for this gay pressure: they are, after all, minions of the president who has himself patronized every exotic left-wing species of “movement politics” there is so as to be elected and reelected. It was for that reason that Colin Powell, a creature of a more conservative president, opposed…and rightly so…the gay lobby.    

          But Krauthammer and Hayes? 

         Why are they so professedly allied with the illogic poured forth for the change?  From the laudable very understandable preservation of sexual privacy that is now existent… to support for announcement of professed homosexuality as an acceptable alternative to heterosexuality—a key goal of liberationists. 

         Illogicality from Krauthammer, particularly, is a rare failing..  Here he is explaining his “reasons”: 

         “I think it’s a good idea and I think the administration’s approach, which is a gradual approach, is the right one: which is to study how to do it over a year and then implement it over years.” 

         Here Krauthammer tips his hand to probably his real feelings—“study it over a year and then implement it over years.”  

         Continuing: Remember when the armed forces were racially integrated in `48: it was over five years. Now I don’t think these are equivalent entities…” 

         You bet your bottom dollar they’re not, Charles.  There is no comparison whatsoever between ends discrimination against one’s race which actually strengthens the human condition in the military…equipping the military to fight in behalf of one another as brothers and sisters and the contention that it is advisable to change the moral under-girding of Judeo Christianity which has endured for 5,000 years. This attempt by the gay lobby has very little to do with the military per se but to use this to change the history religious condemnation of homosexual activity.  Racial distinctions are God-given; perverted sexual activity, no matter how activists aver to the contrary, is in no way indissoluble as is race. What is it then? 

        Homosexual sexual attraction to members of the same gender is at least partly due to the peculiar makeup of certain individuals. As such by itself without being acted out on the stage of human conduct, it is not sinful: indeed may be occasion for greater spiritual attainment.  But it is a result of our fallen condition which includes every kind of impulse.  To even allude to a similarity between anti-racial discrimination and acceptance of same-sex engagement on the spurious argument that to oppose this is a form of “hatred” is to yield to the materialistic nuances of this age: the expression of exhilaration for unbridled exaltation of sex. 

     Apart from the violation of the moral code that has existed for thousands of years, such permissiveness would be result in the corrosion of the canons of honor in the military which reflect divine moral laws. 

         Back to Krauthammer: “But, look, the mores of the country have changed, certainly in the last 16 years and certainly among the young. I think it’s a form of discrimination that’s sort of outlived itself.” 

       That is the weakest argument for change that Charles Krauthammer has certainly ever made in the long stretch of time in which I have been following his usually very reasoned, historically literate judgment.  To my mind the weakness of his so-called argument reflects pressure from a group that may well have exerted on him as it seeks on others a threat, a punishment, a retribution.  Look back on his specious “argument” and see how flaccid and weak it is—as if its protagonist is half-hearted and unbelieving of it in toto. First he uses the baseless example of racial integration of the military. Then he says young people are different, meaning I suppose, more permissive than in the past and so this change should be honored.  Essentially: these arguments are so bad as not to be worthy of a man of his intellectuality. 

        Krauthammer again: “The British and Australian and Canadians who have serious armies have already begun this. I think we ought to study how it should be done in the most reasonable [sic] way but I think it’s a good idea to get it underway and get it started.” 

         Ah, that’s a powerful argument is it not?  The British, Australian and Canadians do it…no evaluation of its basic rightness or wrongness…but because they are doing it, we should “get it underway and get it started.” 

         Then Hayes adds his view—very powerful and convincing:

         “And I also think personally that it’s an idea that has outlived its usefulness.  I don’t think there is a reason a proud, patriotic gay or lesbian American shouldn’t be able to serve, shouldn’t be able to choose to put his or her  life at risk in order to defend the country.” 

          In other words,  these homosexuals are such creatures of copulative passion that in order to be full and complete, they must be able to advertise their adherence to practices which by ancient moral prohibitions are so culture-bound that they are no longer applicable to contemporary life—practices which are abhorrent to the far greater majority of the military.  Thus with this in mind, they should be accepted on patriotic grounds—their eagerness to serve.   

           These so-called “arguments” are so impotent that their advocates…Krauthammer and Hayes…can hardly be taken seriously. They can only be adjudged to be mouthing reasons that have no intellectual basis. No reference is made to the 1993 law passed under Clinton that maintains open homosexuality is incompatible with military service because it destroys the ethos with which the military applies to its duties, vital to attain success in war that is in the last analysis the reason for a military in the first place. 

         No, there is something in their unison of agreement that lies behind the issue itself—because no one in right mind can accept these watered down platitudes without basis as having any seriousness whatever.  

          I’d like to know what ungodly pressure has been put on these usually forthright conservative individuals to bow to this fiction that flies in the face of the many cases where homosexuals have been treated and freed from their morally and intrinsic disordered compulsions.  But…you see…even to say this—even to say that people are “cured”…is to be berated for homophobia!  I tell you it’s a super-powerful lobby to have cowed such otherwise affirmative conservatives as these.  And of course there is all too little support for my point of view from the churches: more’s the tragedy.  

    ______________________________________________________

   *: Feast of St. Andrew Corsini [1302-73].  He was bishop of Fiesole, in the region of Florence and the province of Tuscany. After a dissolute youth he was rudely shaken up by his mother who told him of her dream—that she saw him change from a baby to a wolf which ran into their church and turned into a lamb. Accordingly after thinking things over and praying seriously for the first time in his life, he became a Carmelite friar in 1318 and was ordained priest in 1328.  He fled from his family to celebrate his first Mass apart from them because he did not want the usual familial celebration—so he lived at a monastery seven miles out of town. He then studied with his uncle, Cardinal Corsini and returned to Florence where he was named prior of his monastery. He had the gift of healing and conversion of hardened souls. 

     When the bishop of Fiesole died in 1349 the chapter chose him as bishop.  With great modesty he fled to avoid the honor but a child discovered where he was and informed the monastery.  Thereupon he accepted the honor. He had the unusual gifts of avoiding and discounting flatterers, avoiding women (whom he regarded as source of temptation). 

     He served the poor, made his bed a mass of vine branches strewn on the floor.  And he had another great gift—of being a superb diplomat where he could end quarrels and set everybody returning to their tasks happily. Pope Urban V sent him to Bologna where the nobles and people were warring and by the time Andrew left, they were all resolved in unity. He took ill while singing Mass on Christmas 1373 and died on the following Epiphany at the age of 71. Immediately the people pleaded for his canonization which was granted and he is buried in the Carmelite church at Florence, and Pope Clement XII ordered a chapel to be built in his honor in the Lateran basilica.

Personal Asides: Recount Almost Certain in GOP Governorship but Ain’t Quinn Got Fun with a Pawnbroker Lt. Gov.!...Otherwise, GOP Primary Generally Pleases! …RIP: Catholic Bishops Conference Should be Given Last Rites…

                                          Feast of St. Blaise.*

         

                                           Pleasing Results—Generally.

         Republicans Kirk Dillard and Bill Brady are eyelash-close for governor with downstater Brady 503 votes ahead of Dillard.  Under Illinois law no recount is mandatory but you have to ask a court to order one…and loser pays. 

          The good news for social conservatives is that the two are virtually identical in support for pro-life.  And the close-running third-up, And McKenna takes the same position.  The GOP “Unity Breakfast” this morning will be great fun.   

          On the Democratic side, Gov. Pat Quinn has edged out challenger Dan Hynes but it’s pretty definitely Quinn—who is distinctly the less attractive candidate for the general. Only hope for Hynes would be if there are enough provisional ballots out there.  Again, a recount will be asked I’m sure. 

         The big problem for victor Quinn is that his lieutenant governor nominee is multi-millionaire Scott Lee Cohen, a Chicago pawnbroker who bought the nomination with huge a huge last-minute media outlay. The AP has cited the fact that some years ago Cohen was accused of battering a woman who failed to show up in court.  Lovely. 

          The night carried great news for pro-lifers. Pro-lifer Jason Plummer has taken the Lt. Governor’s slot.  Also: Pro-lifer Joe Walsh is nominated in the 8^th against Melissa Bean, pro-lifer Adam Kizinger facing Debbie Halvorson in the 11^th and pro-lifer Randy Hultgren in the 14^th against Dem Bill Foster.  Regrets: pro-abort Mark Kirk won going away for Senate over Patrick Hughes who ran a valiant campaign. Pro-abort Judy Baar Topinka whose puppy (she reports) has gone wee-wee in 10 countries will be nominated Comptroller. Too bad. Pro-lifer Arie Friedman lost to Bob Dold for 10^th district Congress: at least Dold is somewhat pro-life—but I’m assuaged that pro-abort State Rep. Beth Coulson, worse than even NY-23’s Dede Scozzafava (the same lefty Beth who didn’t even endorse George W. Bush for reelection in 2004) has conceded to Dold.   

                                           Extreme Unction.  

         News that a high lay official of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Washington has also served as a leader of the ultra-radical Center for Community Change and was instrumental in siphoning bishops’ money to his outfit which is active in promoting abortion and gay rights, should be the last straw.  The American Life League headed by Judie Brown, leads a coalition that’s ferreting out Lefty staffers who, paid by Catholic donors, are subverting the Church’s mission by working underground with pro-aborts, militant homosexuals and transgender types. 

