By Steve Rhodes

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton gave two very different speeches in Selma, Alabama, over the weekend at events commemmorating the Bloody Sunday march 42 years ago .
Obama’s speech was halting, filled with boilerplate (“I stand on the shoulders of giants;” “I am the fruits of your labor”) and uninspiring – unless you are one of his cultish worshippers who remind me of rock fans so blinded by adulation of their star that they’d wildly cheer a favorite song performed in farts and burps.
Believe it or not, I have no particular interest in who wins the Democratic presidential nomination. I am not supporting Hillary Clinton, nor am I intending to vote for her.
My interest is in merely evaluating the candidates and, especially, the media coverage they receive. And even Obama and his advisers admit the coverage they are getting is over-the-top. (Oh how I wish Obama was everything they say he is! How great would that be? But alas, that’s not what I see.)
And so it is again with Selma.

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Posted on March 5, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

If it wasn’t for all the corruption, Richard M. Daley would be the perfect mayor, right? And let’s face it, a little grease is needed to make the wheels of government turn. Hail Daley!
At least that’s the way the media sycophants and stenographers tell the tale. And the current “campaign” is no different. Without an opponent the media deems strong enough, the tough Chicago press corps has taken a pass once again at examining the mayor’s record, much less his plans going forward into another term. Why bore everyone with the issues when we’re trying to land the Olympics?
Policy-makers and advocates in the trenches tell a different story, though. The Developing Government Accountability to the People project consulted hundreds of such civic-minded people and organizations to study the issues over the past year to grade the mayor’s job performance. It isn’t pretty.
And yet, even the DGAP’s report card doesn’t wholly reflect the reality of this mayor’s tenure. The Reader’s Ben Joravsky reports that “some of its members privately confessed to me that they felt pressured to inflate Daley’s grades (awarding him, for instance, a C on transportation) because they figured their funding agencies and the media wouldn’t take them seriously if they’d given him all the Fs he deserved.”
Today we run the second of our two-part series excerpting from the DGAP report card. In Part One, we looked at the Environment, Economic Development, Housing, and Transportation. Today we’ll examine Education, Criminal Justice, and Corruption. Read both parts, ehen decide if you really want to cast a vote for this guy – and if he’s as great as the media tells you he is.
EDUCATION: C
“Given questionable methods of data collection and interpretation, concerns abound as to whether progress truly is being made in such critical areas as reduction of dropout rates and increases in college enrollment and completion. Test scores in some areas are up, but many believe this is because test instruments have been changed, creating a situation in which reporting has lost credibility and reliance on these standardized tests is widely discredited.”

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Posted on February 27, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

If it wasn’t for all the corruption, Richard M. Daley would be the perfect mayor, right? And let’s face it, a little grease is needed to make the wheels of government turn. Hail Daley!
At least that’s the way the media sycophants and stenographers tell the tale. And the current “campaign” is no different. Without an opponent the media deems strong enough, the tough Chicago press corps has taken a pass once again at examining the mayor’s record, much less his plans going forward into another term. Why bore everyone with the issues when we’re trying to land the Olympics?
Policy-makers and advocates in the trenches tell a different story, though. The Developing Government Accountability to the People project consulted hundreds of such civic-minded people and organizations to study the issues over the past year to grade the mayor’s job performance. It isn’t pretty.
And yet, even the DGAP’s report card doesn’t wholly reflect the reality of this mayor’s tenure. The Reader‘s Ben Joravsky reports that “some of its members privately confessed to me that they felt pressured to inflate Daley’s grades (awarding him, for instance, a C on transportation) because they figured their funding agencies and the media wouldn’t take them seriously if they’d given him all the Fs he deserved.”
Over the next two days, we’ll run excerpts from the DGAP report card. Today we look at Environment, Economic Development, Housing, and Transportation. Tomorrow we’ll look at Education, Criminal Justice, and Corruption. Then decide if you really want to cast a vote for this guy – and if he’s as great as the media tells you he is.
ENVIRONMENT: B+
“The Mayor’s obvious zeal for environmental progress makes his seeming indifference to certain, very large environmental problems perplexing. While we have seen recent indications of a shift in some positions- a retreat from the blue bag recycling program, for example, major corporate polluters are ignored, further damaging air quality and endangering the health of local residents.”

