Jim Oh-fer-five

Democrat Bill Foster defeated Republican dairy magnate Jim Oberweis for the second time in the 14th Congressional District Tuesday night. That's Dennis Hastert's old seat. Foster won a special election to replace Dennis Hastert in March, and this time around Foster's margin of victory was even bigger than it was in the spring. Oberweis, for those of you who don't know, is the hypocritical anti-illegal immigration crusader who has now lost five elections: for U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004, for governor in 2005 and now twice for Congress this year in Hastert's district.

Again I say it's time to hang it up, Jim.

The Indignant Citizen

President Barack Obama

How fucking cool is it write that? Turns out I needn't have worried. Truthfully I was apprehensive about the American public's capacity to focus on the issues facing this country and ignore the noise. But score one for for my fellow citizens.

I'm exhausted, but over the next couple of days I'll try to put together some thoughts on what it was like to be in Grant Park tonight, with 125,000 other people, cheering for a candidate that maybe not everyone believed in at the beginning, but who we gradually infused with our hope for a better future. I'll tell you this, the call by CNN on the big screen TV that Obama had won came suddenly after a commercial break at 10 p.m. Central Time. The crowd where we were standing, near the Petrillo Bandshell, erupted in shouts and whistles and hugs, along with shouts of "O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma" and "Yes we did!" People were jumping up and down; groups of people bounced with their arms around one another, flashbulbs popped. It was as much a sense of relief as it was joy that swept across the crowd in Grant Park. Relief that Obama had won and relief that the result was known relatively early.

I'm filled with optimism tonight. The historical magnitude of what's occurred will take some time to sink in completely. But the emotion of it all hit everyone in Grant Park upside the head immediately. It's good to feel ... good about the president again.

The Indignant Citizen

A Long Day Turns to Night

I know a lot of folks are feeling optimistic about an Obama victory tonight in the presidential election, but I can't shake this sense of foreboding.

Shortly after polling places opened there were reports of long lines, inept election officials, the Black Panthers patrolling one precinct in Philadelphia, wet ballots in Virginia and myriad other problems in swing states that either Barack Obama or John McCain must win to win the White House.

Here in Chicago the day dawned sunny and there was a giddiness in the air. The stage seemed set for an election night party, with warm temperatures, no rain and an entire lakefront park waiting to be filled with folks eager to be as near as possible to history—an Obama win. Or at least, that was the Hope. The reality could still turn out to be quite different.

If these reports of lines and faulty electronic voting machines and wiggy ballot handling persist, and some of these swing states that have looked for weeks as though they were leaning toward Obama start showing McCain tendencies instead, I think we'll see protests in Chicago and plenty of people hollering "disenfranchisement" and "fraud" and maybe even "revolution."

We should know not long after, say, 8 p.m. in Chicago whether voting irregularities in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Virginia are serious enough to merit legal challenges. If so, this election may well be decided in the courts. If by, say, 10:30 p.m. in Chicago the electoral vote dominos haven't begun falling pretty clearly one way or the other, the night will likely end in an anticlimactic sense of frustration. What to do, then, with 200,000 or 500,000 or a million people with enough political conviction on one side of the ledger to wait for hours outside in November in downtown Chicago for a sense of resolution that never came? That's a scene that could get ugly in a hurry. Imagine July 3rd in Grant Park if 9:30 came and went with no fireworks, and no explanation. By 10:15 it'd be time to high-tail it out of the line of fire, bubba.

There is a chance that this election will be a landslide win for Obama. Personally, I hope so. A win by Obama would be a victory for intellectualism, for diplomacy and for racial advancement. It would be a repudiation of class warfare, demagoguery and this weird celebration of ignorance in which we've been engaged since the mid-1990s. If Obama ends up being half as good as I think he could be he'll still be twice as good as McCain at his best.

But there's a long night ahead before all that. My fear is that it will be a long night followed by many more long nights and days.

The Indignant Citizen

Spire Spike

I hate to say "I told you so," but I told you so.

Even my economic predictions were remarkably prescient, although perhaps I hedged my bets a bit too much in terms of the the downturn's severity. But in fact, my worst prediction appears to have come true: Kelleher actually managed to build some of the Spire before having to stop. The accompanying photo, along with many other fine shots, can be found here on the Boca del Mar Chicago Spire page.

The Indignant Citizen

Live Blogging the Last Presidential Debate

We had so much fun the last time, we're trying the live blogging again. Same rules apply, all times Central Daylight Time.

8:04 p.m. - Good start, John McCain remembered Barack Obama's name. But before that, this is two out of three debates that McCain has felt the need to give us a medical update of a prominent political figure. During the first debate, it was Teddy K., tonight it was Nancy Reagan.

8:06 p.m. - The debate comes on the evening of one of the worst days for the stock market since 1987. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 733 points, about 7.8%, the S&P 500 was down 9% and the Nasdaq was down 8.5%. Mostly this was due to bad economic numbers in terms of retail spending and the realization that consumers are cutting back. So now we open with a question about the two candidates' economic plans, and naturally the conversation comes around to tax policy. It's pretty straightforward: Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich and on corporations and McCain wants to cut their taxes.

8:13 p.m. - John McCain: He wants to cut everyone's taxes! Cut business taxes! Cut, cut, cut. Of course, that sounds good but the reality is you do have to pay for stuff eventually. Maybe Bob Schieffer is going to get at this with this next question about the deficit.

8:14 p.m. - Obama is talking about "pay as you go" spending. McCain has a look on his face that's a combination of a smirk, bowel discomfort and anger that he's got to sit next to this guy.

8:16 p.m. - McCain: "We have presided over the largest increase in spending since the Great Society." Um, dude, that's you you're talking about when you say "we."

8:18 p.m. - Good grief, the "overhead projector" line again. It's not an overhead projector. Is he really an idiot, or does he just play one on TV?

