By Steve Rhodes

Editor’s Note: The next installment of this feature will appear on Monday, not on Friday as originally planned.
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Continuing this week’s wacky tour through the local commentariot.
Rick Telander: “Both [Derrick] Rose and Blackhawks star Patrick Kane are only 21 years old, and that’s something to think about right there,” Telander wrote recently.
“They’ve both had some slip-ups in their lime-lit lives, but I think back to my own self at 21, a second-semester junior in college. Oh, my God.
“Think back to yourself at 21. Or if you’re not yet 21, ponder the idiot you are right now.
“It is one of our eternal blessings that most of us get to grow out of our youth without the rest of the world much noticing or caring. My personal blessings were that I didn’t have any money and that cell-phone cameras didn’t exist.”
Or what, you would’ve been caught cheating on your college admissions test or punching a cab driver over a 20 cents?
No wonder professional athletes feel like they can get away with anything. Oh, the hardships they face!

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Posted on February 25, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

Where do they come from?
That’s the question the perpetually (and rightfully so) exasperated Bob Somerby frequently asks at the Daily Howler.
Where do our most well-known commentators who construct and endlessly convey the mediocre thinking that somehow passes for both conventional wisdom and insight at the same time come from?
And when Somerby asks that, he’s asking what planet?
Somerby would have a field day with the locals. Let’s take a look at some of their recent work.

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Posted on February 23, 2010

By Chris Clair
Updates appended.
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Sent via e-mail on February 17 after reading about this in the Beachwood.
Dear Senator Cullerton,
I read with interest in today’s Chicago Tribune news of the Illinois Senate’s closed-to-the-media (and by extension the public) caucus meeting to discuss state and national budgeting issues. In particular I noted this quote, attributed to you:
“You’re missing the whole point,” Cullerton said.
“This is meant to be one where just the senators are there to get information, but where they can also feel they can ask questions and . . . have a free exchange of ideas without having to be worried about what the press might report.”
With all due respect, sir, it’s you who is missing the point; you and any of your senate colleagues who support a closed-door meeting to discuss issues clearly of interest to the public. I’m not sure which made me more angry: the meeting itself or your lazy, stupid and contemptuous justification for it. Ideas are free to be exchanged in any setting, regardless of who’s nearby and whether or not they’re carrying notepads and recorders. The only thing that prevents the free exchange of ideas in any setting is a lack of courage. The idea that elected officials need to be sheltered from the press to speak freely is laughable. Or maybe just cowardly.

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Posted on February 22, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

Up until his recent turn into right-wing loony land, I had always respected Mark Kirk. In fact, when I interviewed him in 2000 during his first congressional campaign I came away thinking he might be on a national ticket someday. His biggest obstacle to national renown, it seemed to me, would be the rightward turn of his party. Now he’s turning with it – depressingly so. But if you take a look at the Mark Kirk of 2000, you’ll see the attributes and background that made him an impressive candidate then with a bright future. Here is the Chicago magazine story I wrote then of that first campaign.
Two Pols in a Pod
The race to replace GOP congressman John Porter has attracted national notice as a key battle in the House, and the two parties have sent in their heavy guns. One problem: How do you tell the candidates apart?
Two scenes from one of the nation’s most widely watched – and expensive – congressional campaigns, now playing on the North Shore:
Lauren Beth Gash is knocking on doors in Highland Park one August evening when she comes up on a man sitting on a motorcycle in his driveway. Gash asks for his vote. He gives her a skeptical eye. “How do you feel about all this nursing home stuff?” he asks, apropos of nothing. “What nursing home stuff?” she replies. The stories in the papers, he explains, about the abuse of nursing home residents. “Of course I’m against nursing home abuse,” Gash says tersely. “Everyone is.” And then she tacks in the unexpected direction of a Chamber of Commerce mouthpiece. “But it’s a complicated issue. We can’t make regulations so stringent that we put owners out of business.”
Gash is the Democrat in this race.
Mark Steven Kirk is the scanning the largely African American crowd at the First Fellowship Baptist Church in Waukegan minutes before a candidates’ forum one day in September. He is looking for his favorite ministers. Then he takes his place behind a lectern and opens his segment of the forum by explaining his ten-point plan for Waukegan; four of the first five points address environmental issues. And then he introduces a special member of the audience – Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democrat.
Kirk, who is also pro-choice and pro-gun control, is the Republican in this race.

