Personal Asides: Why I Didn’t Write Yesterday…Republicans’ “Prince of Darkness” to Go Against Dem Cook County Commissioner…The “Sun-Times” Licentious Affair with Barack Obama.

Why.

Yesterday there was no submission in this place. Yet I wrote extensively and, I must aver, perceptively on a number of issues. Then, sitting back in my chair to re-read, my elbow inadvertently hit the keyboard and all was lost—all three hours. And so I went to be consoled by MacTavish J. Puppy, Esq. who, kissing my face, thought it not very important…at least not as important as his missing out on a treat—which he has decided in old age shall be different than the standard Milk Bone he has had to put up with from infancy. He is now adamant that it be a sprinkling of Quaker Oat Bran slightly sugar flavored which I eat for breakfast. He was slightly contrite about his habit of barking for treats at odd hours in the kitchen, especially before we go to bed at night. He is now going through what I would call a mild trauma. The recipient of acupuncture…having now experienced four sessions…he seems to be gaining in confidence from the shock of the inner-ear disability that has given his walk a somewhat unsteady gait. But he is unsteady walking on our kitchen floor whereas he is more cocky when he treads on the carpet. Yet once he forgets he skitters across the kitchen floor…but, remembering his age and his condition, quickly adjusts to a slower half-stagger that befits his serious condition.

However, after we commiserated about my lost masterpiece, we both decided we would share the same dry, crumbled treat from the box at a late hour…after midnight…while his Mistress had been long asleep. I ate a handful, then dug into the box and gave him a handful. Soon all was forgotten and we trundled to bed with the conclusion that the morrow would be a fresher day. Which this turned out to be.


Dan Proft vs. Mike Quigley.

The young man who by sagacity, boldness of outlook and deep grasp of government has become probably the Illinois GOP’s foremost political strategist, heroically striving to win against a cyclical downturn in Republican fortunes, Dan Proft, the architect of a win in the Cicero mayoralty and strategist for Tony Peraica, will be contending against Democrat reformer Mike Quigley on my Sunday radio show. That’s at 8 p.m. on WLS-AM (890).

Sun-Times Adores Obama.



Not since William Randolph Hearst determined that for the good of his newspapers’ circulation and secondly for the nation’s self-confidence, a war should be fought against Spain and that Theodore Roosevelt would be its hero, has a newspaper undertaken on its own…out of whole cloth…to invent a hero for the ages that should be made president by its own fabrication. Roosevelt fitted the specifications of Hearst’s “New York Journal-American” perfectly, having been assemblyman, member of the reform U. S. Civil Service Commission, president of the New York Police Board and assistant secretary of the Navy before leaving politics to become for four months…four months…commander of the First U. S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment popularly known as the Rough Riders. While with the Navy he met and became friendly with President McKinley’s personal physician, named Leonard Wood. Wood was impressed with Roosevelt’s boundless ambition and when Hearst started the Spanish-American war, Wood and Roosevelt decided to go to make a name for themselves—which they did.

Wood formed the unit and was named colonel, later brigadier general of volunteers and made Roosevelt his second in command. Wood, not Roosevelt, led the charge up Kettle Hill which Roosevelt sped ahead on what Wood misidentified as San Juan Hill. But he knew exactly how important it was to promote this fast-rising Republican progressive and wrote the following description which he saw got to the papers: “[Lieutenant] Colonel Roosevelt, accompanied by only four or five men, led a very desperate and extremely gallant charge up San Juan Hill [sic], thereby setting a brilliant example to the troops and encouraging them to pass over the open country intervening between their open position and the trenches of the enemy.

“In leading this charge he started off first, as he supposed, with quite a following of men, but soon discovered he was alone. He then returned and gathered up a few men and led them to the charge…Everybody finally went up the hill in good style…During the assault, Colonel Roosevelt was the first to reach the trenches in his part of the line and killed one of the enemy with his own hand.” As result of his military service…from May to September, 1898…he became a national hero as emblazoned in Hearst’s newspapers from coast to coast. For this great act of courtesy in magnifying his contribution and seeing it was placed with the Hearst press, President Theodore Roosevelt named Wood governor-general of Cuba and set him on a track that ultimately made him chief of staff of the U. S. Army…and in 1920 a highly touted contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Thus…ask not what an ordinary White House physician can do to ingratiate himself with a brilliant political comer…but ask where the entire Roosevelt family—Franklin included—would be if two pals had not collaborated in fabricating much of the mischievous history for Hearst’s edification and their mutual advancement.

Not since Hearst glorified TR has a newspaper undertaken to run a political career—this time the “Chicago Sun-Times” in behalf of presidential candidate Barack Obama. On its mischievous front-page yesterday, the newspaper plays in full color the Obama portrait with this banner-line: His plan to get this Joe out of Iraq and showed a photo of one Sgt. Joseph Antole of Lockport, Illinois, one of 150,000 serving “in the war that divides America.” Thereupon the newspaper’s Scott Fornek writes that Obama (in a sub-head) unveils plan to cut U.S. troops in Iraq.

Great! What are the details of the plan? After reporting several paragraphs of Obama rhetoric in a speech to the former Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Fornek reports the details of the Obama strategy in all its majesty: It is that we should conduct “a phased redeployment of U.S. troops.” It is that we should “sit down with Syria, Iran and other nations in the Mideast to find a lasting solution to end the war.” That’s all there is, folks.

But wow! What hype! Why didn’t anyone else think of that? Then the progenitors of the old Hearst pop culture give the full text of this magnificent contribution to world strategy together with a lavish editorial saluting Obama for his prescience.

Michael Cooke. Please. John Cruickshank. Please. Steve Huntley whose salivating editorial is entitled Obama helps U. S. focus on constructive Iraq policy. Please. I was going to say Scott Fornek. Please. But he’s a working stiff. But someone…please. At least Teddy Roosevelt was in Cuba.