After Mine: When the Readers Have Their Say.

Question: What do you have against the Sun-Times?

Response: Now that I am writing for the Tribune, I can speak out. Nothing that a reform of the Sun-Times several columns can’t cure. The paper’s news staff is excellent and deserves the Pulitzer for uncovering the Hired Trucks and other Daley scandals. By and large the editorials are moderate, although of a fashionably leftish point of view (I’m overlooking the endorsement of gay marriage which was mandated upstairs). I’ve scorched the excesses of Ms. Sweet who is so biased she cannot perceive it and Ms. Falsani the religion editor whose ignorance of the subject she is supposed to cover is phenomenal.

Question: When you said the U.S. entered all wars except World War II through preemption you made a mistake about World War I. The Germans violated their pledge not to wage submarine warfare on private shipping.

Response: Remember, our entry into World War I was not warranted. No American interest was at stake. The Brits were involved in a significant atrocity of their own: a deliberate effort to starve the Germans with a naval blockade, violating several norms of international law codified in the 19th and 20th centuries. Winston Churchill, then the First Lord of the Admiralty wrote that the purpose of the blockade was “to starve the whole population—men, women and children, old and young, wounded and sound—into submission.” Germany responded on Feb. 4, 1915 that it would retaliate against the blockade with submarine warfare, pointing out that neutral ships would be exposed to danger in view of misuse of neutral flags by the British government (Churchill in 1915 endorsed the policy of using neutral flags to shield British ships from attack). As soon as Germany announced its submarine policy, Woodrow Wilson stated for the public that the German government would be held strictly accountable for the loss of American vessels on the high seas.

On March 29, 1915 the British ship Falaba was sunk by German submarines with 110 people lost including one American. Britain said the sub fired without warning but it was later found that the German captain had given the Falaba three warnings and fired only when a British warship appeared. The reason the Falaba blew up was—wanna guess? It was carrying thirteen tons of ammunition. John Basset Moore, the professor of international law who served as judge at the International Court of Justice after the war ruled that “what most decisively contributed to the involvement of the United States in the war was the assertion of the right to protect belligerent ships on which Americans saw fit to travel and t he treatment of armed belligerent merchantmen as peaceful vessels.” The sinking of the Lusitania in May, 1915 which lost 124 of the 154 Americans on board found that there were 5,000 cases of ammunition on board which resulted in the ship sinking so quickly. In fact, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, a pacifist, went public with an attack on his chief Wilson by saying: “Why be shocked by the drowning of a few people if there is to be no objection to starving a nation?” It was a grossly impolitic statement which Wilson didn’t even try to answer—and Bryan resigned his post.

Question: But what has this to do with Falsani?

Response: She quotes her semi-atheist friend who charges the Bush administration for the first time in history employed preemptive strategy to go to war. My point was all our wars were initiated preemptively with the exception of World War II.

Question: You seem to resent the fact that she has an atheist friend.

Response: Nonsense, we all have some atheist friends—at least I do. I object to her inability to categorize her friend properly which one would expect a religion writer to be able to do. One cannot be sorta, kinda atheist. One is either an atheist or not. Sorta, kinda would qualify for agnosticism.

Question: But she said from the outset that she would be a different kind of religion editor.

Response: Yes, she’s vastly different. An incompetent one. She believes her sorta, kinda friend gave her the license to write editorials in the religious spot where her instincts are imprecise, evidence of sloppy left thinking. Where her editors are I honestly don’t know. Maybe there were sorta, kinda in agreement with her or sorta, kinda drinking coffee when her copy passed by them—if, indeed, it did pass by them.

Question: Oh, you’re an old grump.

Response: Make that a question: you’re an old grump, aren’t you?

Question: Well, aren’t you?

Response: Of course.