          Up to now the goal has been to reform the USCCB.  That’s ridiculous. The USCCB is not a valid organization of the Church. Always a sort of do-nothing trade association for the bishops, it became influential big-time when an Italianate bishop-pol named Bernardin took over its executive directorship. Shrewdly he used it to grease relationships with Rome professing he had the insight to recommend good candidates for the bishopric (instead he pushed such great names as the aptly named Rembert Weakland et al)…and conversely impressing potential bishops here that it would be good to make nicey-nice with Bernardin so he would give them his imprimatur. 

            In short, if it can be said that modern politics began with wheeler-dealers in the Church from early medieval days, the process of pat-my-back-and-I’ll-pat-yours of Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell was revived in the 20^th century by Bernardin who used the USCCB to get himself a good job: archbishop of Chicago…whereupon he aced himself back to the organization as chairman and exerted great power for liberalism in public policy…including the wily-conceived and brilliantly misnamed “Seamless Garment” where he ensured that anti-capital punishment, pro-nuclear freeze and anti-“militarism” equate with opposition to abortion…ergo Walter F. Mondale who scored three out of four could call himself “pro-life” whereas Ronald Reagan who scored one out of four could be denied approbation by Catholics. 

       A brilliant and wildly misleading formulae which confused Catholics for years and diluted their votes to redound to the Democratic party…in recognition of which Bernardin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton shortly before Bernardin’s death...leading to a funeral Mass during which the Gay Men’s Chorus serenaded his bier at Holy Name Cathedral, a personal request from the dying prelate whose last visitor was Eppie Lederer, the hotly anti-Catholic advice columnist known as Ann Landers. 

        The USCCB cannot be reformed.  Its current head is Cardinal George who by no means is an energetic leader anywhere he serves,  so expectation of change is unrealistic. The next president will be the Bishop of Tucson, Arizona, Gerald F. Kicanas, formerly rector of Mundelein and auxiliary bishop here…notable for his statement to the  Sun-Times that if he had to do it over again, he still would have ordained Daniel McCormack now doing time for pedophilia—in response to which he was promoted here, made a full bishop and elected by acclamation as number 2 to George at the USCCB.  Outrageous. 

        Since the USCCB draws its support from unwitting people in the pews there should be promptly initiated a demand that the bureaucracy be disestablished or, failing that, a contributors’ strike.  Again: the USCCB serves no purpose, is always slyly promoting liberalism and as a bureaucracy is the main propagandist tool of secular modernism in the U.S. Church.  Administering euthanasia to this utterly useless appendage would be a signal act of mercy for the Church. The campaign should start with people in the pews.

     

    *: Feast of St. Blaise. [AD 316]. Not much is known about him but that he was born of wealthy and noble parents, was educated early in Catholicism and became a physician. Because of his sanctity he became bishop of Sebastea in Armenia.  During the persecution of Licinius he received a vision telling him to withdraw to the mountains where he was visited by wild beasts.  Remarkably, he healed those animals injured or ill.  Hunters who were seeking prey found him beloved by the animals but they captured him and took him to Agricolaus, the governor of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia. On their way, legend has it that they met a weeping woman upset that her pig was being attacked by a  wolf.  

     With his arms tied behind his back, Blaise urged the wolf to drop the pig, which it did and slunk away and the pig, though on the way to being devoured by the wolf, showed no wounds at all. The trip continued and Blaise was sentenced to death by Licinius.  While in prison, he was visited by a woman with her son who was choking with a fishbone lodged in his throat. Blaise freed the bone. Mothers then visited him with food and candles for light.  Thus a ceremony that still continues in the Church features blessings of the throats where two unlighted candles are placed in the form of a St. Andrew’s cross against one’s throat, in the early days the priest using the  mother tongue, praying: “For intercessionem Santi Blasii liberet te Deus a malo gutturis et a quovis alio maloon.” . At St. John’s in 1949 my throat was blessed by Ernie himself  for which I maneuvered myself around in the student lines  to have it done by him.

         Blaise was tortured by men who tore his flesh with iron combs after which he was beheaded. He is the patron of those with throat ailments, of wool-combers whose instruments had been perverted as instruments of torture against him and of wild animals.

Personal Aside: Lech Walesa Delivers Severe Commentary on the U.S. While Major Media is MIA…Obama a Lecturer in Constitutional Law? Com’on

            Feast of The Presentation of Our Lord*

             !  

                                         Lech Walesa. 

            The last real survivor of the generational of leaders who won the Cold War spoke here last week and the so-called alert media here stretched its arms upward sleepily and emitted a huge yawn.   A key member of a quartet that smote Communism…Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher…Walesa is the last healthy  survivor of those hardy leaders (Thatcher is seriously enfeebled).  But the media, evidently populated by callow 24-year-old assignment editors unacquainted with world history (Lech who?) declined to cover him notably in favor of the really vital stories.   

            Such as: how many graves were overturned in Burr Oak cemetery while Dan Hynes dithered…who found the TV tape of Harold Washington’s 1987 statement why he fired Pat Quinn as city revenue director…how many bucks Andy McKenna was “loaned” by his wife to keep his campaign going…did a last minute conversation with Jacqueline Heard of the mayor’s office concerning Michael Scott’s overspending on his expense account lead him to kill himself?  

          Enduring journalism, brother.  

          Not only were the 24-year-old assignment editors unimpressed with Walesa, the so-called top political reporter-pros of Chicago political reportage—from the Tribune, Sun-Times, Channels 2,5,7,9 and 11 were stonily unmoved.  After all, who cares that Walesa, in danger of losing his life, managing against Communist orders a 1978 occupational shipyard strike that engulfed all of Poland causing Gen. Wojciech Jaruzsselski to declare martial law?  Peanuts next  to the real political story here: 

       Gay activist Senate candidate Jacob Meister withdrawing from the race after raving that an opposing candidate mentioning his marital status was homophobic because Meister can’t marry his boyfriend?  

       A major reason why the press didn’t cover Walesa, of course, was that the former Nobel Peace Prize winner…a recipient of the award when it really meant something…came here to support Adam Andrzejewski for governor, a social conservative as is Walesa. The glorious Tribune whose major editors live in tony DuPage suburbs want to appeal to ages 28 to 37 where the marketing dollars come from: and they don’t want to hear about stodgy old John Paul II gripping Walesa in a man-hug, supporting the first non-communist government in the Soviet sphere of influence. That story bores Carol Marin who really and truly…passionately, little college-girl-like with misty-eyed dedication…wants more women, more women to be involved in politics: by which she means liberal, pro-abort women.  

        And that icky message from Walesa that: the United States no longer leads the world politically…that America is slipping into socialism…that there is a cultural decadence here.  All these things are un-trendy and rather embarrassingly old-hat…possibly racist…since they can be taken as criticism of the Lord High Jehovah Barack Obama.  God, we wouldn’t want that! So no Carol Marin covering it with her TV camera from either NBC or WTTW…no Mike Flannery who gesticulates so outlandishly on camera on issues that REALLY MATTER…about like…Dan Burke’s campaign against Rudy Lozano, Jr…the spurious robo-calls peddling false rumors that Heather Steans gave money to “anti-choice” the p. c. way to describe er,er,er what the unlettered call “pro-life” groups!   

           These are the determinate big political stories, folks—not the ideas of a 67-year-old Pollack electrician who had something to do with…what?...changing the economic system of Poland to a market-based system?  Who cares?  Our system’s going the other way and it’s just right—that’s what Paul Krugman endorses in The Times. No editorials written about Walesa.  But…hey, give us more about the lobbyist Robyn Gabel who’s seeking to replace Rep. Julie Hamos and who has the backing of Jan Schakowsky!  Now that’s meaningful, baby!  How about we write an editorial about THAT significant development? 

               How Did Obama Pass Constitutional Law in the 1^st Place? 

           I’m beginning to understand why this Mystery President’s staff has nixed the idea of anybody getting hold of his grades at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law—the same people who have put a kibosh on the release of his original birth certificate.  Aside from a certain gloss and suavity, he is perhaps one of the more illiterate people in the law who have ever held the post of the presidency.  Consider now the case of the 11 terrorists who the administration has said should be tried in a federal civil court in New York. 

          Aside from the perfectly logical answer that as combatants in a war they should be tried in a military court, the Obama people’s arguments have a certain rough idealism.  Why not try them in a civil court with all the trimmings of Miranda and the constitutional guarantees so as to show the world that our system of justice can triumph?  Makes some kind of twisted sense. 

         Until you consider the statements that Obama and his press secretary Robert Gibbs have made about KSM—Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged plotter of 9/11.  Here’s Obama’s the other day to NBC: 

         “I don’t think it will be offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied top him.”    

          And here’s Gibbs’ delivered to CNN with similar wording he gave to Fox News last Sunday: 

          “Khalid Sheikh Mohammad is going to meet justice and he’s going  to meet his Maker.” 