8:21 - McCain: "Senator Obama, I'm not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." It took him this long to come up with that? Try as he might, though, he'll never be able to run away from that photo of him hugging George Bush. And try as he might, he can't change the reality that he's voted with Bush 95% of the time.

8:27 p.m. - Schieffer asks about negative campaigning. McCain talks about Obama's spending and the John Lewis commnents. Obama says "one hundred percent" of McCain's ads are negative. McCain has completely misconstrued what Lewis was saying and I seriously doubt that all of McCain's ads are negative.

8:35 p.m. - McCain: Acorn is on the verge of perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in the history of the country? You mean bigger than the subprime mortgage fraud? (Addendum: OK, upon further review, he said voter fraud. But that begs the question: bigger than the voter disenfranchisement at the hands of Republican administrations in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004?)

8:36 p.m. - Why is John McCain smiling? Because he's got Barack Obama defending himself against Bill Ayers, Acorn, negative campaigning, etc. "The fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, John, I think says a lot about your campaign."

McCain: My campaign is about getting this economy back on track, creating jobs and not raising taxes like Senator Obama wants to do. Kind of a weak exit there. He's got some fight in him, but the rumble road runs out pretty quick when it comes to facts. The important thing here tonight seems to be to engage in a kind of "political terrorism" that the old Bill Ayers would be proud of: throw bombs at your opponent, run away and hope some damage is done in the process.

8:46 p.m. - Talking about energy now. McCain is clearly taking a chance tonight. Every answer includes an attack on Obama of some kind. This is an all-or-nothing strategy at this point. McCain's body language, his facial expressions, the tone of his answers all point to direct confrontation. His goal tonight is to tear down Obama at all costs. Seventy-five percent of his answers, to me, are about discrediting what Obama has said or proposed, with a 25% "and I'll do it differently and better" thrown in somewhere almost as an afterthought. Even on the energy issue, it's all about tearing down what Obama says about offshore drilling ("we have to look at it," as opposed to we can do it now) and free-trade agreements ... very little on what his position is, other than "we can do nuclear, we must drill now and I'm a free-trader."

Also, just an aside, conservation, anyone? Anyone?

8:55 p.m. - McCain: Senator Obama doesn't want to sit down and negotiate a free trade agreement with our best ally in the region and yet he wants to sit down across the table, without preconditions, with Hugo Chavez. It's clear he wants to restrict trade and raise taxes. Balls-to-the wall. It'll be interesting to see how McCain responds to this next question about health care. Obama is talking about the merits of his plan now.

8:58 p.m. - McCain's response: OK, he's starting with stuff he wants to do. About 20 seconds, maybe 30. Now it's on to attacking Obama's plan.

9 p.m. - Christ, enough with Joe the plumber.

9:02 p.m. - Obama responds, sort of, to McCain and then starts criticizing McCain's plan. Maybe it's time during this last half-hour to start ballin' with McCain.

9:05 p.m. - McCain: "Senator Government ... Senator Obama." Senator Government. That's funny.

9:06 p.m. - McCain says he never has had and never will have litmus tests for judges. That's not going to make the Roe opponents happy. "I will consider anyone and their consequences." Obama: I would not provide a litmus test, but I am someone who believes Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. I will look for those judges that have an outstanding judicial record, the intellect and a sense of what real-world people are going through.

9:16 p.m. - I'm still intrigued by McCain's tactics. He's even done some eye-rolling during Obama's responses. It still seems like a 70-30 ratio of attack Obama-promote his own policies. We could have saved a lot of time if McCain had just said at the outset: "Obama wants to spend more of your money, raise your taxes and control your health care. He pals around with ex-terrorists, which I don't care that much about but it speaks to his judgment and the fact that he's a dangerous man who we don't know much about. He doesn't understand how the world works and would be a foreign policy disaster. He's agaisnt all forms of alternative energy and drilling for more oil and wants you to ride mules to and from work." It would have taken about 60 seconds and then we could have spent the rest of the time talking about the issues.

9:23 p.m. - Vouchers. McCain supports them, and cites as the example the Washington, D.C. school system where apparently parents love them. Obama doesn't support them. Personally, I think the best remedies for education are improving schools so that there aren't such wide disparities between them, and encouraging parents to be more involved in their own childrens' education.

9:26 p.m. www.mydebates.org, to watch this debate and the previous debates.

9:28 p.m. - I think McCain just snort-laughed when he was mocking Obama's response on vouchers.

9:29 p.m. - Only Obama in his closing statement said simply and plainly, "I ask for your vote." McCain said we need "a new direction" and that he is that new direction. Unfortunately saying it often doesn't make it so.

9:31 p.m. - On pure raw politics, I'm tempted to give the debate to McCain. He attacked relentlessly, and backed up his promise to lay into Obama. But in the end Obama just comes across as more dignified, more composed, more diplomatic, more presidential. McCain dragged him through the mud, beat him repeatedly, and Obama smiled the whole time. Did Obama play it too cool? I don't think so. But McCain's only play was to lay it all on the table, to be exasperated, to be angry, to roll his eyes and sigh and constantly point out Obama's faults. It was his only move and he made it strongly.

In the end, though, I don't think that's going to change the momentum for him. Or rather against him. But as I've said my mind is made up. I like my presidents to act presidential, not like a crotchety old man.

The Indignant Citizen

Live blogging the town hall debate

Tonight we are hunkered down on the couch with a plate of pasta watching this second of three presidential debates. Thoughts follow below. All times are Central Daylight Time.

8:02 p.m. - Looks like I missed my opportunity to submit my question online. For the record, here it was: Senator McCain. Last month, as the financial crisis was beginning in earnest, you gave a speech in which you said the fundamentals of the economy were strong. Without falling back on the assertion that you meant workers when you said "fundamentals," how would you describe the state of the economy now. I'm referring specifically to the fundamentals of the capital economy, not the workforce economy, since without capital workers do not get paid. How do you view the state of the capital markets and what if anything do you think needs to be done to shore them up? Please be specific and do not ply us with empty campaign rhetoric. The same question to Sen. Obama, minus the reference to the fundamentals being strong.