Jeff Berkowitz Seems to Have Called It Right

…on my WLS-AM program last night when he predicted that Judy Baar Topinka would shortly announce that she will run for governor. The Tribune this morning confirmed it. Her willingness to run will put the conservatives in a dreadful bind. This year, more than ever before, there are outstanding conservatives seeking the nomination—too many of them: State Sen. Bill Brady, businessman Jim Oberweis, State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger with Joe Birkett probably bowing out (one rumor has him running for Lieutenant Governor with Topinka—say it’s not true, Joe!) Normally, a Summit endorsement should have convinced those who lost to drop out. Not this conservative group: they’d rather all run and lose to a Republican liberal.

If the deadlock holds, conservative intransigence will frustrate any attempt to take the party back with all-but-official Democrat Jim Thompson’s and wuss crybaby Jim Edgar’s choice winning the nomination. Yesterday Thompson was on TV extolling the prematurely orange-haired lady who plays her accordion at gay rights rallies. You’d think with his record as the audit committee watchdog who snoozed on the Sun-Times board while the two crooks ran away with everything but the door-knobs, the media would have more questions to ask of the monstrously ego-driven Thompson than who he backs for governor. But get this: conservatives proud of their inability to compromise to build a united ticket will go down with all trumpets blaring the inanity that means nothing to insiders: “Kjellander must go, hey-hey!” allowing a grateful Topinka to get the nomination. Thus will the geriatric wing of conservatism triumph with the slogan: We forget nothing and learn nothing.

After Mine: When the Readers Have Their Say

Several questions: Why do you pick on Lynn Sweet? On a different basis than I have picked on Ms. Falsani. On the article concerning her column in the Sun-Times where she catalogues solely Democratic comings and goings: How do you expect any different since the Democrats control the congressional delegation and the fact that Republicans ran that sure-loser Alan Keyes?

Response: Give me a break, please. Feminist Sweet is supposed to be the Washington bureau chief. She is supposed to cover, among other things, the Illinois congressional delegation, not file her claws on a partisan grindstone. She writes opinion columns often either on the editorial page or on the news pages while she doubles as a so-called objective journalist. Think about it: does Maureen Dowd in the New York Times also write straight news? No, she does opinion. Is it fair to write an occasional analysis as well as straight news? Yes, if it’s analysis and not opinion where with Ms. Sweet is concerned. My beef is that she writes about Republicans on the Hill only when what they do conform to her prejudices. It’s easy to make that charge because all you have to do is spend 50 cents on any given day.

My beef is that she neglects the Republicans because so ingrained are her liberal prejudices that she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. Either her editors are of the same disposition or they are unable to stop Ms. Run-a-mok. Why shouldn’t the Republican side of the delegation get decent coverage? Hey, the Republican delegation has the third highest public official in the United States of America: the Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert. You mean to tell me that Hastert’s not news? He’s not news only when you’re uninterested in the Republican side of the aisle. In addition, the chairman of the House International Affairs committee, Henry Hyde; the man who frequently is called upon to preside over the House whenever there’s stormy legislative weather: Ray LaHood, who is also a key member of Appropriations. Don Manzullo is chairman of the House Small Business committee. Mark Kirk, on Armed Services, who is a Navy reserve flyer tangled with Rumsfeld on Iraq and is on Budget as well.

Several questions: Why do you canonize Obama? He only won because the Democratic primary was split between multi-millionaire Blair Hull and a number of others enabling him to slip through. One of these days Obama’s got to do something.

Response: True, Obama slipped in but special conditions are responsible for many victories. John F. Kennedy beat Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. because Lodge was too involved in the Eisenhower presidential campaign. When Kennedy ran for reelection in 1958, it wasn’t even close. Obama now is the most popular Senate Democrat today. Are you telling me that if he ran today he would also “slip” in? I don’t think so!