         What these statements do is pronounce an inevitability of guilt at the outset when under the rubric of our civil justice system, a defendant is presumed innocent until found guilty.  So if Obama wants to show the world how fair our justice system is, he has just compromised it in the eyes of the world.   

          Any competent defense lawyer would say that the statements are prejudicial.  And if in fact KSM is convicted, the statement of the president of the United States and his press secretary would warrant the conviction being reexamined by the Supreme Court for prejudicial content…with the possibility…just a possibility but existent…that KSM could go free basis the unremitting prejudice exerted to gain his conviction. 

          It leads me to think this: What in the world is this so-called lecturer in Constitutional law thinking of when he speaks that way…with language that offends the very basis of Constitutional law?  

          The entire background of this guy defies belief. How could anyone

purportedly even pass Law Studies 101 and be so ungodly dumb?  With this

stupid Gitmo campaign promise…made very easy since George W. Bush

agreed (mistakenly) that Gitmo should be closed…Obama has built an issue

that begs to take a major place in the 2010 campaign. We know it occupied

a great role in the Massachusetts senatorial campaign. Now in an effort to

consign it to a military court, the Democrats are saying that the “expense”

of the trial…some $200 million…would be too expensive.  Mayor

Bloomberg has said as much—although that really won’t fly. New York is

accustomed to expenses like this…be they full-dress ceremonies for royalty

or just the expenses of safeguarding the presence of the UN. 

         So it appears the Dems are going to use the “too expensive” route

to get out of the box that Obama has locked them in.  But how will they

surmount the Catch 22 he has woven with his own ignorant words…

virtually guaranteeing the conviction and death of terrorists in a civilian

court where presumption of innocence is a central part of our system? 

         This man…supposedly our “deepest” and “most intellectual president”

is in reality incorrigibly obtuse and stupid—and stupid in the Law he is

supposed to be master of.
*: Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord.  In my youth it was called “the Feast of the Purification” which I suspect was discarded out of political correctness. In Jewish law, a woman after childbirth was regarded as “unclean” and for a time she was not to appear in public or touch anything consecrated to God. Forty days after the birth of a son and 80 days after birth of a daughter she was to bring to the temple a lamb and a young pigeon (or turtle dove) for a burnt offering to God’s sovereignty and thanks for her safe delivery—the bird for a sin offering. After these were sacrificed the young mother was adjudged cleansed of the legal impurity.  Impurity?  Ah, there lie the old prejudice: women who conceived were considered “impure” because their virginity had ceased…but the man who impregnated her was not.   (Not everything in the Old Mosaic Law was fair, friends: accept this). 

       As Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, Mary remained a virgin and was not encompassed by this Law.  But nevertheless she submitted to the humbling circumstance required by the Mosaic Law. Another law maintained that her first born son be presented in the Temple, offered to God and ransomed with a sum of money.  Our Blessed Lady conformed to the letter of the Law, remaining 40 days at home, partaking not of sacred

things.  She walks several miles to Jerusalem with the Redeemer in her arms.

She makes her offerings of thanksgiving and of “expiation.” She presents Jesus to God and redeems him with five shekels and receives Him back into

Her arms until the time He shall leave her. 

  At the Temple an aged couple welcomes her. Simeon praises God for allowing him to see the Messiah. He foretells Mary’s future sorrow and maintains salvation through Christ forthose who believe.  Finally he tells her with  words that have remained with me from the first day I heard them at St. Juliana’s from the lips of my teacher, Sister Bonita through the days that Ernie repeated them to us: : “And your own soul a sword shall pierce.” A foretelling of what grave sorrow and triumphant victory shall come for her and the whole human race.

Thoughts While Shaving: Daughter Jeanne’s Restaurants…Endorsements for Feb. 2 One More Time…Big Mama Cuts Off Archdiocese From A News Outlet (“There, That’ll Show `Im!”).

      Toast I and Toast II. 

           Excuse me for being pushy where my kids are concerned. For several months now, I’ve featured our son Tom’s art on the right side of this blog with the link-upwww.roeserart.com .  Now I’m hustling two restaurants owned and operated by our youngest child, Jeanne…Toast I and Toast II. 

         They’re set up for breakfast and lunch only. The Bucktown Toast is located at 2046 N. Damen (773) 772-5600 and the Lincoln Park Toast is at 746 West Webster (773-935-5600).  You can read their menus at www.toast-chicago.com   Drop in and tell the winsome ladies there that Jeanne’s old man sent you.  Enough progeny-pushing for one day. 

                                        Endorsements for Feb. 2. 

           Illinois’ state primary election will be held tomorrow, Feb. 2.  As I’m a Republican, I won’t venture to make endorsements in any other party…Democratic or Green…but my own so here are my GOP choices: 

          Republican U. S. Senator Patrick Hughes, Hinsdale.  He is infinitely to be preferred over the establishment candidate. Rep. Mark Kirk.  Hughes is pro-life, pro-Tea Party, is a young (age 40) Catholic businessman,  born and reared on the Northwest Side, is opposed to Cap and Trade which Kirk voted for in the House, supportive of 2^nd Amendment. In short, he has everything a grassroots conservative desires. 

         Republican Governor of Illinois Kirk Dillard. Hinsdale.  This is the best year I can remember for plentiful conservative choices for governor.  All are pro-life, all are highly preferable to either of the two major Democratic choices, pro-abort Catholics Quinn and Hynes. I’m for Dillard an evangelical Protestant because he doesn’t need on-the-job training, is pro-life, pro-business, pro-2^nd Amendment but in addition has had superb experience in the governor’s office as top staffer there…and won’t need to be bucked up to face Mike Madigan and John Cullerton, the two Squid-oriented Democratic leaders of the Senate. 

       Republican Lt. Governor of Illinois Jason Plummer Edwardsville.  Lieutenant governor candidates run separately from governor candidates in primaries but after nomination, the winner will run as a teammate with the Republican gubernatorial nominee. Plummer is 27, independently wealthy and just the type who will be unfettered by legions of prospective donors who want to get him to agree with them on one thing or another. He’s an evangelical, a graduate of the U of Illinois-Urbana and a vice president of the largest lumber company downstate with some 47 outlets. 

      Republican President of the Cook County Board Roger Keats, Wilmette. Outstanding former state senator who retired some years ago to become a highly successful broker and investment banker.  Protestant.  Pro-life with great experience in working as a legislator with people of both parties.  The chaotic condition of County government might just well cause the first election of a Republican president of the board since Dick Ogilvie in 1966.  

      Republican Chairman of DuPage County Board. Dan Cronin, Elmhurst. A very effective state senator who was in the leadership at a very young age, is an expert on, among other things, education. Catholic, pro-life and a supporter of vouchers.   

      Republican State Comptroller of Illinois Jim Dodge, Orland Park, a pro-life Lutheran who is running an uphill battle to defeat Judy Baar Topinka, the establishment candidate, a pro-abort Catholic supporter of gay rights who as state Republican chairman allied with Denny Hastert and others to deny support to U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald, one of the outstanding senators in the same league with Dirksen and Paul Douglas, responsible for Fitzgerald declining to run for reelection.  She is super-heavy in accumulated public pensions, having served as state Rep, state Senator, State Treasurer and now while she awaits what she hopes will be her coronation, is a board member of RTA.  Ran a feeble campaign for Governor, losing to an ethically disabled Rod Blagojevich.  Charms gossip columnists by reporting on her dog which, she has claimed, has gone wee-wee in 10 foreign countries.  Barf alert. 

       Selected Republican Congressional Races:

      Republican for 8^th District. Description: It includes Schamburg, now one of America’s major corporate headquarters cities, listing Motorola, Sears, Kemper Insurance, Woodfield Mall.  It’s made up of dozens of northwest Chicago suburbs including Palatine, Barrington Hills as well as new suburbs such as Zion on the Michigan border and to the west about half of McHenry county. Historically it’s been solid Republican but Rep. Phil Crane inexplicably frittered it away with inattention.  Now it’s represented by Democrat Melissa Bean who yielding to Mme. Pelosi has become one of her faithful although the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been giving her support for the paltry votes she gives this ultra-pragmatic, rudderless group.  My choice is Joe Walsh, pro-life Catholic, free enterprise expert, former top researcher for the brilliant think tank The Heartland Institute.

     

       Republican for 10^th District. Description: The North Shore district starting at the lakefront in Wilmette and running all the way to the blue-collar city of Waukegan and almost to the Wisconsin border…running inland to Northbrook and Deerfield, Arlington Heights, Wheeling, Libertyville. Formerly represented by Mark Kirk.   Dr. Arie Friedman, MD, Highland Park, just listed as one of the outstanding pediatricians in the state. He was a helicopter pilot in Gulf War I aboard the  USS Vandegrift, is pro-life and a deeply observant member of the Jewish faith and competitive in intellectual octane with Krauthammer, Kristol et al. Excellent on defense and taxes. And he’s only 41. 

