Personal Asides:

Alderman Bernie Stone Signs Up to Tell Us What Makes the City Council Tick…The Name’s Stufflebeam--S-t-u-f-f-l-e-b-e-a-m…Two Bright Stars Brighten the “Sun-Times”: Huntley and Steinberg…Jim Edgar, Having Once Accepted, is Now Not Available I Guess (We’ll Struggle Through)…The “Sun-Times” Game Dork.

Alderman Bernie Stone.

One of my favorite all time aldermen, Bernie Stone, has just signed up as a guest lecturer at my Roosevelt University class. He’s the most knowledgeable city lawmaker who does not stand back and survey his own greatness, but with wit and insight deftly describes the council situation. A big plus and welcome aboard, Bernie!

S-t-u-f-f-l-e-b-e-a-m.

For those of us who have felt they have no recourse for governor in this election but leaving the slot blank, I submit the write-in candidate Randy Stufflebeam, the former Marine from Belleville who represents the Constitutional Party. I have had serious reservations about the Constitutional Party’s national leadership under Howard Phillips who embraces the idea of a theocratic state…but once Randy gained the chairmanship of the party in Illinois he made a firm line of demarcation from the national ground and got rid of some local nuts. His getting rid of them reminds me of how Hubert Humphrey kicked out the radical left cum Communists from the party before he unified it as Democratic-Farmer-Labor. Randy brings with him the brisk attitude of authentic downstate rural unaffectedness which is refreshing. Watching Randy now, I’m convinced that he is satisfactorily doing three very important things:

First, he has begun to build a sound, mainstream party for conservatives that can stand on its own as the New York Conservative Party did in its early formation. Second, he is building a political home for those who have been fed up with the state leadership of the Republican party which has drifted into nihilism and the relativist chase of the lobbyist dollar—both with donations and contracts—that has been the undoing of the party of Lincoln since Ogilvie. Third, at age 46, he is a bright and infectiously witty and adroit spokesman as witness his superlative appearance on my radio show Sunday. His family is a great asset. Suffice it to say they’re not country-club Republicans. I for one would greatly enjoy seeing his wife Lisa as Illinois’ First Lady and their daughter Crista who accompanied them to the radio studio the state’s First Teen-Ager. Just dreaming.

Randy’s thumbnail biography: Born in Chicago 46 years ago…grew up in the small town of Canton, Illinois…attended public schools but got his diploma from a Christian school…reared in the Church of the Nazarene…his father a long distance trucker…attended Olivet Nazarene College before joining the Marines in 1980…trained as an anti-tank assault man…later trained by the Marines as a computer expert…He and his wife Lisa (they were childhood sweethearts in Canton) married, lived in California for ten years while he was in the Marines…then moved to Atlanta Georgia where he was assigned as a Marine…worked part-time as a disc jockey there on a country-western station…then moved with his family to Okinawa where he spent four years…retired from the Marines in 2003 after 23 years and moved to Belleville

More: elected Republican precinct committeeman there…got inspired by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore who wanted to put the Ten Commandments in the state capitol…noted that Moore was backed by the Constitution Party…set up the Illinois franchise of the party…became its chairman…purged theocratic nuts from the party…with his wife has three daughters, once pof whom is married to a deputy sheriff in Florida…one in college studying to be a special education teacher for the handicapped…the youngest, 15, in Belleville high school.

He’s plain-talking and well-informed. Pro-life…supporter of all amendments but especially the 1st and 2nd…opposes NAFTA/CAFTA…supports the Dick Armey plan to eradicate the federal income tax…opposition to legalized gambling…just the kind to build a future conservative grassroots movement.

Me? I’m staying a Republican—but feel a third party…or more correctly, a second… is required. The March primary proved to me that a safe harbor is greatly needed. The need is so great for a refuge for us conservatives that I want to be known as an ally in the up-building of the Constitution Party. If from this twig it expands it roots and sprouts leafy boughs, it will serve as a viable third party option in the same way the Conservative Party did for some years in New York. At the least it will keep the Republican party honest by serving as an alternative bargaining chip…at most it will supply a fertile field for training of young conservatives.