The Politization of the Sun-Times: Where Religion and Politics Merge

Since the two crooks have gone, the newspaper’s books may be more honest (unless Jim Thompson, the watchdog who slept during the old regime while gloriously clinking wine glasses with Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle, still continues inattentively with the New Guard) but the old modishly leftward tilt, historically there, has veered so decidedly as to seemingly fall off the edge of the earth. There was a time when Ray Brennan and others led the pack of investigative journalists there; but now all that seemingly remains are some doggerel posing as straight news which is nothing less than the uptown edition of The Nation magazine. To discover it, don’t take a look at the editorials but at the news columns, signed columns and “analyses.” In particular, take a look at the left-wing hallelujah chorus comprising Friday’so-called Religion column by one Cathleen (with a “C”) Falsani. I don’t know her but to give her the benefit of the doubt one would surmise she is a bubble-gum popping adolescent.

There are all kinds of religion stories to be covered that are languishing. I’ll name only a few from my particular religious perspective: how are the city’s two Catholic universities, Loyola and DePaul, doing with the mandatum that Rome had tried to install under John Paul II where theology taught is supposed to have the approval of the bishop? And what happened with a drive to fund a so-called Catholic college on the north shore where Barat stands? These stories are sparsely covered, if at all is my conclusion as one who taught as an adjunct at both universities and fought to create the third.

Instead of purveying news, what is her religion column to Falsani? It is license to write about herself, of course. A favorite Sun-Times habit is for columnists to think it’s all about Me. In addition, Falsani propounds her political views. And what does Falsani tell us about herself and what does she think about public issues? : Why, she writes she’s receiving an e-mail from a friend named Amanda who “happens to be a Jewish atheist, more or less.” I digress but: an atheist more or less: an this from a so-called religion writer? Aquinas proved conclusively in the 13th century that one is either an atheist or is not; if one is “less” she is an agnostic. But the Me column goes on,

Amanda lists President Bush’s faults (which Falsani reproduces in detail): He supports the death penalty, “he reversed the civilized world’s abhorrence of preemptive war,” he “sold America a war based on lies,” he willingly “started an unnecessary war that has resulted in the deaths of 2,000 and tens of thousands of Iraqis; he tacitly “condones torture”; he is “against stem cell research”; he “does not push to fully fund Veterans Administration hospitals or health insurance for veterans.” Then Falsani (purportedly the Sun-Times religion Editor) declares “[f]or a year I’ve not been able to bring myself to respond in any substantive way.” What a ghastly admission.

How about correcting her kinda atheistic friend’s god-awful misstatements of fact? The death penalty, when applied justly, is not immoral as propounded for 1,500 years. With the exception of World War II all the wars we engaged in were preemptive. What was Woodrow Wilson”s credo “to make the world safe for democracy”? What was Lincoln’s decision to reinforce Fort Sumter? What was Truman’s decision to send troops to Korea? The North Koreans who invaded the South didn’t attack us. When the colonists took muskets to Lexington and Concord before the Brits fired on them: what was that? Bush is not against “stem cell” research; he is against embryonic stem cell research.

What kind of “reporter” is Falsani anyhow? Bush “sold America a war based on lies”? If the TV weather person tells you it’s going to be sunny tomorrow and it rains, that’s not a lie: it’s an error. Since the Congress had all the intelligence Bush had and voted for war—including John Kerry—did Kerry lie to America? Did Congress lie to America? Since Britain had the same intelligence, did Blair lie to Great Britain? Did parliament lie?

Falsani announces, “[T]here comes a time when silence is immoral. Now, I believe is that time.” Drum-roll, please. How about practicing a bit of silence while you do your homework and research the facts, Ms. Falsani? How about using your column to cover religious news not as an bludgeon for sloppy, half-baked opinions? And where are your so-called editors? Or are they, like you, so badly informed they cannot separate ill-considered rubber-stamped ignorant vacuous pap from clearly delineated opinion? I’m going to keep this up for the good reason that if there needs to be a liberal newspaper in Chicago, it should observe accurately and reason clearly. This is an embarrassing teen school-girl social illiteracy of the Michael Moore genre that is pure tripe. What has oozed from the newsroom into the pages is salacious `60s-style hippie commune thinking as to make the judicious weep.