         Republican for 11^th District. Description:It includes the low-lying land west and south of Chicago, a borderland. It covers most of Will county, the fastest growing of the large Chicago suburban counties (and its county seat of Joliet) and extends to the factory towns of Ottawa, LaSalle and Streator. South of Joliet is Kankakee and includes almost all of Bloomington.  A natural for Republican pickup this year.  Democratic incumbent is Debbie Halvorson, quite liberal former state senate majority leader. My candidate is Adam Kinzinger, 32, a native of Kankakee and a member of the Illinois Air National Guard with service in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Intriguing: One evening in Wisconsin he interfered with a knife-wielding assailant who was attacking a young woman, wrestling him to the ground and taking the weapon from him, earning a citation for heroism from the American Red Cross.   

          Republican for the 14^th District.  Description: It’s where “downstate” begins—starting in western DuPage county, Fermilab, the Fox River Valley and its industrial cities of Elgin and Aurora, St.Charles, including Kendall county, DeKalb county the world’s leading manufacturer of barbed wire and extends to Lee county and also takes in Dixon, the main boyhood home of Ronald Reagan. It was represented for years by House Speaker Denny Hastert who after the House turned Democratic, decided he would step down and become a lobbyist.  Impatient to be soaking up all that dough, he couldn’t wait to finish his term but resigned at the worst psychological time for his party. Democrat Bill Foster won the seat. Best Republican candidate is Randy Hultgren, Winfield, an evangelical Protestant who has been state Rep and is now State Senator.  Hultgren is pro-life and is a far better fit than the liberal Harvard Ph.D Foster, a former scientist with Fermi Labs who is a pro-abort with no particular declared religious affiliation.    

                         Big Mama at Archdiocese Cuts Off Media. 

          Ratifying the healthy suspicion that many lay employees of the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago are close to The Squid, Big Mama, the Chancery’s top media maven cuts off media outlets which deign to do their own research…not returning phone calls and depriving them of news which should be distributed generally to all legitimate communications sources.  Case in point: A well-done Internet publication called www.chicagocatholicnews.com did its own research and turned up the fact that by a random survey 50% of those priests the publication identified took Democratic ballots in 2008. 

            That’s okay except that Democrats have almost overwhelmingly become the party of unrestricted abortion.  Few exceptions abound—one of whom is Rep. Dan Lipinski of the 3^rd district, the area ranging through the city’s Southwest Side, part of the bungalow belt which includes the Daley ancestral neighborhood of Bridgeport. The Sun-Times editorial of  endorsements forbade its blessing to Lipinski because although 90% liberal in the eyes of the ADA, the congressman did not abandon the Stupak pro-life amendment.  Normally that editorial denunciation of Lipinski  should have been blasted by the Archdiocese for usurping Lipinski’s religious conviction.  Not from this timid archdiocese, however.  Back to the Internet publication that incurred Big Mama’s wrath. 

       The news story made no connotation of ideology except to report its findings.   Bad enough from the archdiocese’s view which massages media to gain a good image: but lo and behold the dispatch announced that Big Mama herself had given $500 to Mayor Daley who is pro-abort and pro-same sex marriage, purportedly anathema to Church theology.  Big Mama denied she gave the dough to Daley.  Meaning the official contribution records just pulled the figure out of thin air.   

           The interesting thing is that www.catholicnews.com is far from a conservative publication listing on its linkups such organizations as “Dignity,” the organization composed of gay Catholics which touts its gayness as a badge of individual rights of free expression and “Call to Action” which in the past has nurtured an Alinsky tie-in.  What we appear to have here, friends, is a throwback to pre-Vatican II days of the Index of Forbidden Books.  Only this is an Index of Forbidden News Outlets which displease Big Mama for reporting the very open secret that many priests vote Democratic, abortion-supporters.  In fact the Church here has a nest of priestly and lay supporters of The Squid as the very liberal publication implies.   But then we knew that, didn’t we?  

           _______________________________________________________ 

      *: St. Ignatius of Antioch [circa AD 107]. Bishop of Antioch, ordained as such by the Apostle Peter immediately after Peter left the deathbed of Evodius the previous bishop. Ignatius served as bishop for 40 years.  As all good bishops Ignatius discouraged his flock from thanking the pagan gods for military victories attained by  the Emperor Trajan. Legend records the cross-examination this way: 

          TRAJAN:  Who are you, spirit of evil, who dare disobey my orders and who goad others on to their destruction? 

         IGNATIUS:  No one calls Theophorus spirit of evil. [Ignatius’ surname was Theophorus, called “God Bearer”].  

       TRAJAN:  And who is Theophorus? 

      IGNATIUS: He who bears Christ with him. 

     TRAJAN:  And do not we bear within ourselves the gods who help us against our enemies? 

     IGNATIUS: You are mistaken when you call gods those who are no better than devils.  For there is only one God who made heaven and earth and all that is in them. And one Jesus Christ into whose kingdom I earnestly desire to be admitted. 

            So Trajan said to his soldiers: Bind him up and let him be devoured by the wild beasts for the entertainment of the people.  Ignatius was sent into the arena on the last day of the public games and was killed by the lions in the arena.

Thoughts While Shaving: Bobble-Head Biden Makes Throttlebottom Look Astute as Veep.

                              Feast of St. Francis de Sales*

             

                                          Bobble-Head Biden. 

             “I think maybe he has Parkinson’s,” said my wife as we watched the State of the Union address.  She wasn’t referring to Barack Obama but the man sitting up on the dais behind him…the man with the fluorescently   glowing teeth produced by the dentist applying  power bleach of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide after the patient was hooked up to a dental tray.  

              Perched high above Obama’s right shoulder, Vice President Biden distracted from his boss’ performance, his hair jostling with the gesticulation.  As senator from Delaware in his 40s, he started to lose his hair so he went to the same surgical hair-plug doctor that Bill Proxmire had visited and submitted to the procedure where grafts of hair follicles and scalp were painfully transplanted from one region of the head where the remaining hair is healthy to the bald spots on his pate.  

            As a corporate lobbyist for a company with some holdings in Delaware I started visiting Biden in 1973 when his hair was full, extending through 1976 when it started to turn sparse, all the way through 1991 (my last lobbying year) when it returned to the texture of new-mown turf.  

        “Look,” my wife said as his head jerked up and down. “Is that Parkinson’s or not?”  Not just head bobbing but he was at the same time flashing his alabaster molars, grinning as if he was in on a private joke, the gesticulating matching every verbal nuance Obama was making, his head bouncing rhythmically to his boss’s rhetoric. 

           “All that happened,” Obama was saying, “before I walked in the door!” At that point Biden’s bobbing turned savage, undisciplined as the head twitching hit a dramatic crescendo.   

             No, I said, that’s just Joe.  He is ecstatic that 30 million are watching Obama talk and that he can get them to see him. 
             Pathetic. 

             Head-bobbing on camera is harmless enough.  What really was pitiable was when in a frenetic moment when as a candidate for president vying for the 1988 Democratic nomination he talked about his rise from poverty…abject poverty…where he worked in a coal mine in Pennsylvania…struggled, got up at 4:30 every morning to study, becoming the first member of his family to go to college.  The audience gasped.  It was edifying. 

            Inspiring yes, but it wasn’t Joe Biden’s experience. It was Neil Kinnock’s, an oracular Laborite running for the House of Commons.  Portrayed in a gripping film, Biden appropriated it for himself. He had been carried away by the script that he neglected to document wasn’t of his life. That episode of pathological resume misappropriation ended Biden’s presidential quest in 1987, a year before the skirmish really started.  Before that he was asked by a person in a town-hall audience what his academic credentials were. 

           Biden took umbrage at the question and shouted, “I think I have a much higher IQ than you do!”  He told the group “I went to law school on a full academic scholarship—the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship!”  He added “I ended up in the top half of my class” He concluded “I graduated with three degrees from college.” 

          Not even remotely close. He graduated 76^th in a class of 85. He later was dragged almost by the scuff of the neck to clarify and apologize via the media.  His Syracuse Law School career was almost terminated when he submitted a paper in which he plagiarized from a law review article. After receiving a grade of F he was permitted to retake the course.   

          Biden had a tragedy in his life. Shortly after his election to the Senate in 1972, just 30 years old, his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident and his two sons were seriously injured (he has since remarried to Dr. Jill Jacobs, an educator in Delaware public schools. Did this tragedy unhinge him and spur him to invent resumes and challenge a heckler to an IQ contest?  No, a senate staff member told me, pleading for anonymity, that the tragedy didn’t do it. His boss was always goofy.   

            Goofy he is, without a doubt. Nevertheless Biden has led a charmed life because the supine media keeps his bumbling past as a closely held secret.  Still stuff gets out. He’s supposed to be a foreign policy expert.  He voted against the Persian Gulf  war in 1991 but voted for the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, although he later criticized the war.  He voted against a timetable for troop withdrawal; indeed he demanded more troops for Iraq. The voting record is a crazy-quilt pattern of contradictions.  Also although the media were compliant they couldn’t help reporting that he proposed dividing Iraq by giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis there own regions.  

            Somehow, unaccountably, Biden was picked by Obama for vice president. On the campaign trail as the nominee, he told Katie Couric that the nation needed a reassuring voice…like FDR’s when after the 1929 stock market crash when Roosevelt went on television to steady the populace. Couric recorded it dutifully. Later of course her researchers told her that FDR was not president in 1929, that television was not operative in 1929.  The media didn’t give it much play, paying more attention to how dumb they felt Sarah Palin was. 