8:04 - A question on the economy, about bailing out regular folks. Obama says this is a verdict on the last eight years of free market policies. You can't regulate greed, Barack.

8:06 - McCain tells Obama it's good to be at a town hall debate with him. He says this without looking at him.

8:07 - Is McCain going to sit in the questioner's lap? He knows how to get the economy going for working Americans.

Brokaw follow-up - who will you appoint as Treasury Secretary? Warren Buffet. Meg Whitman. Someone who inspires trust and confidence. Actually a good answer. Obama agrees about Warren (another agreement with McCain). Now Obama is talking about middle-class tax cuts. "Senator McCain is right that we have to stabilize housing prices, but...." But Obama didn't answer the question.

8:14 - Obama: The biggest problem is deregulation of the financial system. Again, you can't regulate greed. The derivatives themselves weren't the problem; it's much more complex than that. And additional regulation will require additional resources for the regulatory agencies, which equals more government spending.

8:20 - Obama says he's proposing a net spending cut, in response to a question about why we should trust either candidate with our money given both parties' roles in the current financial crisis. McCain beats the reform gong. He suggests people visit "watchdog organizations" such as the Citizens Against Government Waste, National Taxpayers Union. CAGW is a conservative organization, while the NTU advocates for a flat tax.

8:26 - Obama's spending priorities: energy, healthcare, education. Also have to prioritize income, including tax cuts for the middle class but not continuing the Bush tax cuts.

8:29 - So far I can't say that any of these people are learning much about either candidate that they didn't know. All the familiar themes are being echoed, the same little potshots taken. Both men know how to move around the stage, address their questioners, show empathy. Both men are also going way over the agreed-upon time allotments, which is clearly getting on Tom Brokaw's nerves. But Obama is by and large being much more clear with specifics, as opposed to McCain's "I know how to do it" answers. The only question McCain has answered directly and clearly was who he would appoint as Treasury Secretary.

8:33 - A good follow up question from Tom Brokaw about what as president Obama would do about the culture of easy credit is an opportunity passed. Obama is talking about reining in Washington spending to set an example. That's a Beltway-centric viewpoint. McCain responds by accusing Obama of wanting to raise taxes on small business, more discussion of his tax own tax policy. More D.C. rhetoric. Why not talk about using the bully pulpit to encourage people to be more fiscally responsible. Washington didn't create the mortgage securitization industry, and aside from the suggestion by then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan that homeowners seek out adjustable-rate mortgages, Washington didn't make homeowners take out mortgages they couldn't afford or buy houses that were doomed to lose value. My mortgage isn't in danger of default, and I don't have oppressive credit card debt. I've been fortunate to have a good job but more importantly I've kept my spending under control. I don't buy things I know I can't afford and if I do have to buy a big-ticket item I cut spending elsewhere. It's about personal responsibility. Government regulation and bailouts won't change behavior in any real or lasting way.

8:45 - I wasn't listening to the question, because I was typing the previous entry, but the candidates are talking about energy policy. One thing nobody has mentioned yet is that we could, you know, use less. We can drive less, live closer to work and school and shopping. This is one place where government actually could be helpful - in terms of more strict land use planning policies that encourage density in urban areas and redevelopment of suburban areas into less zoned, more dense developments and the funding of public transportation initiatives as opposed to highways.

8:47 - Tom, if you're so worried about the time limits, cut the microphones. Shit, at the Academy Awards they cut the mike and start the music.

8:50 - "Should health care be treated as a commodity?" What does that even mean? The questions are, how do we cover all Americans with healthcare and rein in healthcare costs? McCain: What's at stake here in terms of healthcare is the fundamental difference between myself and Senator Obama. No, actually what's at stake is how it is that the United States does not ensure that all its citizens are covered by healthcare. And it's not about choice. Those covered by private healthcare should be able to choose their doctors and their level of coverage. Those consigned to a government healthcare plan should still receive high quality care but will probably have less of a choice.

9:06 - I hope someone is keeping a running "my friends" count. Can we get a dollar donated to the U.S. Treasury every time McCain uses the phrase "my friends?" We'll solve the credit crisis in about an hour.

9:11 - First McCain "Teddy Roosevelt" reference. I think there was a Reagan reference earlier. I love McCain's answer on this Pakistan issue. He accuses Obama of threatening to attack Pakistan, which he believes is a dangerous mistake. First off, Obama isn't threatening to attack Pakistan at all. Second, even if he was his rhetoric wouldn't be any more threatening than Sarah Palin telling Charles Gibson that we might have to go to war with Russia.

9:18 - Did McCain just say Obama was "correct" on some things with respect to Afghanistan? Hey, there's a unicorn in my living room....

9:19 - Russia discussion. McCain gets off his Putin-KGB line. Yawn. Moral support should be provided to Georgia and the Ukraine. Obama: Russian resurgence is the central issue we'll have to deal with in the next presidency. Russia's "resurgence" is transitory and dependent totally on energy prices, which fluctuate with the global economy. If the world enters a global economic downturn, Russia will find its finances sorely crimped. This could actually make it more dangerous, driving popular discontent and possibly a resurgence of communism or even some kind of civil war that puts Russian nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.

9:24 - Six minutes to go, two more questions. Good effing luck, Tom.

9:29 - The Iran discussion has taken up five of the remaining six minutes. Nothing new offered.

9:30 - What don't you know, and how will you learn it? That's the last fucking question? Jesus, well that's a fitting question on which to end this debate. Predictable questions, predictable answers, the same rhetoric we've been hearing. I guess that's the town hall format. Predictably, Obama talks about what he does know - the opportunity of America - and uses it for his closing statement. McCain says what he doesn't know is what will happen at home and abroad. "What I don't know is what the unexpected will be." Somehwere Kant is scratching his head. And now McCain moves into his closing, after a transparent attempt at answering the final question.