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Posted on February 26, 2007

By Allison Riggio

A dozen candidates managed to get on the ballot in the 15th Ward in a lollapalooza of a fight to replace the retiring, two-term alderman Ted Thomas. Here’s a look at the field, in alphabetical order.
1.
Name: Richard Anderson.
Born in: Arkansas.
Lived in 15th Ward: 26 years.
Education: No post-secondary.
Current Occupation: CTA custodial worker, 21 years.
Political Experience: Precinct captain, local school council.
Campaign Issues: Job security, safety and security in ward, low-income housing.
Claims To Be Different From The Other Candidates Because: “I don’t do a lot of talking. I know what to do once I’m put in charge; once I’m given the opportunity by the community. If they come and work with me we can do a number of things. I’m not even worried.”
In Free Time Likes To: Coach baseball.
Favorite Chicago Sports Team: White Sox.
Biggest Donors: Self.

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Posted on February 22, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

The media playing field is tilted in Obama’s favor right now, so the David Geffen flap is spinning in his favor, but if the media would take its mind off the thrill of the tit-for-tat and actually examine what’s being said, a different picture emerges.
It all started with Geffen’s comments to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Let’s take a look.
Geffen: “I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? — can bring the country together.”
Comment: What’s all this about how polarizing Hillary is? Even Republicans in New York like her. Her Senate approval rating is a healthy 56 percent; she has a 58 percent rating nationally. Were the Clintons ever polarizing? Or was it the right-wing nutjobs manufacturing tales of murder and kidnapping, and lesser “scandals” lapped up by the media that never came to be?
Besides, right now David Geffen is the most polarizing person in the campaign.

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Posted on February 22, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

If Barack Obama isn’t careful, a narrative is going to develop – if it isn’t developing already – that he is an inflator of flattering claims about himself.
The Los Angeles Times published a story on Sunday calling into question Obama’s fictionalized version of events as a community organizer working in the Altgeld Gardens housing project 20 years ago.
Channel 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery followed up with a report also unkind to Obama’s claims – including Obama’s boast that he sacrificed a high-flying legal career to work for a meager $13,000 a year on the South Side. It turns out he was making $25,000 in the same job two years later, a fact Obama conveniently leaves out even as he continues to this day to tout his noble financial sacrifice. (I didn’t make more than $21,000 before my third newspaper job, so I’m not all that impressed.)

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Posted on February 21, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

The news from the mayoral campaign trail is dreadful. The incumbent is appearing only in private before his biggest contributors and in television ads before news shows as a substitute for actual campaign news; the main challenger is staying overnight with a family who may not even vote for her; and the space cadet candidate is touting the city’s most sophisticated political machine he is sure is about to deliver him a landslide. Let me tell you something – Dock Walls must have the city’s most sophisticated political machine because he seems to have perfected stealth campaign technology. It seems Walls is so busy writing his inaugural speech he can’t be bothered to show up at his own scheduled events.

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Posted on February 19, 2007

By The Beachwood Access Affairs Desk

This letter arrived in the Beachwood mailbox this week laying out how Sun-Times-based syndicated columnist Robert Novak sells access to the people he covers for financial gain.
–
Dear Fellow American,
When was the last time you sat in a room just a few feet from the likes of Vice President Cheney or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, asked a question and got a straightforward answer?
Unless you have attended the Evans-Novak Political Forum, you may have never had this experience.
Twice a year my friend, Robert Novak, brings together a select few of the nation’s leaders in a one-day Forum at an exclusive, private club in Washington, D.C.
Reserve Your Seat Today!
Each speaker speaks briefly about the issues of the day, then opens the floor to questions – any question. The answers are frank and open, because there are no reporters. This meeting is 100% off the record.

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Posted on February 16, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

Let us now come forward and speak the truth. Barack Obama’s much-anticipated speech on Saturday was ordinary, at best. Very ordinary.
Come on, now. Tell the truth.
I’ve seen a lot of speeches in my day; I’m a C-SPAN geek and I’ve particularly follow presidential campaigns closely since Carter-Ford. Let us now tell the truth:
Barack Obama gave a very ordinary speech, at best, one that would be instantly forgettable if not memorable only because of how ordinary it was.
Read it for yourself. Watch it for yourself. And tell yourself the truth.

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Posted on February 12, 2007

By The Beachwood Vs. Affairs Desk

Barack Obama will make his presidential campaign official on Saturday with a kickoff event at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, inviting yet more comparisons to Abraham Lincoln. We get the ball rolling.
Lincoln: Likeness on the five-dollar bill.
Obama: Likeness on the cover of a five-dollar magazine.

Lincoln: Stovepipe hat.
Obama: Stovepipe pants.

Lincoln: Born in a log cabin.
Obama: Once rolled a doobie as thick as a log.

Lincoln: Saddled with American Civil War.
Obama: Will be saddled with Iraqi Civil War.

Lincoln: Debated Stephen Douglas.
Obama: Will debate Stephen Colbert.

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Posted on February 11, 2007