            But the Biden goofyness has gone on. In September 2008 at a mass rally Biden asked Missouri States Senator Chuck Graham to stand up. “Stand up, Chuck, let `em see you!”  Then an aide rushed over to tell him that Graham was paralyzed.  “Oh, God love you!” chortled Biden.  “What am I talking about?  I tell you what—you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. I tell you what: Stand up for Chuck!” 

           It never ends all the while Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Leno love telling stories about how dumb Republicans—usually conservatives—Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin et al are.  During the 2005 Senate confirmation hearings for Justice (later Chief Justice) John Roberts, Biden, then chairman of Judiciary asked him this: “Can a microscopic tag be planted in someone’s body to track his every move?  Can you rule on that?”  Everyone looked perplexed and Biden changed his tack. 

          And whenever he gets tense he can enliven a speech with an exciting anecdote.  In the last campaign he told an audience that his helicopter was “forced down” on…get this…”the superhighway of terror” by Afghan extremists. Actually snow forced the helicopter pilot to land and wait out a storm…When the budget deficit reached over $1 trillion under Obama for the first time in history, the vice president told an AARP meeting “Now people say, `What are you talking about, Joe?  You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes. That’s what I’m telling you!” 

             Always a clutch hitter when crisis looms, Biden went on network television on April 30, 2009 to warn Americans to stay out of confined spaces such as subways and planes or they’ll catch Swine Flu. Public health officials had to rush to the media to douse the scare tactics.  Reporters looked for Biden but he was nowhere to be found. 

            So with all these goofy things, on reflection it’s not so bad if all we get from Joe is with head-bobbing during Obama’s speeches.  Considering him becoming president if something happened to Obama, observers credit the president with being astute in the selection of Biden as his Number Two.  No one wants Obama to be endangered considering that the man who praised  FDR’s TV speech in 1929…a statement Ms. Couric accepted as truth…succeeded to the presidency. 

          ____________________________________________________

      *: Feast of St. Francis de Sales [1567-1622].  Born in his family’s castle at Thorens, Savoy he became a bookworm and heavy-duty scholar, receiving his doctorate of laws at age 24, a record. His family’s connections could have got him a senatorship and lucrative law career but he nixed it all for the clergy, becoming one of the most talented missionaries in Church history. As a missionary in the Chablis, it was very tough duty because the populace was rebelling against the misconceived activities of the Duke of Savoy to impose Catholicism on them by force.  Francis had to make clear to the Duke that being converted the old-fashioned way by persuasion and logic was the way to go.  

       Thus with magnificent reason and eloquence he became one of the great leaders of the Counter-Reformation, becoming Bishop of Geneva, founding schools, teaching catechetics and founding with Blessed Frances de Chantal the Order of the Visitation…members called the Visitandines.  Two of his books are classics, “Introduction to the Devout Life” and “Treatise on the Love of God” which are still read today. His cause became the first beatification to be promulgated at St. Peter’s in Rome.  He was made a Doctor of the Church in 1877 and is patron saint of the Catholic Press.

Personal Aside: Obama Oh-So-Slightly Tacks Center—But Not Nearly Enough…Arizona Gives Us the Chance to Dump McCain: Hallelujah!

 Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas*

         

                                        Rhetoric Closer but No Cigar.

            In his State of the Union last night President Obama moved rhetorically, not practically, oh-so-slightly toward the political center—but missed by a country mile to accommodate the views of a nation which by polls and election returns has shown it has moved to the farthest reaches of center-right.

            In an 80-minute speech which was well delivered but far too long, Obama ceded very few points to the Right when analyzed cogently…but here were some faint inducements:

• He endorsed nuclear energy.  Long a bugaboo with the frenetic Left, he made a passing reference to our building more nuclear plants but left the details…including goofy regulations which can make such plant-building unprofitable…unspecified.

• He endorsed a $38 billion tax break for small business—probably the first formal recognition in concrete policy that recovery depends upon inducements given to job-creating business to expand.

           To counter these inducements to the right, he tossed out red-meat to the Left which constitutes his political base…including these things:

• For possibly the first time in U. S. history he denounced a Supreme Court ruling while members of the Court sat directly in front of the House rostrum. This was, to me, an old State of the Union watcher who in 1958 watched from the House gallery Dwight Eisenhower address the Congress during the height of the Cold War, by all odds the most electrifying point in the speech.

         I thought his Dutch Uncle talk to a co-equal branch of     government by leering at their faces from his vantage-point on the podium was the most electrifying… but at the same time most offensive… part of the speech—the most violative of separation of powers since FDR lambasted his Court by calling it “the nine old men” and launched a failed drive to pack the Court (yet liberalized the Court by his threat to pack it which produced a shift in its ideology, known as “the switch in time that saved Nine.” 

         Obama’s brazen attack on the independent Judiciary was prompted by the Court’s vote last week (5 to 4) which allowed corporations to utilize 1^st amendment rights to express their political views to the American people—not by corporate contributions but by ratifying their right to free speech which liberals feel is discriminatory, not withstanding that labor unions have long exercised that very right.   Of course, media corporations have always exercised that right—General Electric which runs NBC for instance as well as the giant newspapers.  It’s just the non-media ones have been deprived by acceptance of the view that free speech should be curtailed by non-media corporations—a fallacious theory that the Court decided fails the test of the Constitution. 

Staring down at them from High Up in a mode of imperial autocracy,

Obama urged the Congress to pass a statute which would rectify the decision—a blunt challenge to the Court as the jurists sat impassively.  Given the new zest for opposition to Obama’s leftward proposals in the country, I imagine that the battle to pass the legislation which prior to Massachusetts should have been easy to pass, now will be difficult given the rightward temper of the country. 

           Then Obama courted one-by-one the exotic components of liberaldom, including the gays by

• Calling for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military, a cardinal overture to the Left. 

• Calling for yet another “stimulus package” describing the first one, amounting to $787 billion, a “success” even though three members of his administration appeared on TV talk shows Sunday…Axelrod, Jarrett and Gibbs…and none could agree onthe number of jobs purportedly created or “saved”—blowing a kiss to labor and the statist Left…despite the fact that this would further jeopardize the economy and add to the deficit.       

•   Calling for tougher lobbyist restrictions on what he called “the Special Interests” which clearly means big corporations whom he pummeled relentlessly in demagogic populism to appeal to the craving of the Left since to the Left the constitutional right to seek redress of grievance should be outlawed to business but available to labor unions and exotic liberal groups.        

• Resorting to the old bromide that dates back to William Jennings Bryan of 1896 in Chicago by calling for higher taxes on the “rich” heedless of the fact that penalizing the rich direly affects their ability to improvise with entrepreneurial investments, massaging the anti-corporate Left which so freely ignores lobbying registration anyhow, viewing their activities a “the people’s work.”  

• Pleaded again for passage of his mammoth health care bill, repeating the old nostrum that it will cut the deficit at the same time bringing full and complete health care to everyone in the nation which is an economic possibility to even an 8-year-old but not apparent to an orator in full swing turning to multiple teleprompters.

                                             The Same Old Obama.

             In essence it was the same old Obama Leftist nonsense only slightly repositioned to make a posture that it was more moderate.  He hasn’t learned a single thing from the drastic change in political climate…the elections of Republican governors in heavily blue New Jersey, in somewhat purple Virginia and the sweep of a Republican senator in liberal sacrosanct Massachusetts.

                        Surprising Snub of Obama by Emanuel.

                I think I detected something after his speech that I haven’t seen commented on.  After the president left the rostrum he did what every president does, shake hands with his administration leaders sitting at the foot of the podium.  When he got to Rahm Emanuel, Emanuel seemed to turn away frostily and Obama moved on.   Did you see that as well?  This seems to confirm a few weird actions circulating about Emanuel in the last few days.  

               One was the surprise leak…or at any event disclosure…last week in a Washington Post gossip column that Emanuel was thinking of the possibility of returning to Chicago to run for mayor!  It was so impolitic that it almost smacked of political suicide.  If Rich Daley decides not to run which is highly-highly unlikely, I can guarantee you that this fulminating little vituperative sleaze-ball famed for spraying the “f” word to every man and woman with whom he comes in contact is not going to have any chance of being considered as successor. Daley ignored response and a day or so later Emanuel was obsequious in his praise of Daley as the greatest individual of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  

               Okay, so maybe Emanuel just got into some bad ice at a cocktail party and blurted it to the wrong person.  I’d have let it go at that except that the other day on Katie Couric he appeared and said that the Massachusetts defeat need not have happened—it was preventable.  An amazing statement that led Couric rightly to follow up and ask who was responsible—“was it you?”  Emanuel drew himself up in self-righteous anger and said: “Was it me?”  She clarified and said, well wasn’t it the White House?  It was clear Emanuel was not about to take the rap for the loss.  But he has been blamed for the defeat, mainly by Celinda Lake, Coakley’s pollster.  