9:34 - And so endeth the least informative debate I've ever seen. I'm biased, but I think Obama won in terms of completeness of his answers and his insistence on clearing the record when McCain would mischaracterize his positions. McCain kept his answers shorter, but largely because they were meaningless and empty.

Now the pundits and spinmeisters will take over and tell us who won. Me? I've already made up my mind, so this debate wasn't about convincing me or even reinforcing my decision.

On MSNBC, Chris Matthews is telling me what I think ... I mean, what he thinks, and he makes an interesting point: McCain never brought up Bill Ayers and how Obama is a terrorist, which Matthews thinks indicates he's backing away from it and is embarrassed by it. I doubt it. These attacks are all about context, and the proper context to accuse a mainstream political candidate of being a terrorist is not in a nationally televised debate, but on the campaign trail, in sound bites. And that drumbeat will no doubt continue, safely out of the reach of questions from ordinary citizens.

Weapon of Mass Folksiness

I’m getting that uneasy feeling that in the person of Sarah Palin, we are seeing the folksy hijacking of the presidential election by the same gang of political terrorists who managed to install the illiterate George Bush as the leader of the free world and destroy the American Dream.

The Palin Phenomenon shows no sign of letting up, now nearly a week after she burst on the scene with a rollicking speech at the Republican National Convention. The main characteristic of this self-proclaimed hockey mom’s meteoric rise in popularity among hard core Republicans and even independents seems to be her ability to deflect any and all criticism back onto her critics. She’s not just the Teflon candidate, she’s rubberized, and if you sling something at her you’d better be prepared for it to come right back at you. Take the truth, for example.

In Palin’s standard stump speech, she claims she “told Congress ‘thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere.’” Only problem is she supported funding for the bridge, and a host of other earmarks for Alaska. Her opposition to the bridge started about the same time Congress removed it as a possible project. They still sent the money to Alaska, though, and Palin spent it.

She also claims, along with McCain, to be anti-lobbyist. But her campaign (can John McCain really claim it at this point?) employs dozens of lobbyists, and as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin employed the town’s very first lobbyist to help secure funding for local projects. And she claims she had no role in firing an Alaska state trooper who was also her brother-in-law (and apparently a wife beater), but an investigation into that is ongoing.

But because the Obama Kool Aid-drunk left immediately lashed out at Palin on blogs and elsewhere shortly after McCain selected her, claiming her pregnant teen daughter showed Palin’s hypocrisy in advocating abstinence-only sex education, mocking her daughter’s decision to have a baby at 17 and marry the father, criticizing Palin’s decision to seek the vice presidency despite recently giving birth to a special needs child (and some even suggested it wasn’t her child but her daughter’s) and insinuating she was a book-banner, among dozens of other questionable assertions and critiques, the left ended up fueling a new McCain campaign strategy: link Obama and the liberal media.

It was only a matter of time before the media’s deification of Barack Obama backfired. For months we’ve had Obama shoved down our throats. His campaign rallies were like rock concerts—teens screamed, women swooned, men wept … and it was all shown on nightly on the news and slapped on the front pages of daily newspapers. It was as if Obama was a steamroller on a mission of change.

But folks don’t like to feel they’re being steamrolled, especially by the media. And so when McCain chose this unknown Alaska governor and former small-town mayor, who also happens to be an evangelical Christian, to be his running mate, well, as they say, it was On.

And so here we are, less than a week after the RNC and fewer than 60 days until the election, and Obama and Palin … er, excuse me, Obama and McCain … are virtually tied in the polls. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin continues to claim she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, was uninvolved in the firing of her brother-in-law. She also claims she fired the Governor’s chef when in fact news reports indicate the chef was reassigned.

So far, Palin’s only exposure has been through a carefully choreographed rollout by the Republican Party. She’s taken no media questions. That will change on Wednesday when Palin is interviewed by ABC News’s Charlie Gibson. Liberals waiting eagerly for Palin to be “exposed” as a northern rube in her first TV interview are, I fear, going to be sorely disappointed. You think Charlie Gibson … “Good Morning, America” Charlie Gibson is going to fluster Palin after she’s had a week to prepare? You think they put her on the ticket knowing she’d get knocked off message so easily? No way. I can see the exchange now….

Gibson: “Governor Palin, can you respond to those who say you supported the so-called bridge to nowhere before you opposed it?”

Palin: “Charlie, you know the liberal media has said a lot of things about me since I was fortunate enough to be asked to run with Senator McCain. I’ve always opposed the bridge. When my grandmother came to America on the Mayflower to seek the American dream, she told me never compromise what you believe in. I think those are small-town values, and they are my values.”

Gibson: “Well, Governor, of course you know it’s impossible for your grandmother to have come over on the mayflower, as that occurred nearly 400 years ago. And there was no ‘America’ then, of which to dream.”

Palin: “Charlie, you know I really can’t believe you and Senator Obama would criticize the American Dream in this way. I mean, I know that you’re both Muslim, but….”

Gibson: “Governor Palin, what are you talking about?”

Palin: “I’m talking about the American Dream, Charlie. I’m going to Washington to fight for that dream on behalf of all Americans.”

Gibson: “Governor, I’m afraid we’re out of time. Thank you so much for not stomping on my balls and unleashing your Republican Feministas on me and my network. God bless you and all your folksiness.”

That’s it, isn’t it? Sarah Palin comes across as folksy, and therefore relates to everyday Americans.

Well, folks, I don’t want a folksy president, or even a folksy vice president. I want my president and vice president to be the smartest people in the room. I want to feel stupid next to them. I want my president and vice president to be the fucking president and vice president, not my goddam drinking buddies.

Obama’s not perfect. But to me he’s a lot less imperfect than McCain and the Obama-Biden ticket has more gravitas to it than McCain-Palin.

Do both sides fudge the truth sometimes? Yes. But Palin and McCain are outright lying right now about their record of “reform.” It’s outside the bounds of what’s acceptable, even politically. This isn’t just stretch a few facts and let the people sort it out. These bastards are speaking plain untruths about important shit and then attacking anyone who calls them on it. It’s absurd!

