Personal Asides: Why Won’t the “Trib” Come Clean About Fed’s Subpoena?...Bill Daley Plays Dumb but Doesn’t Do it As Convincingly As His Brother.

Come Clean, Tribune!

The Chicago “Tribune” which is determined to find out the inside skinny about politicians in behalf of the people is quite reluctant to do the same with it’s own problems. You remember when the crusading newspaper broke the news about Blair Hull who hit his wife in order to make her stop kicking him? And also when it went to California and blew the court-order secrecy on Jack Ryan’s divorce papers which revealed that he propositioned his wife. The high-and-mighty paper therefore became solely responsible for Hull’s political demise…leading to the nomination of Barack Obama—and also for Ryan’s departure from the campaign which, if anything did, paved the way for Obama’s election.



So the paper has much to answer for. But now we find that the paper’s consultant, Marc Gainis, communicated with John Harris, Blago’s chief of staff regarding the Cubs (which the paper wanted to unload). Gainis emailed the news that Sam Zell was getting ready to call Blago and that Nils Larsen, the paper’s exec vice president, was in the mix as well.

Why then if the paper is so stalwart an advocate of the people’s right to know (important things like Jack Ryan’s sex life and Blair Hull’s hitting his wife in order to get her to stop kicking him)…why is the paper doing a stonewall on an issue which is clearly the people’s right to know? Things like: what does the subpoena say? Did Zell or Larsen place a call to the governor?

If Bruce Dold, chief of the editorial page, is so loftily free of corporate conflict of interest and runs his own shop, why is he so mum? Huh? Com’on Bruce, say something. You were very enthusiastic and mouthy on “Chicago Tonight” after your paper endorsed Obama. Cat got your tongue?

Bill Daley Never Heard of the Guy.

The supine news media didn’t hype it but Bill Daley’s name came up at the Al Sanchez trial where the former Streets and San commissioner faces charges that can send him away for a long time…through improper use of his office and city workers in behalf of the Dems. One Roberto Medina said that he was present when Daley, Tim Degnan. Luis Gutierrez and Ben Reyes suggested he get involved in forming the Hispanic Democratic Organization (HDO) which has been linked to many patronage scandals.

Of course Daley denied it, declaring he never heard of Medina. Which is clearly a bare-faced lie but since the Daleys are all immersed in denial, I imagine denial was quite easy to say without regurgitation.

Which leads to the question as to whether the younger brother of Mayor Daley would be a tough-to-beat candidate for the U. S. Senate in 2010. Conventional wisdom says he will be. I think he’ll be a pushover to beat given the soiled linen he brings to the table. But he’s got great chutzpah as for example when, as campaign manager for Al Gore, he lectured against purported Republican vote fraud in the Florida recount in 2000. To be lectured about the need for vote-counting purity by Old Man Daley’s kid…where the dead rose from their graves…(and which I studied as chairman of Project LEAP, the anti-vote fraud organization)…was a real gas.