              Actually, Emanuel deserves major blame for Obama’s plummeting stature—but, make no mistake, the central part of the blame should fall on Obama who is himself a Far Left president, certainly the most ideologically port-side president ever to have been elected. But Emanuel was responsible for misreading of the 2008 election as a mandate to pile the plate heapingly high with every exotic wish of the Left.  His own statement that an emergency should not be wasted was key to that.  My feeling is that what we’re seeing is the soon-to-occur departure of Rahm Emanuel as the goat for Massachusetts and everything else bad that’s happened to Obama. 

                                       Dumping McCain.

              The best book of the 2008 campaign is Game Change.  If you go to page 272 you’ll find Candidate John McCain in full flower…shouting at the top of his lungs the “f” word repeatedly.  McCain was probably the best candidate Republicans could have found in 2008.  No Republican could have been elected during a highly unpopular war and in the midst of the worst economic meltdown since 1929.  Given this fact, McCain did better than almost everyone else and brilliantly added a component that stimulated the grassroots, the nomination of Sarah Palin.

                Still, it’s time to get rid of the Maverick and let him retire at age 74 as the war hero he indubitably is.  He should get off the stage.   He has been a very mixed quantity for many years, having foisted on the country the McCain-Feingold Act that had no business being passed, was based on liberal prejudice and now has been vitiated by the Supreme Court. He has been such a recalcitrant old explosive tyrant to live with that he has turned off his wife Cindy and his daughter Meghan. Make  no mistake, they’re embracing same-sex marriage at the same time Old John is trying to rebuild his frayed relations with the Right is an attempt to torpedo this little Short Fuse.   

      J. C. Hayworth is running against McCain in the Republican primary.  Here’s hoping we can send him off the scene of political battle where one day he embraces the Right, one day the Left and with his distressed family caused by his own selfishness and overbearing.  For the family’s sake let’s give John a farewell salute and a one-way ticket to Phoenix or any of his six other houses Cindy has supplied him with and which he cannot quite remember. 

      ____________________________________________________

    *: Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas [AD 1225-1274].. I was named Thomas after my maternal grandfather Thomas F. Cleary whose name was bequeathed from Irish who cherished Thomas the Apostle, the Doubter. But of course ever since I walked into Ernie’s class on the first day, Sept.14, 1946, I heard about Aquinas and have grown to love his postulates…listing a Thesis e.g. “It has been maintained that government is a good.”  Then follows a series of objections.  Followed by Thomas’ reason: “On the contrary, I aver that…” How I loved Ernie’s portrayal of those postulates which went on largely for four straight years until 1950. We believed in fact that Ernie, as he swept by our student chairs, reciting from memory the arguments, that Ernie WAS in fact Aquinas.  Aquinas was born near Aquino, Italy and was sent…believe it or not…at the age of five to the Benedictine monastery at Mount Cassino as an oblate to begin his education.

      In 1239 they thought he was coming home an educated man at age 14 but alas to their discomfiture he wanted to continue his studies and went to Naples to continue his education…and, Ernie said, unfortunately, to join of all things THE DOMINICANS!  His family was so angered that members kidnapped him and held him captive for 14 months hoping he would change his mind. He was immovable so he rejoined the Dominicans and continued his studies at the University of Paris.  Thus began formally the matriculation of one of the greatest minds ever to serve the West and
Catholicism received its greatest and most towering intellect.

Personal Aside: Junior Skipping Debates in Favor of TV Ads Paid by Big Daddy… WTTW Debate Shows GOPers At Their Feisty Best.

           Feast of St. John Chrysostom* 

                

            Junior Doesn’t Have to Debate if He Doesn’t Want To: Nyaa!

            “Junior,” the Republican candidate for governor, Andy McKenna, Jr. didn’t show up to debate with the other contenders on WTTW last night week because…well…he didn’thave to. Invitations had gone out on the debate last November 3 but Junior couldn’t fit it in to his schedule although the others did.  Junior skipped a downstate TV debate too.  

            The reason he doesn’t do debates is he doesn’t do well in them. This is because of a birth defect. He was born terminally bland.  So bland, in fact, that if he had been at WTTW he would have been overshadowed in aggressiveness by the host, Phil Ponce.  Besides when you’ve got a mega-multimillionaire daddy who funds your campaign and pays for the commercials, who needs a debate where things can go wrong? 

             The highly paid media strategists paid by Daddy tell Junior--correctly—that he does far better on silent film TV commercials looking thoughtful than talking on them.  A deep-voiced announcer says Junior is a bear-cat, tough-guy, ferocious on cutting the budget and fighting taxes, declaring he won’t accept a tax increase.  They’ve since Junior McKenna is in the top-three candidates for governor without having said a word, staying away from most controversies, having his media people say his schedule won’t allow for debates and dodging ramifications of issues that go beyond bumper-sticker slogans.

                  Andy Says Nothing, Looks Great in Commercials.

          But we do have him looking tough in his commercials. Sure, he looks over at his running mate, Matt Murphy for reassurance .  That’s because Murphy is a state senator and has been in the fray for a few years, unlike Junior.  Matter of fact every other Republican running for governor has got to this point by themselves—except Junior who’s got there through Senior, his old man. But anyhow the commercials Senior has paid for his kid are triumphs…one showing a baby wearing a Blago wig.  But it’s revelatory that Junior looks up at Murphy for reassurance.  Murphy is an adult. Andy’s one too but he doesn’t really fit the part.

   

          His opponents say Andy put his own name in a poll paid for by state money.  He won’t ever do that again. It happened when he didn’t ask Senior about it—and Senior would have gladly paid for a poll himself…but Junior never thought about that.  After the poll was taken, Junior kept the findings to himself, not telling anybody he was thinking of running.  What’s the big deal?  

        Now as state chairman, the guy whose job was trying to find the best candidate for governor he asked all the candidates what their ideas were for governor. Asked them how they planned to raise money. That’s all true. But it didn’t amount to much information since nobody but he had so rich a Daddy.  Nevertheless, peeking at their plans was helpful: no doubt.

        Once he was asked by Joe Birkett how he—Birkett—fared in the survey. It happened that Birkett was rated much higher than Andy. Somehow Andy kept the numbers to himself. So Birkett thinking his numbers were negligible, made other plans and dropped running for governor.

         When he was caught, it was embarrassing for a while for Junior. Then a Republican lawyer, chairman of the state GOP finance committee, allowed that he—the lawyer—thought of adding Junior’s name…thus sparing Junior from blame. Sort of careless of Junior to allow the lawyer to do it…but then, remember what the narrator Nick says in The Great Gatsby?Says: “They [the rich, those who have been born to a high position in life] were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness. They can use their wealth to escape whatever they choose.”  

        Finally it was determined that the lawyer didn’t do it—Junior added his own name.  No big deal, is it? Junior can reimburse the state party…and life goes on.   But back to the campaign for governor.

                     Picture Junior Shouting “NO!” to Madigan?   

        I sometimes think that since Junior’s not assertive but very bland, it’d have been better if Junior’s old man was running, even at the age of 81 (my age).  The old man has fire. Junior?   

         Behind the multi-million-dollar TV buys, you see maybe a floor-walker at Macy’s, the old Marshall Field; or a timid parson in the back office of a Presbyterian church, or a shy freshman on his first day at Phillips Exeter.  You don’t see Junior saying no to Mike Madigan can you?  Or fighting back when Mike Madigan says NO,  can you?  He looks as though hearing “no” from anybody would cause him to hide behind a sofa in terror.

       Daddy’s commercials could get Junior elected governor and if so it proves that money can buy anything.  Still, though a supporter of the free enterprise system, somehow when you look at Junior, you can’t see him saying NO to anybody.  

       Despite Andy, Sr. having either personally funded Junior and/or scooped up as much largesse as his two hands can carry from his decades of blue-chip connections:  his former board membership on the Tribune which did wonders in winning the paper’s editorial endorsement…

       …Senior’s string of current and past board memberships: executive chairmanship of McDonald’s, of AON, Dean Foods, Notre Dame, Skyline Corp and, former chairmanships of the Chicago Cubs and the White Sox…as well as a covey of cushy civic memberships allowing the old man to network in behalf of Junior with his pals also of the Big Money: the Museum of Science and Industry; the Economic Club. 

          Initially, Senior advised Junior to go straight up from the executive suite to U.S. senator and challenge the incumbent Peter Fitzgerald in the 2006 primary.  He was told to be angry that Fitzgerald’s no-team-player independence, refusal to sign on to Illinois pork projects was not good: and so Ray LaHood schooled him on challenging Fitz…yeah, the same Ray LaHood who now is Obama’s transportation secretary—of course you might say to me: why bring that up?

        Fitz bowed out because Chairman Topinka, Speaker Hastert and Bill Cellini signified it would be a very expensive primary…not withstanding that Fitz had cited George Ryan for trying to turn the Lincoln Museum into a patronage dump, refused to support Boss Daley’s O’Hare expansion—and horrors! Named a tough U.S. attorney to prosecute the Combine. Then Junior was convinced by his Dad to run for the Senate anyhow but he lost well down the list to State Rep. Jim Durkin who was starved for money so Dick Durbin won. 