What’s more absurd, though, and frankly more worrying, is that it seems to be working. A certain segment of the population is eating this stuff up. I guess if nothing else, this election will answer an important question: how stupid are we, really? The answer, I’m afraid, is too close to call right now.

The Indignant Citizen

A Payne in the….

Turns out I am not the only one who noticed WGN-TV anchor Allison Payne’s disturbing behavior (for a journalist, anyway) this week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. On Monday I mentioned that Payne gave Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin a hug when he landed at the Denver airport on Sunday.

Today, Sun-Times media columnist Roger Feder noted the surprise among other Chicago reporters covering the convention when they saw Payne “cheering and applauding for speakers Wednesday night while she was seated with the Illinois delegation at the Pepsi Center.” (Second item, "Anchor's cheering section.")

This is the kind of shit the Republicans will dig up and gleefully use during this election. Few things could better illustrate conservatives’ point that the media is ga-ga for Obama. No doubt you’ll be voting for Obama in November, Allison, but maybe you should stop to consider how many potential Obama voters you’re driving away by abandoning your journalistic integrity alongside the road. Please, for all of us, stop yourself.

Crazy Karl

As part of my Democratic National Convention watching, I will sometimes tune over to Fox “News” after important speeches. I know that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will be slobbering all over themselves praising whatever speaker has just finished. I know this. I want to hear what conservatives think, how this convention is playing on the right, or if you prefer, how the right is playing this convention.

So I turn over to Fox “News” and lo and behold there’s Karl Rove, hooked up to a microphone and spewing his bilious views into my cable box and onto my set. And I thought to myself, “Rove, you sick pervert. You and your band of stupid religious zealots and flag sucking fear mongers hijacked the American Dream. You beat honest people over the head with the cudgel of white-knuckled greed. You suffocated reason and enlightenment in the embrace of symbology. You substituted ideology for history. You replaced culture with cultishness. You don’t belong in the broadcast booth you smug bastard; you belong in jail. And we … we let you get away with it. Twice. We deserve what we got. But not any more. Fuck you, Karl Rove.”

Stick a Fork in It, Part 2

Here’s a scary glimpse into a bleak future for newspapers: Crain’s Chicago Business, citing Editor & Publisher, is floating this possible redesign for the Chicago Tribune. I would have posted the E&P story, but the site wasn’t opening this afternoon.

Note the exaggerated “Trib” in the flag at the top of the page, playing off the paper’s nickname in a hopeless grasp at hipness; the extensive use of oversize images, text and graphics aimed at the short-attention-span crowd; and the absolute dearth of actual copy, a clear nod to the fact that TribCo believes there’s money to be made catering to the illiterate.

All you need to know about TribCo’s approach to journalism can be found in Chief Operating Officer Randy Michael’s order, as quoted by Crain’s, to cut editorial output and staff at the same time it’s considering these comic book-inspired redesigns. It’s all about saving money and making things look cool, look more like the vapid RedEye free tabloid (above). The flossers in charge over at the Tower think this is the future of journalism: flashy graphics, celebrity-ized “news bits” and a sense of tragic hipness. “Content” replaces “stories” as the stuff that fills the (shrinking amount of) space between the ads. The theory seems to be readers don’t necessarily care what they’re reading or where it came from, so long as it looks nice.

And maybe TribCo is right. Maybe they’re just giving the people what the people want. If so, this next decade or so is going to be pretty miserable. It might be anyway, with financial Armageddon hanging over us and common sense on holiday at seemingly every level of society. But without an informed Fourth Estate to provide context, check the power brokers and shine light into the dark cracks of apathy we will be left prone in the path of the spin machine. That’s not the way I want to go, but if the best I can do to inform myself at the local level is pick up some comic book version of what a newspaper used to be, or watch the local “Entertainment Tonight” masquerading as the local newscasts, how do I fight my fate? How does anyone?

If This is Journalism, Stick a Fork in It

The closing gavels haven't even fallen at the two major political conventions yet and already the presidential campaign has degenerated into a tit-for-tat about who owns more houses and who is associated with more unsavory characters. Barack Obama and John McCain have both allowed their campaigns to be hijacked by political hucksters racing to find the lowest road, to serve the lowest common denominator. Until the candidates actually take control of their campaigns and insist they be run in a manner consistent with the timber of a presidential race—as opposed to a school board race—we'll continue to have this kind of trash.

Meanwhile, over at WGN, anchors Mark Suppelsa and Allison Payne are "covering" the Democratic National Convention in Denver. I use quotes around the word covering mainly because of Sunday night's segment, which featured lots of gushing about how it was really an "Illinois convention." Payne even took time to wax poetic about that hack Emil Jones, "… a gentleman who calls himself Obama's godfather…. Emil Jones always such an affection and affinity for Obama, and it would be hard … be difficult to imagine that the audience wouldn't get a chance to hear the story from Emil Jones on just how he and this young man hooked up and had a great success together," Payne said.

Eew. If I were Obama, I'd be holding Emil Jones at arm's length right about now. Jones has become the latest in a disturbingly long line of Illinois politicians to announce their retirement and quickly install their offspring in office. There's not much about that move that says "change" to me.


More disturbing, however, was Payne's segment on her interview with Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. The fawning nature of the Durbin profile was bad enough, but it got off to a particularly odious start when Payne met him downstairs at the Denver airport and gave him a hug … on camera … thus shedding the last threads of journalistic integrity that were covering the Chicago press corps' otherwise naked glee at the prospect of an Obama presidency.

More Kool-Aid, Allison?

The Indignant Citizen

Jay Mariotti is a Tool

[Update as of Aug. 26: The Chicago Tribune reports Jay Mariotti resigned, saying the future of sports journalism is on the Internet. Funny, I thought the Sun-Times had a web site. I mean, they don't know how to use it, but still.... Oh well. I claim (almost) no credit for the tool's departure.]

