By Steve Rhodes

1. “Very reluctantly, the Bears clinched home-field advantage Sunday throughout the NFC playoffs, which will proceed as schedule whether anyone shows up or not.”
– Don Pierson, “Bears Lack A Sense Of Urgency“
2. Peter Francis Geraci has no sense of humor.
3. The self-proclaimed most accessible public official in the nation will once again refuse to engage his campaign opponents. There will be no debates
4. “Illinois is a low-spending (42nd) and low-tax (48th) state, despite being fifth most populous. The ongoing state deficits are caused primarily by revenue shortcomings, not wasteful or profligate spending,” says Ralph Martire, of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. “Illinois also has one of the most unfair, regressive tax systems in the nation.”
As opposed to this one.
5. We can’t win in Iraq if we repeat the mistakes of Vietnam. Er, wait . . .

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Posted on December 18, 2006

By Natasha Julius

Fix Less. Spend More.
Hoping to encourage car-free commuting, the Illinois Department of Transportation this week launched a new public awareness campaign called “Drive Less, Live More.” Featuring a comprehensive website with information on all of Chicagoland’s major transit agencies, the campaign aims to convince people that living more entails waiting around, spinning in the wrong direction, and occasionally even dying. Good thing they had that extra $1.25 million just lying around.

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Posted on December 16, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

“Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown accused Mayor Daley on Thursday of seeing no evil while his former Bridgeport neighbors harassed convicted felon-turned-government witness Dan Katalinic,” the Sun-Times reports.
“One day after a federal judge condemned threatening phone calls and vandalism targeting Katalinic, Brown pointed the finger of blame directly at Daley.”
Just two days after the mayor reiterated his contention that he is the nation’s most accessible public official, a spokeswoman for his campaign as well as chief political consultant David Axelrod refused to comment.

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Posted on December 15, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

“A federal judge on Wednesday blasted neighborhood residents who harassed a Bridgeport man and vandalized his home after he cooperated with the government and testified for prosecutors in this year’s City Hall hiring fraud trial,” the Tribune reports.
The details are pretty amazing.
“There were harassing phone calls and slashed car tires, [lawyer Jeffrey] Steinback said. There was also graffiti on [former deputy Streets and San commissioner Daniel] Katalinic’s house. And finally, last Easter morning, there was a large bottle tossed through the glass front door of the home he shares with his wife and three young children, Steinback said.”
Katalinic, of course, was a key witness in the trial that sent Robert Sorich – the former patronage chief of Mayor Richard M. Daley – to jail. Three other high-ranking aides were also convicted.
“Following their sentencing, Daley defended Sorich and the others, saying they were all men of good character,” the Tribune notes.
I wonder what Daley thinks of Sorich’s other friends and defenders – the ones harassing Katalinic.

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Posted on December 14, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Mayor Richard M. Daley played the media for fools yesterday by holding a day-long series of 10-minute one-on-one “interviews” that guaranteed distribution of his carefully planned talking points in the guise of news without having to actually submit himself to actual questioning.
This is because the mayor holds you in contempt. He doesn’t think his business – the city’s business – is any of your business.

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Posted on December 13, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

1. Devin Hester’s Wikipedia entry includes this fun fact: “Hester is in a relationship with Tamara James, a former women’s basketball player he met at the University of Miami; James currently plays professionally for the Washington Mystics.”
2. Let the Devin Hester endorsement sweepstakes begin.
3. “You’re one of college football’s most exciting players, but you’re not a starter on your own team.”
– Hester being interviewed by the Black Sports Network when he was a college junior.
4. I’m pretty sure Hester reads The Beachwood Reporter.
Just sayin’.
5. Dock Walls files more nominating petitions than Daley. Evidence that Daley is nothing without the street operation that has been eviscerated by the fed? A tactic to not appear heavy-handed in the face of minimal opposition from two African-American candidates? Or a way to lessen media scrutiny of his operation by shrinking the target?

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Posted on December 12, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Richard M. Daley, the man who has presided over a thoroughly corrupt administration for 17 years, will stage an artificial event today “announcing” he is running for re-election.
According to Fran Spielman’s report this morning, he will not take questions.
Rainbow Shrimp
Spielman dutifully records how Daley will surround himself with a rainbow coalition, noting the moves the mayor has made in recent months to pander to blacks and Hispanics. She forgets to note that after 17 years in office, he still had the need to decide questions about public policy on the basis of having to pander to blacks and Hispanics on the eve of a re-election campaign.
Record Deal
Daley wants to be judged on his entire record, not just the crimes committed in his administration. The same way a prisoner asks a parole board to weigh his crimes against how well he’s organized his cellblock and how nicely he’s decorated his cell.
Pipsqueaks
“For months, Daley has played a cat-and-mouse game with reporters,” Spielman writes. “He has insisted he had not made up his mind about running and wouldn’t until he talked to his wife, Maggie, searched his soul, and determined whether he had the ‘fire in the belly’ to continue in the job he loves.”
Just to be clear, reporters were the mice.

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Posted on December 11, 2006

Weekend Desk Report Editor Natasha Julius is on assignment. The Baker–Hamilton Commission filed this report for us instead.
Worse Than We Thought
The whole world was watching this week as a long-awaited report delivered the bad news: The situation on the ground is “grave and deteriorating.” Events are outrunning our ability to control them.

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Posted on December 9, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

1. He played Lazlo in Real Genius, dated Bruce Springsteen’s little sister, saw Zeppelin when they were still Zeppelin, directed Ice Cube in a low-rent rap video, and once found himself in a recording studio with Harry Nillson, Alice Cooper, John Sebastian, Mickey Dolenz, Keith Moon, and, unknowingly, John Lennon. Is Jon Gries the coolest guy ever?
2. “Iraq Study Group Settles Debate Over ‘Negative’ War Coverage.”
3. Being right about the war is the wrong thing to be.
4. Anyone want to apologize to Howard Dean and France yet?
5. Overblown.

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Posted on December 8, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

* Can the Iraq Study Group now get to work on Iran and North Korea? And then the economy, health care, Illinois’ finances, and the BCS?
* The Iraq Study Group: Shadow government at its best.
* George W. Bush is kind of like a national version of Todd Stroger, isn’t he? But does that make Bill Beavers our Dick Cheney?
* Baker-Hamilton ’08.
* Rudy Giuliani was originally a member of the study group, but bailed out earlier this year. In a letter to Baker, he said, “my previous time commitments do not permit me the full and active participation that the Iraq Study Group deserves.”
Rudy Giuliani: A true patriot.
He was replaced by Ed Meese.
* Newspaper editors are right – Americans just aren’t interested in serious news.
* This oral history of the Iraq war is stunning in its revelation of how long ago the media knew the picture the Bush Administration was presenting of conditions on the ground had nothing to do with reality. It also shows how naive much of the media’s coverage has been.

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Posted on December 7, 2006