        After losing the Senate nod to Jack Ryan…Ryan later quitting, his berth taken by Alan Keyes…Junior turned to Daddy and asked: what to do?  Daddy said he’d do well to get political management experience. So Daddy’s money made Junior State Republican Chairman in 2005.  Junior’s critics say: Nothing happened.

                      Lots Happened During McKenna Chairmanship.

          No, wait—that’s not right.  Lots happened! From the time Junior took over as State Republican Chairman to the day he stepped down and ran for governor, here’s what happened: Republican Judy Baar Topinka got nominated for governor and lost even though the incumbent, Rod Blagojevich, was knee-deep in ethics trouble…Republicans lost the state treasurer’s job so that the Dems controlled all state constitutional offices including both houses of the legislature….Republicans lost the 11^th district seat held by the retiring Jerry Weller to Democrat Debbie Halvorson…Republicans lost the 14^th district—a solid Republican one held by the party for many decades and until lately Speaker Dennis Hastert—to Democrat Bill Foster…the Dems elected a freshman, Phil Hare in the old Tom Railsback district, the 17^th.  

         And oh yes, I forgot.  In 2008,   Republicans ran a candidate for the U.S. Senate a physician named Steve Sauerberg to oppose incumbent Dick Durbin.  Durbin won 68% to 29% because Sauerberg was under-financed.     

           So it isn’t like nothing happened when Andy McKenna, Jr. served as state Republican chairman.   Lots happened: just none of it good. 

          After that experience as state chairman, Junior took Senior’s advice and resigned that GOP job.  He had gained enough experience to run for governor.                                        

                             The Republican WTTW Debate.

          I’d say they all did well.  Kirk Dillard, my favorite, did well…his experience and thoughtfulness came through even though he didn’t try to interrupt.  I thought Dan Proft did very well: showing himself to be a phrasemaker and excellent advocate.  Adam Andrzejewski the first timer, showed extraordinary insight and forensic skill—he’s got a future.  Jim Ryan was frankly surprisingly remarkable. He seemed like the patriarchal father of the group—extending the great maturity that comes from his long service to the state. He handled his political disadvantages in such a way that he was really compelling.

          Andy McKenna, Jr. did better than he would have had he shown up for reasons explained earlier. Bill Brady interrupted everybody, hurling barbs at them…heckling them, really, but as often with a heckler he unintentionally created sympathy for those he interrupted and sought to throw off subject.   Dillard brushed him away like a pesky fly.  I rooted for Ryan when he fought back against Brady’s machine-gun chatter. This was probably the first time being heckled for Andrzejewski and he did very well.  I don’t remember Brady heckling Proft because, wisely, he knew he would be verbally decapitated if he did.   

    ______________________________________________________

       *:  St. John Chrysostom [AD 347-407] is one of the greatest Fathers of the Church. Born at Antioch, Syria the son of a pagan Roman soldier and a Christian mother, developed an early love of the Church from her, baptized (as was then the custom) as an adult, studying theology under Diodorus of Tarsus, volunteering to live the life of a hermit under St. Basil of Mopsuestia. But life in a cave almost ruined his health and he returned home to become a Deacon, then a priest.  He was k known as plain “ John of Antioch” until he started to preach—then he was given by his hearers the name “Chrysostom,” or “the golden tongued.” A natural scholar he preached extensively on the New Testament—88 homilies on John alone, 90 on Matthew, 32 on Romans. 

          Against his will he was named Patriarch of Constantinople, reforming the Church, abolishing pomp and luxury, sending missionaries to the East. No diplomat, he assailed the luxurious dress of Empress Eudoxia where craven politicians in the Church demanded he be exiled. He was just about to leave when an earthquake literally scared the devil out of Eudoxia and fearing the wrath of God, she rescinded her order. But John being John, he immediately enraged her again so the exile was put back in place. He was sent to Pityus at the far end of the Black Sea.  He died on the way from exhaustion brought on by long forced marches by foot, through stifling heat and inclement weather. His writings have survived until this day and he was declared a Doctor of the Church and patron of teachers by Pius X. .

Personal Aside: If We Regain the Presidency in 2012, Let’s Make it Mean Something!

             Feast of St. Polycarp*
              

            The devastating (for Democrats) Republican victory in Massachusetts last week is still only a slight breeze…a breeze that will likely turn into a stiff wind this November and a hurricane in 2012 that will remove socialist-redistributionist Barack Obama and his radical  Chicago Squid allies from office.

           But it’s important that the change that comes must be true—not just a reshuffling of a namby-pamby “moderate” GOP president for a Dem one with the same-old, same-old tactics melding into virtually one party.

                         Don’t Co-Opt the Tea Parties for GOP Purposes.

           That means it’s important that the Republican who comes to power will not be an get-along, go-along…one who will not exercise a veto as did George W. Bush for the first term of his presidency--but one who will fight for the drastic changes in the economy that are needed to restore national solvency. 

            To ensure a real conservative revolution ensues up to 2012 and beyond, that fabulous grassroots tsunami known as the Tea Party Movement should in no sense be co-opted by the Republican party as former Vice President Dan Quayle advised last week.  

                           Clamp Down on the Fed.

            In addition to cutting unnecessary spending, the new Republican president should issue a strict policy concerning the Federal Reserve Board: To (a) submit to a comprehensive audit which it has resisted, (b) revert to what it was originally designed to do—guard the stability of the dollar and not jiggle with the money supply that produces boom and bust—or (c) run the risk of being abolished, the president declaring that he prefers abolition if there is no reform.

          That would mean no more policies of artificially cheap credit which caused the housing bubble, spurting dough to banks which became awash in money that was printed out of thin air, making mortgage loans available to everyone, prodding people to buy mega-mansions they could not afford.           Further it would signify a return to the wise policy of Andrew Mellon, the Treasury Secretary of the `20s which was ignored by Herbert Hoover.  In 1920 when a downturn hit after World War I,  Mellon’s sage advice was followed—and the market was allowed to self-correct, spurring full recovery a year later. 

           The next Republican president should also have the gumption to oppose any future attempts to grant bailouts to banks that are “too big to fail,” and any “rescue plan” that impels the Fed to okay billions of dollars to “save” Fannie and Freddie—or anything like the notorious prescription drug benefit under George W. Bush, passed by a GOP Congress in 2003.  Bushies told the Congress it would cost $534 billion and which now has been adjudged as $1.2 trillion for this decade alone.

      

     Moreover the next Republican presidentshould fight to return to Americans their right to use precious metals as a medium of exchange to protect themselves from ruin by utilizing gold and silver if they so desire. 

                               Returning to Declarations of War.  

           The next president should take a very dim view of this nation’s record of not asking for a congressional declaration of war but sending troops to battle with either no congressional authorization or with mischievously concocted bogus evasions. The argument is that today foreign attacks and crises can occur within a few hours which makes the declaration of war impracticable—but it doesn’t hold water. Congress approved our entry into World War II a day after Pearl Harbor, Dec. 8, 1941…with only one dissent, Cong. Jeannette Rankin [R-Montana] who also was dissented from World War I)  and FDR signed it the same day—although as a resolution, it didn’t need to be signed (he wanted a photo-op). 

       To supplant the Constitutional provision, a so-called War Powers Act was re-passed over presidential veto in 1973 whose constitutionality has never been tested.  It requires a president to ask Congress to approve his warlike action  48 hours after it’s occurred and stipulates that the forces involved should not be utilized in war for more than 60 days without further authorization. 

     This legislation is patently ridiculous. If an army is sent to war who in the Congress will have the guts not to back up “our fighting sons and daughters” with an instant resolution?  And after 60 days of warfare, who in the Congress will muster the fortitude to deny support for “our fighting men and women”? 

           Bypassing the constitutional provision started with—you guessed it, the author of many other bad ideas--Woodrow Wilson with the Mexican incursion of 1916.  Wilson, after all, saw himself as an improvement over Jesus Christ. At Versailles in 1919 where he argued for creation of a League of Nations,  Wilson declared “why has Jesus Christ so far not succeeded in inducing the world to follow His teachings? He taught the ideal without devising any practical means of attaining it.  That is why I am proposing a practical scheme to carry out His aims.”  He was referring to the League of Nations.

      We can also thank Wilson for creation of the Federal Reserve and the federal income tax through the Underwood Tariff that utilized the 16^th amendment, placing a 1% tax on individual incomes over $3,000 and an additional graduated surtax of from 1 to 6% on incomes over $20,000.  

      In October, 1913 Wilson pledged the U. S. will never again acquire territory by conquest. Sounded good but he wasn’t exactly a constitutionalist.  Wilson initiated a foray by troops into Mexico without a declaration of war. It happened in 1916 when Mexico temporarily arrested U.S. sailors at Tampico.  Wilson demanded the country fire a 21-gun salute to the American flag. 

           After Mexico declined, he dispatched Marines to occupy Vera Cruz.  Then Pancho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary, raided Columbus, N. M. and killed 16 Americans.  Angrily, dismissing a case for a declaration of war, Wilson arbitrarily sent 6,000 troops under Gen. John J. Pershing to chase Villa hundreds of miles into Mexico. Pershing’s favorite lieutenant, George S. Patton, Jr. returned with the bodies of three bandit-generals strapped to his vehicles similar to game killed by hunters for which he was promoted to captain.