Anyone who reads Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti, including his coworkers, knows he is a tool. What do I mean by that? Let us consult the the Urban Dictionary.

The Urban Dictionary defines a tool in several ways, none of which exactly apply to Mariotti, but some get close. Actually first off, a number of the related words seem to fit, the most appropriate of which being “asshat.” In fact, if I figure out how to do it I may try to add Mariotti’s picture to the asshat illustrations. He’s a public figure, it’s fair comment and best of all from a legal defense standpoint it’s true. But I digress.

Where was I? Oh yes. Jay Mariotti is a tool. The second definition of “tool” in the Urban Dictionary fits Mariotti. He is certainly posing as a sports columnist, trying way too hard to be edgy. I doubt he dresses like Avril Lavigne, but the velour sweat suits I can see in those “private moments,” when he’s watching the TiVo recordings of himself over and over. Definition 7 would also seem to fit, except that the more I read him the more I believe he really is that unbalanced, to the point of nearly being unhinged.

It would be impossible to count Mariotti’s bombastic and self serving columns, or all the flip-flops he’s made in print, or the scandalous things he writes under the guise of “journalism” which are merely intended to garner attention for himself. On the one hand, it’s baffling to me that a major newspaper like the Sun-Times gives Mariotti space to vent his sad and vituperative commentary. Then again, it is the Sun-Times.

I’ve often thought that I should write about Mariotti’s toolness. Today’s rant about White Sox General Manager Ken Williams, and the increasingly hostile relationship between Mariotti and other members of the Sun-Times sports staff, convinced me it was time. I’ll deal with the column in a moment.

First, Mariotti likes to give the impression that he’s the only sports journalist in town with the guts to “tell it like it is.” He seems to stake most of this hard hitting reputation on his frequent willingness—some would call it eagerness—to criticize Ozzie Guillen, Ken Williams, Jerry Reinsdorf and the White Sox organization in general. Now, Guillen says some stupid things from time to time. No one would dispute that, not even Guillen. Is he crude? Yes. Does he have a foul mouth? Yes. Can he be immature when it comes to taking criticism? Absolutely. But he is hardly the only person in professional sports to exhibit these characteristics. I wish Guillen and the rest of the White Sox brass would just learn to ignore Mariotti, but they can’t seem to.

The stupid Guillen-Mariotti feud hit a low point in 2006 when Mariotti wrote a column about Guillen’s demotion of pitcher Sean Tracy to the minor leagues after a game in Texas. Guillen took exception and called Mariotti a lot of names, including “faggot.” Things went downhill from there and have been in the gutter pretty much ever since.

As an aside, Mariotti said during the hubub that he refused to go to the White Sox locker room because he had been physically threatened. I remember thinking at the time that Mariotti was grandstanding. So what if he had been threatened? Did he actually think a professional baseball player would kick his ass in the clubhouse? Dude, where’s your reporting sense … THAT would be a good story. I don’t think any of the White Sox at the time would have been dumb enough to do that, although I do recall the time, in 2003, when Rasheed Wallace was suspended for allegedly threatening referee Tim Donaghy on the loading dock of the Rose Garden in Portland. Donaghy, of course, was subsequently accused of betting on NBA games, and has now claimed that referees manipulated the outcome of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings. Hey, this is pro sports these days; every twisted story has an even more twisted story connected to it.

But back to Mariotti. If I had a dollar for every time some lunkhead called someone he disagreed with a faggot, and then threatened to “kick his ass,” I’d buy the Sun-Times and … wait, that wouldn’t take much money. Bad example. Anyway, I suspect that the “faggot” insult crutch is often more a factor of a limited vocabulary than actual homophobia. Of course, we do tend to belittle what we fear, and we often fear that which is different from ourselves. Mariotti is certainly different. Not in an interesting or even intellectually challenging way, though. More just in an angry, lazy way.

Which brings us to Mariotti’s column today. It’s everything Sox fans, sports fans and legitimate journalists loathe about him. The hook for the column is an interview Kenny Williams gave, presumably Thursday night because the closest Mariotti comes to satisfying the “when?” question is “on the eve of” the Cubs-Sox series. Williams had some ill-advised comments about the differences between the two fan bases and the two teams. At one point, Sox beat writer Joe Cowley asked him if he would ever work for the Cubs. “That would be a betrayal,” Williams told him. “God, I would really, really have to need the job. Oh, wow, really need the job.”

And of course, Mariotti sticks it to Williams for his answer, ignoring the baiting nature of the second question and any reference to the question that elicited Williams’ comments about the two sides of town and the teams’ respective fan bases.

One thing that intrigues me about Mariotti’s columns is his total and shameless reliance on quotes collected by beat reporters and other columnists, which he then uses for his own purposes. Laughably (if you read the column), Mariotti even writes at one point, “This is why, as I've often concluded, that it's easy to like the Cubs and easy to loathe the Sox. I'm not talking about the fans or players but the people at the top. And I say that not as a fan of either team—repeat after me: media are not supposed to be fans—but as a neutral observer who continues to be amazed by the noxious fumes spread by Sox brass.”

“Neutral observer?” I thought you needed cable to get comedy like that. Here’s a sampling of what Mariotti considers “neutral”:

“… White Sox as the team no hotel concierge ever recommends.”

“…Sox still would be the second team in the Second City, a distinction that won't change in any of our lifetimes.”

“the Sox might make the postseason, they're clearly the auxiliary story as Chicago -- and America -- await the Cubs' fate in their dubious centennial.”

“classy Jim Hendry….”

“it's easy to like the Cubs and easy to loathe the Sox.”

“I guess it's better to play in a concrete blob with empty seats than a world-famous sports destination filled with bodies.”

Mariotti, swilling unrepentently from the Hypocrite Jug, saves his best for last, though. After spending the preceding 16 paragraphs and nearly 1,200 words being “neutral” in his criticism of Sox management, Mariotti writes, “For now, if you don't mind, I'd like to focus on a miracle I never thought I'd see in small newspaper type—CHICAGO atop one division, CHICAGO atop another division.”