Jimmy Carter’s Endangered Values

Jimmy Carter has written a book, Our Endangered Values—which has him sounding as a mint julep version of Michael Moore. A book that strikes at what he calls “religious fundamentalism” applied to politics—but it is clear that what he dislikes are those who bring their strict sense of right and wrong to politics which harms his own Democratic party. In interviews promoting the book, he presents a very muddled relativism: what’s good for you may be bad for me and vice versa.

In behalf of his relativism, in wide-ranging interviews, he speaks in a soft, calm voice tinged with a pleasing southern accent but nonetheless an outrageous pretext, linking people of strong Christian religious conviction to fundamentalist Islamists. To follow his courtly-phrased slurs to their intended conclusion, those who apply Christian tenets to politics are no different than those who blow up school-buses to make a point. That this outrageous murmured prescription, presented by one with rheumy blue eyes and thoughtful finger cupped to his cheek in Great Author-Man of Conscience pose ignores Carter’s own history. For in modern times, no one capitalized more on being a born-again Christian in politics than Sir Jimmy who first came to national attention winning the Iowa caucuses in 1976.

And how did he win those caucuses? Political historians tell us how. He brought thousands of new recruits to his behalf in the Democratic party. The new recruits were from Christian evangelist churches spurred by this Sunday school-teaching ex-governor of Georgia who trumpeted that he was the man with God’s message: especially against abortion. Only after the caucuses were completed did we discover that he was “personally opposed” but had no intention of interrupting the pro-abortion flow of the Democratic party. It was a legendary scam and as president Carter behaved no different than the usual flow of liberals.

No one has ever relied on Jimmy Carter for a sense of history, but it is instructive that he ignores the first modern progenitor of Christian values in politics. That would be a Democratic first-term Congressman William Jennings Bryan, the famed grand orator from Nebraska, who linked free silver with Christianity and big business reliance on gold with the devil. In his technically brilliant pyrotechnics at the Chicago Coliseum in 1896 which my Democratic Irish grandfather attended, Bryan, with no electronic amplification and in a voice that could be heard distinctly in that cavernous temple proclaimed: “We shall answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: `You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a Cross of Gold!” Before Bryan, abolitionists and prohibitionists linked politics with religion but Bryan was the first to lash it to the decks in behalf of populist economics and foreign policy.

As secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson he pursued a policy of pacifism which led him to make a dramatic resignation from that office at the outset of World War I. Bryan was to make yet another dramatic appearance: in behalf of biblical fundamentalism in the Scopes case where he met in court battle with the atheist Chicago lawyer Clarence Darrow.
But Bryan’s moral absolutism tied to politics was quickly appropriated by others including Theodore Roosevelt who, again in Chicago and at the Progressive party convention at the Auditorium thundered: “We meet at Armageddon and battle for the Lord!” In those days Americans were closer to the Bible and understood that the term (in Revelation 16:16) referred to a literal gathering of armies at an exact geographical location in the Middle East where there will be a final worldwide conflict between wicked mankind and the forces of Jesus Christ.

In addition to his failure to make the origin of fundamentalism clear in his book and interviews, Carter is adding to a current popular myth: that somehow it is extreme to believe that public policy should be put to service of certain moral values. To disdain such convictions is to cause politics to tumble into nihilism. Positive change has always come from the linkage of moral issues to politics, and no one should know that better than Jimmy Carter who saw first-hand the dramatic and salutary changes that came first in the South through civil rights which was indissolubly tied to moral conviction in the black churches. What Carter objects to is the application of moral values involving abortion to the political order which would mean that the same energy that drove civil rights progress would be applied to the origin of life. Since the Democratic party has made a commitment to be nihilistic on the life issue—or at worst to maintain that life does not begin in the womb—this puts Carter’s party at a grave disadvantage in public debate.
Thus Carter would prefer to be nihilistic at that point—which is o.k. But he goes farther and blasts those who don’t agree with him as “fundamentalists” and therefore akin to the Taliban.