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Posted on February 18, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

When Gov. Pat Quinn named Michael Randle the director of the Illinois Department of Corrections in May, he said his administration had “looked all over the country” and found “the best of the best.”
But at the time Quinn hired Randle, “the best of the best” was under investigation by Ohio’s inspector general for allegedly conducting business in a very Chicago way. (Did I mention that Randle is originally from Chicago?) That investigation was completed last July, but virtually no one in Illinois paid attention to it. Let’s take a look.
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The investigation was spurred by this TV report about a sweetheart deal to sell prisoner-made furniture at a discount to a frat brother of Randle’s.
Ohio’s inspector general concluded that Randle had acted improperly, but uncovered a far more serious deal that Randle steered to his old college buddy.
“It smells of sweetheart deals, sweetheart relationships,” Henry Eckhart of Common Cause told WBNS-10TV. “It smells of secrecy, of cover up, of all that.”
Randle had no comment back then on the inspector general’s conclusions; by that time was already Pat Quinn’s new prisons chief.
You can find the Ohio inspector general’s report here. We’ll provide the executive summary and some other highlights.

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Posted on February 15, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

Data for top primary campaign contributors (contributions and loans) from January 1, 2009 to January 2, 2010 supplied by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Comments by me.
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1. Mary McKenna, $2,732,000.
It must be nice to be a kept man, Andy.
2. SEIU HealthCare IL In PAC/SEIU IL Council, $2,066,000.
They give to Republicans too.
3. Scott Lee Cohen, $1,788,666.
But you couldn’t buy a responsible press.
4. RP Lumber, Inc., Plummer General, Jason Plummer, Robert Plummer, $1,310,000.
Another rich kid coasting on daddy’s money.
5. IL Education Assn IPACE, $872,500.
Backed Hynes, Dillard and Hoffman.

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Posted on February 8, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

Embattled lieutenant governor nominee Scott Lee Cohen has finally won my support. If only he wasn’t tethered to his bumbling running mate.
It happened during Cohen’s interview on Chicago Tonight last night when I realized that Cohen was the only one during the campaign and this ensuing episode who did his job. He didn’t try to hide his past; he practically begged the media to take a look at it and get it out of the way – so just this scenario wouldn’t develop.
As Cohen sat (with his ex-wife) opposite Phil Ponce, I thought to myself, Cohen should be interviewing him!
“And why, sir, did you not see fit to examine the backgrounds of the candidates running to sit within a heartbeat of the governorship?”
“What do you think about the media’s failure to care about this race?”
“To what degree should we hold party chairman Michael Madigan responsible?”
“Am I any less qualified for the job than Rickey Hendon? Doesn’t his background scare you?”
Let’s take a look at Cohen’s interview and some of the coverage in today’s papers.

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Posted on February 5, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

“Sometimes, I just don’t know whether to laugh or cry” a faithful Beachwood reader writes. “How the hell did local media manage to break the news about Dorothy Brown’s jeans drama before Tuesday while blowing off Scott Lee Cohen’s legal troubles?”
Let’s take a look.

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Posted on February 4, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

Talking back to the TV as the returns roll in.
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Cliff Kelley is on CLTV! With Al Salvi. Both are rehashing partisan nonsense. What’s the point?
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Garrard McClendon: His blog commenters are “on fire.” He thinks this shows that the Constitution is alive. Seriously.
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Don Rose! Let’s trot out all the old warhorses. Certainly Paul Green is on somewhere!
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“Weather is brought to you by RedEye.”
No it’s not!
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Enough with Pat Quinn’s lucky tie, please. There’s no such thing.
And do we really want a governor who believes so? (Does he wear it to budget negotiations?)

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Posted on February 3, 2010

By The Beachwood Change Is Us Affairs Desk

Editor’s Note: This is a primary. You don’t have to vote if you don’t want to participate in internal party activities. But if you do chose to vote, don’t hesitate to use our eVoter ad on our right rail to construct your sample ballot, or consult the Tribune or Sun-Times election centers. And remember, you can take this guide with you into the voting booth. Just cut along the dotted lines.
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GOVERNOR, DEMOCRATIC
Candidate: PAT QUINN
Sleaze Factor: 8 of 10
Chance Of Winning: 50 percent
Reason To Vote For Him: So Green nominee Rich Whitney becomes the default progressive candidate.
Reason To Vote Against Him: Backed by Ed Burke and Joe Berrios.
Relevant Trivia:
* Says his greatest accomplishment is “assuming office last year and stabilizing the government.” In what state?

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Posted on February 2, 2010