Then he ended with, “The Cubs will let us do that this weekend. I'm not sure if Kenny and Ozzie have the ability to stay classy.” Neutral indeed. And definitely focusing on the battle of the first-place teams. I wouldn’t use him as an example of good journalism, but as an illustration of short attention span he’s perfect.

And it’s worth noting that Mariotti’s focus on the first-place teams lasted exactly that one sentence. After Friday’s game, which the Cubs tied and won on three solo home runs off Sox relievers, Mariotti retreated to his comfort zones: Criticizing Guillen’s management and pregame comments.

All Mariotti really accomplished on Friday, though, was to once again reinforce his lack of neutrality, his willful blindness as a baseball observer and his shortcomings as a journalist. Any consistent “neutral” reading of his work reveals that he is nothing but an angry, lazy hack.

Jay Mariotti is a tool.

The Indignant Citizen

Writings from CNU XVI

Lest y’all think I’ve just been loafing (and there has been some of that), here is a sampling of writings from CNU XVI, the 16th annual confab of the Congress for the New Urbanism, held recently in Austin, Texas.

Retail Recipes: Finding What Sells
Conservatives and the New Urbanism: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Robert Caro on Robert Moses
Lessons From Booming Regions
The Art and Science of Great Streets

The Congress was a blast. I’ve always wanted to go, and this year I got the opportunity to blog the Congress for the CNU’s website. I have some pictures that I’ll post in the coming days.

The Indignant Citizen

Torture, Schmorture. We Got us a Sex Scandal, Bubba!

Great news, Mr. President! The liberal governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, has been identified as a client of a prostitution ring. As we all know, the mainstream media is obsessed with sex and will cover nothing else for weeks. That whole deal where you vetoed the bill that would have outlawed waterboarding – you know, torture – thus placing you in the same category as the terrorists we’re fighting, won’t see the light of the front page ever again.

Pop the bubbly!

The Indignant Citizen

Please Go Away, Jim Oberweis

Who’s laughing now, Jimmy?







Hey Jim Oberweis, are you getting the message yet that voters in Illinois would prefer if you fucked off? Has it occurred to you yet that you’ve essentially spent $9 million to pay for research that indicates voters in this state want you to go off to your hateful, racist corner and seriously diddle yourself? You’re oh for six, man. Zero for six. A big, fucking doughnut hole for six. Maybe come Nov. 3 you should think about sacrificing a live chicken?

I guess there’s something to be said for sticking to your principles, such as they are, but Jesus, Jim, even David Duke had the good sense to know when to quit. Then again, Duke managed to win an election. Once. I’m not sure if that’s more of an indictment of the voters in Louisiana’s 81st District (who in fairness had just that one lapse – I mean, it was the 80s. . . .) or of you for being a six-time loser who refuses to accept the will of the people.

Jim, this is Illinois. You’ve tried six times to buy elections. If you were going to succeed you would have by now. It’s not like the electorate here isn’t predisposed to being bought off or bamboozled by misleading political ads. People just don’t like you, OK? They … don’t … like … you. If there was a box on the ballot next to “Just Not Jim Oberweis,” a majority of voters would check it.

The writing is on the wall, and probably a few other places. You’re not gonna win. So go on, now. Git. Buh bye. See ya. Adios. (Oops, that last one is Spanish for “goodbye,” in case one of your ice cream store employees hasn’t clued you in.)

I know you’re still on the ballot for the general election. I know that even though Democrat Bill Foster whupped you 53% to 47% in a district that Republican waterboy Dennis Hastert owned for years, we’re probably going to have to listen to you spew your malevolent rhetoric at least once more. But it’s going to be a tough year to peddle hate, Jim. We’ve had it shoved down our throats for going on seven years, now. People are tired of being told who to hate and why. They prefer to figure those things out on their own. And based on this weekend’s result, I’d say they’re doing OK.

The Indignant Citizen

Time to Mow the Lawn

It appears that reports of Hillary Clinton’s political death have been exaggerated. Then again, what’s new?

As of 10:40 or so Tuesday night in Chicago, Clinton was leading Barack Obama in the polls in both Texas and Ohio, the two big prizes delegate-wise in today’s four-state primary contest. She and Obama split two appetizer states, with Rhode Island going to Clinton and Vermont to Obama.

It’s remarkable how often the mainstream press has written off the Clintons over the past 16 years. And yet … here they still are. The only example that’s of interest for our purposes is the most recent one, in which most political pundits have spoken of nothing else for the past two weeks other than Obama’s 11 primary wins in a row and how Clinton would have to drop out if she didn’t win Texas and Ohio. Now guess what: It appears Obama’s win streak reached 12 (with the calling of Vermont for him earlier in the night) and stopped there. And Clinton may well have won Texas and Ohio. In fact, the New York Times has called Ohio for Clinton, as of 10:47 p.m.

To hear the papers and the TV news tell it recently, Obama had this thing wrapped up. Now it appears the mainstream media got it wrong again.

Today was not journalism’s finest day in my eyes. I mean, it wasn’t a great day on a number of levels, starting with my experience on public transit this morning, during which I greeted no fewer than five people with a nod and a “Good morning,” only to have it returned with a blank stare and a turn-away or a silent pass-by in each case.

The I read this story in the Times, and figured maybe it was just time to give up on journalism. The worst part isn’t this story about the discovery of the fraud; no, the worst part is reading the book review from Feb. 26 and the fawning, credulous profile of the fraudster author published by the Times on Feb. 28.

In the profile in particular there were so many opportunities for the reporter to fact-check this story, to attempt to verify basic information—such as whether the author graduated from the University of Oregon, as she claimed—and yet in every instance the reporter failed to do so. It was disheartening.