To say the least, Jimmy Carter (no powerful thinker, ever) is inconsistent as one who has seen high moral principle as applied to civil rights and anti-poverty but not on life issues.

The Meaning of Charisma

Today I saw Barack Obama’s face in the background at the funeral service for Rosa Parks—and I said there’s a guy with total charisma. Which started me thinking: what the devil is charisma anyhow? Is it good looks? No, Everett Dirksen had it and he looked like Bert Lahr playing the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz. Charisma is more than looks. It has to be described, not merely appear. Which reminds me of the time I first saw one to whom charisma was endemic.

In the early 1950s, with Eisenhower installed as president, Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey had determined to further add to his political base in that state. Humphrey had been born in South Dakota and was a combination Irishman and Norwegian, a druggist’s son who transplanted to the state and who in the ‘50s always felt like he needed political shoring up. He felt rather isolated from the Catholic community of Minnesota and Catholics held great sway in certain areas sorely needed by Humphrey to be added to his base. One was the city of St. Paul. Irish Catholic it was, and Democratic, too, but it was not very sure about Humphrey. He was too oracular, too emotional and too dramatic a speaker for the good burgers there. So early in 1953 Humphrey found what he thought was a solution. He would invite the newest U.S. Senator to come to St. Paul and make an address—not a political speech, but a civic one in which the key leaders of the Catholic community would be invited, starting with the archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis (who was rather cool to Humphrey). Kennedy’s family was a crown jewel (so viewed) of U.S. Catholicism: his father, the former ambassador to England who enchanted isolationist Catholics by railing against Great Britain, his brother, Joe, a lost war hero. But I needn’t tell you about all this, need I?

So he invited John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts to come in the night before and address a civic breakfast in St. Paul the next morning. It so happened I was to cover the speech for a wire service and I got to the St. Paul Hotel early in hopes of interviewing the new Senator. Instead I found Humphrey running the corridors trying to find Kennedy. “He was supposed to check in here last night,” he told me, “but he hasn’t shown up, didn’t take his room.” It was clear what he was thinking: Good God Almighty, here I have gathered everybody, the mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, the presidents of 3M, Minneapolis Moline and all the other companies and no Kennedy.

The breakfast started on time with a prayer from the Archbishop and I thought I could see Humphrey’s lips moving in silent prayer that Kennedy—the many everyone was there to see and hear—would show up. No Kennedy. We drank our fruit juice. The waiters brought the eggs and bacon. Then, in the back door he came: a pencil-thin guy with a brush of reddish hair, a shy but diffident style, walking slowly to the speaker’s table. Humphrey with great relief led a standing ovation for the very late speaker. The Archbishop wiped his lips from the napkin and waited for Kennedy to explain what in the world took him so long, where he was, etc.

The place hushed. Kennedy stood up, thanked Humphrey for his lavish introduction and nodded to the Archbishop and assembled guests. Then, waiting until there was not a sound, he said something like this. “My staff made a mistake and booked me not at the St. Paul Hotel but at the Leamington in Minneapolis which is where I slept the night after arriving at midnight. But let me tell you, taking a cab from Minneapolis to St. Paul involves a great deal of money.”

Everyone laughed nervously, knowing that this slim young man was the heir to hundreds of millions. “As the cab neared the St. Paul Hotel,” said Kennedy, “I noticed the fare was very large. Very large. I could scrape up enough for a very good tip. I pondered giving him a big tip and telling him to vote Democratic.” They tittered. “But then I remembered,” said Kennedy, “what my father would have done.” There was an expectant hush. Joe Kennedy was the shrewdest, self-made multi-millionaire in the ‘30s.

“And so,” said John Kennedy, “I gave him no tip and told him to vote Republican.”

The story brought down the house and that morning Humphrey was seen sighing and and sighing and sighing: sighing with relief that Kennedy had showed but also sighing with satisfaction that he had turned what could have been a huge embarrassment into a triumph with a deprecating but gentle reminder of his father’s wily nature.