                                  Truman’s Korean “Police Action.”

        If Wilson’s incursion into Mexico was minor league, the “police action” that launched our participation in the Korean War was an enormous constitutional breach.  It was compounded by President Harry Truman’s evasion of congressional authority by winning a UN mandate to expel the North Koreans from the South and not going to Congress at all.

    

      Truman went the UN route because he feared even the Democratic-led Congress would not declare war and that Ohio’s Robert Taft would single out Democratic responsibility for triggering the invasion  of  the South (because Dean Acheson publicly excluded Korea from our line of defense in a speech at the National Press Club).  So Truman never asked for it. In fact he was in denial, maintaining we were not at war at all.  A reporter questioning him said, “well then it’s a police action.”

        “Yes,” said Truman, “that’s exactly what it is.”  The war that was not called a war but was what the reporter called “a police action” took 33,471 American lives.

         Since Truman got away with not asking for a declaration of war, other presidents felt they could follow suit—but ironically not the 5-star Republican general who followed Truman to the White House, Dwight Eisenhower who nevertheless ended the Korean War by passing the word to the North Koreans that unless they agree to make peace, he—Ike—would see to it that they and the Red Chinese were blasted out of existence with the H-bomb. True, he didn’t need Congress’ approval to make a back-of-the-hand verbal threat.

         As the Chinese didn’t have nuclear weapons then, the  off-the-record vow of  annihilation by the general who won the war in Europe gave them pause and they caved.

          But unconstitutionality was resumed after Ike.

        On April 7, 1961, John Kennedy surreptitiously ordered an invasion of Cuba  involving 1,500 Cuban exiles trained by the CIA at Cochinos Bay (the Bay of Pigs).  No congressional authorization. Next he raised the number of “military advisers” in South Vietnam to 16,000. No congressional authorization.

             Finally on Oct. 22, 1962 he ordered that “any ship of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back.”  He wanted the USSR “it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring full retaliatory response against the Soviet Union.”  Not even a hint of a possible declaration of war.

                               LBJ’s Bogus Gulf of Tonkin.

         In August, 1964, Lyndon Johnson reported to the Congress that North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin. We retaliated with bombing attacks against naval installations in North Vietnam. Johnson condemned the North for “open aggression on the high seas.”  He did not ask for a declaration of war; instead, Congress gave him an open-ended commitment to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” 

       The congressional resolution was substituted as a legal basis to justify our going to war—a war that lasted from 1964 to 1975. Why no declaration of war?  There was ample time to pass one! 

      Answer: the Congress was wimpy and wanted Johnson to take the responsibility. The Gulf of Tonkin matter was a lie. In 2005 the National Security Agency’s secret files were opened and it was found that  the story of North Vietnamese aggression against us was a hoax. In fact the Maddox started firing on the North Vietnamese first.  American dead in the Vietnam War: 58,154.  We were told a domino effect would tumble all of Asia if we desisted.  We did not succeed in Vietnam and the war ended in a Communist victory.  Today Vietnam is our trading partner and has a functioning stock market.

       Richard Nixon expanded the Vietnam War to include incursions into Laos and Cambodia but the Democratic Congress, which had readily given its approval to LBJ under the spurious Gulf of Tonkin, heatedly objected and passed the War Powers Act over his veto. 

       Under Gerald Ford, on May 14, 1975 Cambodian gunboats seized a U.S. merchant ship, The Mayaguez enroute from Hong Kong to the Thai port of Sattahip near Poulo Wai island.  No declaration of war was asked but in a daring rescue two days later, U.S. forces recovered the vessel and all 39 crewmen. In the rescue, however, 41Americans were killed.

       Under Ronald Reagan on Oct. 25, 1983, with no congressional sanction or declaration of war,  the U.S. sent 10,000 troops to invade the West Indies island of Grenada, the smallest nation in the western hemisphere to rescue hundreds of Americans threatened by a Marxist military coup there, ridding the island of the Marxist regime and Cuban military personnel.

                               Bush I: Panama, Iraq and Somalia.   

       George H. W. Bush sent forces without a declaration of war to Panama on Dec, 20, 1989 to capture its de facto leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega who                          was wanted in Florida on drug-trafficking charges with no declaration of war.

      Also after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait where Saddam Hussein formally annexed the oil-rich emirate,  Bush launched Operation Desert Storm to free Kuwait with no declaration of war--a coalition with the U.S. joined by 15 other countries including Saudi Arabia, on January 17, 1991--to liberate Kuwait.  More than 541.000 U. S. troops were involved which suffered 148 casualties. Another episode: On December 4, 1992, Bush sent 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia in 1989 to combat famine which turned into a bloody military struggle: no declaration of war.  

        Bill Clinton approved troops sent to Haiti to oust Haitian strong man Raoul Caras without a declaration of war.  In 1999 he sought to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide of Albanians by nationalist Serbs in the former nation of Yugoslavia by dispatching U.S. troops in a NATO bombing campaign without a declaration. 

                              Bush II: Afghanistan and Iraq.

         Of all the presidents none have received more criticism for initiating war more than George W. Bush —but the criticism was lodged that the invasion of Iraq from which he secured the resolution under the War Powers Act was based on false information that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (none were found)—not that the war was formally undeclared. 

         The twin invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were made as result of the 9/11 attack by terrorists on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Somerset county, Pennsylvania.  Over 3,000 Americans were killed and more than 6,000 injured, the most destructive terrorist attack in U.S. history. With a congressional resolution—but no declaration of war—but with UN and NATO approval--he ordered bombing of al-Qaeda camps and Taliban military forces in Afghanistan. Ironically Bush was more concerned about winning UN approval than getting the Congress’.

       Bush worked mightily to gain UN support for his U.S. led invasion of Iraq—much harder than he did trying to persuade our own lawmakers.  Instead the Security Council approved a resolution demanding Saddam Hussein declare where all its alleged weapons of mass destruction were, stop supporting terrorism and oppressing Iraqis. Dissatisfied, congress passed the resolution on Iraq—not a declaration of war—and the U.S., Great Britain and 30 other nations prepared for war. On March 23, the coalition launched an attack on Iraq.

             

           So the first order of international business for a new Republican president would be, I suggest, to restore observance of the Constitution and ditch the probably unconstitutional War Powers Act.

                Reducing the Size of Our Military Occupation Forces.

         Along with restoring the Constitution on declarations of war, the next Republican president should—to save money and cut back on over-involvement in globalism—end the over-extension of our military throughout the world where troops are not needed.  We now have more than 200,000 troops stationed in 144 countries and territories throughout the world.  Of this number there are 100,000 in Europe where war is unlikely to break out: Germany, Italy, the UK, Turkey, Spain, Iceland, Belgium and Portugal.  We have 75,000 in Asia (including Japan).  There are 6,000 troops in Panama.  These troops basically serve as policemen, saving our rich allies the expense of defending themselves.

            Civil Liberties—But Not a National Suicide Pact.

         But I part company with those ultra-doves, a strange amalgam of  those on Left and the Libertarian Right, who say we had 9/11 coming because we are too pro-Israel…when we have given far more billions to Arab nations than to the Israelis… and who criticize so-called abrogation of terrorists’ “civil liberties” in fighting the war on terrorism. Preservation of civil liberties is important but ridiculous liberal legal constructs should not be construed as a national suicide pact.  The PATRIOT Act is a matter of self-protection—for us.  Terrorist combatants who are out to blow us up should be tried in a military court—not a civil federal one where under the weak Obama practice they are given the very constitutional privileges stemming from a nation they are trying to destroy. Dangerous terrorist combatants should be held inviolate from the people they want to destroy without legal counsel and without knowing the charges leveled against them if by freeing them on technicalities they are at liberty to kill us-- no matter what the ACLU says. 

           While this new president’s at it, he should pare “foreign aid” to the bone.  Israel’s making big bucks because it’s ditched socialism  for entrepreneurism; the Arabs have enough oil to pay their bills and fight their own “poverty.”

           These are just a few ideas for the resurgent conservatism that will, God willing, reclaim what’s left of America in 2012.

                 _____________________________________________

       *: Feast of St. Polycarp [circa AD 69-155]. He was a disciple of John the Evangelist and ordained by John as bishop of Smyrna, in present day Turkey.  A tough old bird, he couldn’t agree with Pope Anicetus on what day to celebrate Easter, so they split the difference, each celebrating it on his own favorite day.  Polycarp became the vital link between the age of the original apostles and the 2^nd century church fathers. Polycarp kissed the chains of Ignatius of Antioch as Ignatius passed by on the road to martyrdom and agreed to look after Antioch as well as Smyrna. When Emperor Marcus Aurelius began a persecution, Polycarp refused to sacrifice incense to the gods and acknowledge the emperor’s divinity. Thus the emperor ordered him burned at the stake—but the flames refused to consume Polycarp, and in fact, stirred by the wind, formed themselves like the sails of a ship and encircled Polycarp so that no harm be done to him. In desperation the emperor ordered him to be speared to death.