Personal Asides: Garrison Keillor, the Tribune Pundit…Carol Marin the Recycler

Pardon my asking—but let me put it in bold type: Just what the hell makes Garrison Keillor’s political views so important that they dominate the Op Ed page of the Tribune once a week as they did yesterday? Is he the guy the shaky, ever uncertain paper, now as ever since 1955 in search of its own identity has picked due to the mistaken assumption that he will appeal to the Hinsdale-Oak Brook elite? ...I owe a debt to friend Elias Crim who put me on to a book whose title I used in a recent speech: The News Makes You Dumb. Not just the title but Elias’ précis about the book broadened my understanding about the media which I used in a speech on that topic…Let me summarize Carol Marin’s Sun-Times column yesterday so you don’t have to read it: watch the race for state treasurer, a piece that must have taken her all of two minutes to write after digesting what everyone else has said earlier and then talking to political expert Paul Green on the phone…The Sun-Times has wised up and is now using columnist Mark Brown as the major analyst for local politics