Which taught me then that this was the essence of charisma. Not just looks, although Kennedy assuredly had it. Not just the confidence that wealth brings and Kennedy certainly had that. It is the grace that comes with self-assurance: grace that Kennedy had, Reagan had and I would aver that George W. Bush has, if I may say so. It certainly is what Barack Obama has. Long before Obama came to the Senate, the first African American senator since Reconstruction served. He was a tall, good-looking lawyer, former attorney general of the state of Massachusetts, Edward Brooke. Everything that is needed for successful candidacy, Brooke had. He had superb gifts—but he didn’t have that indefinable self-confident something.

And I would abjure my Republican colleagues to get out of the way whenever Barack Obama decides to run for something else. I presume it would be the vice presidency at first—but it certainly will ultimately involve the presidency at some future date.

Hang-Dog Harry and Rule XXI

To anyone with an institutional memory in the Senate, the move of minority leader Harry Reid (Nev.) is rather pathetic. A showboat attempt to capture attention by shutting the Senate down for two hours hardly qualifies as good legislative procedure. And Hang Dog Harry hardly qualifies as a legendary Senate leader. He is a glum, murmuring spokesman of gloom, hardly able to inspire anyone. One cannot possibly imagine another minority leader, Everett Dirksen (IL) doing that in a Senate run by Democrats. The Senate then was classy. Why not today? The answer is politically incorrect but here goes.

In bygone days, the Senate really was a club of aristocrats: Robert A. Taft of Ohio, Eugene Milliken of Colorado, Walter George of Georgia, Mike Mansfield of Montana, Tom Connally of Texas, Warren Austin of Vermont, Margaret Chase Smith of Rhode Island, William E. Borah of Idaho, Pat Harrison of Mississippi, Richard Russell of Georgia, Alben Barkley of Kentucky. The intellectual octane was very high. Why? Because most, if not all, of these people had outside income which enabled them to regard work of the Senate as something befitting privilege without the harries of groveling for reelection. You’d be surprised how more comfortable you can be if you don’t have to worry about what to do if you lose an election. It was that confidence, the confidence of secure position from a comfortable law firm, that enabled multi-millionaire Robert Taft to do amazingly independent things. What things?

Such as: when President Truman appeared before Congress and vowed to draft the railroad strikers, incorporate them as U.S. employees and get them to go back to work—a very popular move given the country was facing paralysis in transportation—only one man vowed to block him on grounds of unconstitutionality, earning opprobrium because of it. But the courageous Taft obstruction broke the near dictatorial Truman seizure move and ended the strike as well…for which Taft never benefited from labor votes even though he saved union members from forced service. Taft had the freedom of knowing he had something to go back to, and not a lobbying job: a comfortable berth in Taft & Stettinius. In fact, under the rules of the day, one could receive pay from one’s own business. Dirksen, for example, from his law partnership in Peoria. Modern reformist rules say that this is corruption…and, indeed, industries found it advisable to get some of their legal business done via Peoria, Illinois. But what you gain in total transparency (average income Senators relying solely on their Senate paycheck) you lose in quality. I would much rather have a Dirksen as he was than a Dirksen as he could have been under the current rules. That goes for Russell, Mansfield, et al. Now in the Senate of that day were also people who lived on their Senate income. Best example: Paul Douglas of Illinois, a great lone voice of conscience. On balance, I think the country was better off under the old rules.

Remember under the old rules we had Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Henry Clay of Kentucky, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina including a lone, one-term Congressman from Illinois who needed his pay as a lawyer to make ends meet: Abraham Lincoln. That’s why I’ve always been leery of too much reform. It looks good to the media but the unintended consequences are not. An old Greek adage, coined during the days of the Athenian republic, still stands: “When you purify the pond the lilies die.”

