By Steve Rhodes

The first gubernatorial debate between Gov. Rod Blagojevich and challenger Judy Baar Topinka – broadcast last Sunday on Dick Kay’s City Desk – was a truly weird and disturbing affair whose freakishness was nowhere near adequately captured by the media covering it.
Perhaps intent on providing a “balanced” account rather than a true one – and enthralled by a real, unscripted debate in which the challenger actually, um, challenged the incumbent – the media reports focused on the fact itself that a debate actually broke out at a debate rather than examining the incredibly lame and reckless behavior of the participants.
Personally, I found myself wondering at times if Judy Baar Topinka was doing lines of coke during the commercial breaks or was simply overly mindful of advisors urging her to attack, attack, attack. The unhinged Topinka, who by the way is the state treasurer, and a Republican, reminded me of one of those cranky old folks who rise to speak during the public comments portion of city council or school board meetings and is so incensed about her complaint of the day that she can’t spit out a coherent sentence. She made me wonder if our state’s money was really safe with her.
On the other hand, I found myself wondering at times if the pouty Blagojevich was going to cry as he pleaded with mom that he really had been a good boy.
Is there still time for someone not named James Meeks to make a third-party run?
And yet, I find it incredibly easy to declare a winner amidst the hijinks.

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Posted on May 31, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

1. In a national address, President Bush pledged last night to secure our borders, and proposed a temporary worker program as part of an immigration reform package that he says will “live up to the promise and values of America.”
Oh, wait. That was two years ago.
2. Jesse Jackson recently noted that until 1918 the United States didn’t require passports to enter the country and the Mexican border was unguarded, in a column debunking immigration myths.
3. Finally, a presidential plan that would reverse the flow of people across the border.
4. A new development: Illegal Immigrants Returning To Mexico For American Jobs
5. These foreign flags didn’t seem to upset a soul.

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Posted on May 16, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

The news blackout in Chicago on Stephen Colbert’s controversial keynote speech at the White House correspondents dinner a week ago ended on Sunday when the Sun-Times packaged a review by its TV critic with an edited transcript of the performance on the cover of its Controversy section, under the headline “The Mocking Of The President 2006.”
That’s right. If your only source of news is the Chicago newspapers, you’ve been in the dark about a story that has engaged not only the mystified political insiders and their media brethren in Washington, D.C., and the nation’s newsrooms, but the political outsiders who shape public political debate on the Internet, talk radio, and cable-TV.

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Posted on May 8, 2006

By Kiljoong Kim

In 1980, 69 percent of Illinois residents were born in Illinois.
The next highest place of birth among Illinois residents was Missouri, accounting for 2.4 percent (279,025 people) of our state’s population.
By 1990, Missouri fell out of the top spot as the largest provider of Illinois residents born elsewhere. It was replaced by Mexico.

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Posted on May 1, 2006