The Blagojevich operation wanted to supply paid operatives to get Randy Stufflebeam on the ballot. The offer was turned down. For now, even if it is a write-in option, it is important for those of us who have simply had it with Thompson-ism cum Ryan-ism. The lachrymose behavior of Mayor Daley and Jim Thompson…shedding tears along with a “Sun-Times” Op Ed writer Monday over their good friend Ryan’s conviction…convinces me that only a Constitution Party as it is presently directed by Randy can give Illinois voters a whiff of fresh air. I will be glad to do what I can to further Randy’s cause and, more importantly, the building of what is to be hoped as a vital third force in Illinois politics. Shortly he will be required to choose a Lieutenant Governor candidate which is required for state parties fielding candidates under state law. Go to his website: www.runrandyrun.

I have invited both Republican and Democratic nominees for governor to come on my program but nothing has happened. My next step is to get the independent candidates to debate—the Green party’s candidate for governor who will be on the ballot, Rich Whitney, and Randy Stufflebeam of the Constitution Party.

Huntley and Steinberg.

Three cheers for Steve Huntley, the editorial page editor of the “Sun-Times” for writing well reasoned, sober adult treatises on foreign policy which should make that paper proud. His pieces are thoughtful, non-demagogic and well-written presentments that would have been appropriate in the paper of the past when its editorial policy was guided by Emmett Dedmon. That’s about the best praise I can give Huntley and anyone else in mainstream media who undertakes to analyze public policy.

And a second salvo for a man who is, in my mind at least, the most literate, subtle and creative of the paper’s feature columnists, Neil Steinberg. His columns while not of a timeless quality serve the needs of the moment with grace and felicity.

Edgar.

When I called his office two weeks ago and talked to his charming assistant named Sue, I was told that the former governor would consider speaking at my Roosevelt University class. Sure enough, she returned the call and said that he would indeed speak and that she would call back with a date. The days lengthened into a week and no answer. When I called her I all I got was a voice-mail. After five successive calls, I asked to be transferred to the main desk where the woman said Sue was indeed in the office and “I’ve seen her walk past this desk all day: I can’t understand why she doesn’t return your call.” But slowly, even a dull-wit like me, it occurred that there would be a change and the decision to speak was being shoved into a dead-letter box. When I did contact her, she said what has been very familiar in all governmental offices: don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Why the change? Undoubtedly it has to do with my failure to endorse Judy Baar Topinka. So much for the dispassionate separation within academia of study and political preference.

Man Who Makes Brittany Spears Look Good.

Is the author of “The Game Dork” for real, or not? While I’ve praised the “Sun-Times” unity of subjectivity which makes it the Democratic Party’s Newspaper of Record, the rules favoring lefty bias of national issues should stop at the water’s edge with drama, film and TV reviews. Not so with Rodney Dangerfield look-alike Doug Elfman, the “Sun-Times” misplaced TV critic who drops all pretense to hone his axe on Republicans. Aptly he also writes a syndicated column trademarked “The Game Dork.” His Wikipedia bio sounds like it came from a p. r. boiler-room but lavishes so much praise on his work that it must have been written by him. Must have been because it has the dork trademark.

Elfman, noted by his flare for illiteracy (Britany Spears “didn’t just suck, she suckity-suck sucked”) came to the “Sun-Times” appropriately enough from the Las Vegas “Review-Journal.” Not only did lefty bias overtake his judgment last week when he reviewed “The Path to 9/11”—but his irrational Bush hatred first manifested itself last May when he condemned his media fellows as being too pro-Bush. Angered that they didn’t give much attention to Stephen Colbert’s slimy speech at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, Elfman wrote “It was perhaps the first time in Bush’s tenure that the president was forced to sit and listen to any American cite the litany of criminal and corruption allegations that have piled up against his administration.” Criminal: right, like Scooter Libby never having leaked Valerie Plame now that Richard Armitage admitted it. Talk about sucking. At least Spears is honest about her trade.

There is a good case to be made against all docu-dramas. All of them impute a subjectivity into history that can distort and “9/11” is no different. But saying the ABC special is a “bomb” is like writing off John Milton: it tells more about the critic than the subject. Given his Las Vegas orientation, perhaps he’s limited by not reviewing a show that doesn’t follow the emcee rasping “turn on the purple lights, boys, here comes Queenie!”