And consider the case of Emperor Pertinax in the Roman republic as outlined in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. He came to power as a reformer and was so stringently reform that the wheels of commerce stopped. The guys who would sell vegetables near the Roman forum and who paid off a Roman copper with a few pennies were shunted away. Things got so bad with all that purity that the equivalent of the Rome Chamber of Commerce met secretly with a mult-partisan group and decided they had enough of Pertinax, the too virtuous emperor. But they resolved to get rid of him in a style befitting an Emperor. Thus while he was praying to the gods someone slipped up behind him and strangled him with a cord. But it was a very special, golden cord, reflecting his status. Fair enough: the guys with the vegetable carts returned to their stands in front of the forums, tipping the cops. Everybody was happier: the vegetable guys, the cops, the consumers.

Don’t think I’m taking it out on poor Hangdog Harry. But he’s a creature who was created by misguided “reforms.” The so-called campaign reform finance bill has done a great deal to winnow down the quality, forcing Congressmen to run across the street to a non-governmental building and call up people to urge them to give $1,000 apiece. Do you know how long that takes to raise money for an average campaign that runs sometimes to more than a million per congressional district? The TV media loves reform but of course they should: since their vehicle of communication costs so much it sends good candidates into penury to pay for it all. Enough reform.

What We Wouldn’t Know Without Lynn Sweet’s Editorial Page Column (Reminder: News Pages are for News and Editorial Pages Are for Opinion).

That Sen. Barack Obama has opened a new PAC: Hopefund...That it has hired two full-time fund-raisers...That on a certain Saturday Obama presided over the inaugural of his Hopefund…That Obama is letting his blog slide (after all, it was only a rehash of his press releases). Instead he’s skipping to the next big thing in communications and now podcasts daily (talking about, among other things, the death of Rosa Parks and the White Sox)...That Sen. Dick Durbin hosted a viewing party for the third game of the World Series...That Durbin and Mayor Daley (the mayor being in Washington to receive the “local hero” award from the National Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund) were groggy when the game ended at 2 a.m. That the menu consisted of pizza and an assortment [of what? Not mentioned] from the Illinois Congressional delegation...That Jan Schakowsky, Dan Lipinski, Ray LaHood, Melissa Bean, Jerry Costello and Rahm Emanuel were all there...That Obama came in “fresh from the mound at U.S. Cellular Field where he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the second game.”

Note: It was smart of Obama to ditch his regular blog which ran only his old press releases. Sweet does that for him.

More Like the National Enquirer Every Day

What do the editor and publisher think you buy their newspaper for? To read about sex, obviously. At least when the two crooks ran the Sun-Times, it was less salacious. Take Laura Berman, for instance, its own certified sex therapist. She writes, “Touch can open up a whole new world for your relationship.” How many readers knew that? She’s opening up a whole new world for youngish readers, especially awkward male teens undergoing puberty. She’s a gifted rhetorician, too. “Have you ever had a truly magical kiss?...Touch sends `I love yous’ to our brains and relaxation [really!] to our bodies…Touch heightens the sensory experience during sex, too…Also experiment with textures like silk sheets or a faux fur blanket.” How about real fur? As Nixon used to say about matters entirely different: “But that would be wrong!” We can talk all we want about experimental touching, titillating and lascivious touching and the relaxation that follows release in a column touted indiscriminately to young kids but lay off the animal fur. You see, Berman has her own absolute.

It’s All About You, Isn’t it, Oprah?

“I would not be standing here today,” thundered billionaire Oprah Winfrey at the memorial service for Rosa Parks at Metropolitan A.M.E. church in Washington, “nor standing where I stand every day, had she not chosen to sit down.” Gee, probably the humble seamstress who refused to give up her seat to a white man never thought that fifty years later, she made it possible for Oprah to roll in the bucks. What Oprah’s sermon in behalf of herself does is highlight the national “I love me, I love me, I’m just crazy about myself!” preoccupation. It’s not just referring to oneself: it’s causing the spotlight to fall on your on an occasion when time should be allotted to something else.