Journalism is pissing itself into irrelevance. I mean, what are we doing? Where are we adding value to people’s lives? I mean, there are journalists doing good work every day; all one has to do is visit www.gangrey.com to see examples of it. But that good work just seems to be overwhelmed by a constant avalanche of stupidity and vanity shitting down on us from all levels of our profession. I get so depressed thinking about it sometimes, about the coiffed ass-clowns plying their trade on local and national TV, and the lazy hacks using up oxygen and ink at local newspapers. I mean, what’s the point of it all? So much of it is so obviously irrelevant, it’s no wonder readers regard the news profession with the same sad pity bordering on outright hostility that they do lawyers, politicians and used-car salesmen.

I always tell people the same story whenever a conversation turns to the pedantic content of local newspapers. This is what happens, I say, when businesspeople try to run news operations. They bring in focus groups, and the focus groups give feedback like, “I don’t have time to read your paper. I start to, but then I have to go mow the lawn.” The business school response is, “We have to make the stories shorter, or add more graphics, because our readers have too much to do. We need to give them only the information they need, and not waste their time.”

I guess when you gear school curriculum around making sure kids can score highly on standardized tests dreamed up by dullards in Iowa (note I did not say Iowa dullards, thus avoiding the implication that all Iowans are dullards), it shouldn’t be a surprise that critical thinking gets left out as a skill that’s taught. The result, quite naturally, is a group of business managers who respond to focus group comments like “I don’t have time to read the paper” with “We have to make the paper fit into people’s short attention spans.”

The more intelligent, and I think useful, question to ask there is, why is someone thinking about mowing the lawn not long after starting to read the paper? Could it be the story is not engaging in any way, or interesting? Could it be the person has already absorbed all of the most basic information in connection with whatever issue the story is covering on the evening news the night before and, finding nothing new—no analysis or context—in the paper, has decided to do something else?

I struggle with this in my own job. Is our little band of journalists providing anything of use to our readers, or are we just regurgitating cold facts that have already been absorbed? Are we writing just to write, or are we informing people?

Is it too late for journalism, or can it be saved somehow? Today I’m depressed, and I see no hope. I see mainstream journalism deteriorating into rumor mongering in an attempt to stay “hip” and “relevant,” or collapsing under the weight of its own bombast and self-importance.

With luck, the sun will come out tomorrow, and my mood will improve, and with it my outlook on my chosen profession.

The Indignant Citizen

The Super-est of Tuesdays

Johnny Cash: Was it the gospel, or the way I sing it?
Sam Phillips: Both.
Johnny Cash: What’s wrong with the way I sing it?
Sam Phillips: I don’t believe you.
- Sun Records producer Sam Phillips to Johnny Cash on his gospel singing from the movie “Walk the Line.”

That certainly was a super Tuesday. The day proved anticlimactic for me in one sense, because I voted early. My horse was already out of this race by the time I punched my e-ballot on Jan. 31. I wanted to back John Edwards, but he quit the race the day before I voted. Edwards’ somewhat angry, populist message resonated with me. I think the most honest thing I can say about why I supported his candidacy is that I believed him when he spoke.

Edwards was never regarded as either the polished orator Barack Obama is, or the campaigning machine Hillary Clinton is. In any election year in which a woman and a black man weren’t running for president, Edwards probably would have done better than he did, but it’s hard this year to run as a campaign for change as a white southern male candidate.

For reasons that are two numerous to count, but that include the Iraq war mess and the fact that all the candidates on the Republican side are either religious zealots of one denomination or another or war-pushing sellouts, I’m voting Democratic in November. That means I’m left to choose between Clinton and Obama. I haven’t made up my mind yet. My problem is I don’t believe either one of them, not right now, not in the way I need to in order to give one of them my vote. Hillary’s message seems to be “I’m not George Bush” and Obama’s message seems to be “I’m not George Bush OR a Clinton. (Oh, and by the way, I didn’t vote for the war.)”

I know that a lot of Democrats wet their pants every time Obama speaks, but I have not found him to be a convincing, or a even particularly stirring, orator. It’s a personal thing, but something about his tone, or his mannerisms … something is conveying to me that he’s just reading good speeches; he doesn’t believe them. This is heresy among Democrats, who have anointed Obama the second coming of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., all rolled into one person. I listen to him speak and I hear generalities and good one-liners. I don’t get goosebumps.

Clinton gives me the same feeling: like every word has been measured and carefully placed to elicit a particular reaction. She’s overly packaged. I see her and I think she looks like someone who would prefer they just let her into the White House so she can get to work; she already knows the issues, she knows what she’s going to do and so why bother with all this handshaking and “listening” when she already has all the answers. I sort of expect that from her, though, and it’s good to exude that kind of confidence. Unlike what Mike Huckabee tells me, I don’t want my president to be like the people I work with, like an everyday guy (or gal). I want my president to be the smartest fucking person in whatever room he or she happens to be in, I want to be intimidated in his or her presence, I want gravitas. The folksy, “look-at-me-I’m-functionally-illiterate-just-like-you” approach hasn’t worked so well the past seven years.

I get that sense from Obama and Clinton. But like I said, I just want someone I can listen to and believe. Obama talks about everyday folks funding his campaign, but he’s also taking money from lobbyists and holding giant fundraisers for the Democratic elite. He talks about a “new kind of politics,” but he’s endorsed Machine candidates like Richard Daley and that nitwit Todd Stroger (who have also endorsed him). He’s the same politics in a new, more exciting wrapper, it seems to me.

Hillary is just old school to the core. There ain’t nothing new there, and she’s not pretending to be new. She’s a known quantity; we know what we’re getting with her and she knows that. She’s just betting that a) we know she’s better than what we’ve gotten the past seven years, or stand to get the next four with one of the Republican candidates, and b) we prefer the devil we know.

I’m hopeful that sometime before the convention, one or the other of ‘em will throw the switch and start speaking with real conviction. I don’t want platitudes, clichés and soundbites; I want honest, from-the-gut, passion.

I don’t want to have to hold my nose when I cast my vote in November. Is that too much to ask?

The Indignant Citizen