Personal Asides: Terry Barnich to Go to Iraq to Serve His Country…More One-Liners: Opinions Conveyed in One Sentence Each

Terry Barnich.

Congratulations and best wishes from this web-site to Terry Barnich who has accepted a one-year tour of duty in dangerous Iraq to serve his country in a field with which he will prove to be a great contributor: the accelerated generation of electric power in Iraq. Terry, a former chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, lawyer and owner of his own firm involved as a key consultant in the electric power field, has become a State Department official in a relatively short-range but vitally important mission to help the U.S. in Iraq. He has been a frequent contributor to “Political Shootout” and has been one of the most formidable defenders of Republican positions across the board…from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush—including economics, regulatory, social and foreign and defense policies.

In his last action as a Republican stalwart, Terry ran the Topinka primary campaign for the U.S. Senate. Her campaign as run by Terry was efficient and well-focused. When he left after her primary victory, I was distressed, frankly, because I was sure that had Terry remained there would have been reason to expect a rapprochement of sorts on social policy could have been effected—at least somewhat. Maybe not but this I will say: If Terry had been able to stay for the remainder of the campaign, she undoubtedly would have been spared many difficulties of her own making. Terry himself has much to offer as a candidate based on his extraordinary communications talents and superb handling of the issues. He is a pro-lifer, by the way, although it must be added, a Republican loyalist first (unlike this writer who has been known to be disruptive of party unity uber alles when social issues get in the way). But this writer has been sufficiently familiar with Terry’s great prowess in issue dexterity and communications that I would vote and support him in most eventualities. I interviewed Terry briefly on WLS last night. He promised to call us every so often from Baghdad and report on the radio his observation of how things are going.

More One-Liners.

Because John Kass continues to be the best thing about the “Tribune,” a few tiny-minded liberal partisans have been taking futile shots at him on another blog—but to this fan, it’s like mosquitoes buzzing noisily around a giant…Don Rumsfeld mystifies me because while he left office with a wise warning about the dangers of military weakness, his legacy is more complex with traces of the old Machiavellian feints and bobs that add up to a less than full application of military force to Iraq which communicated —along with his final memo to the President—intellectual confusion leading to the hope that he writes a book to get his points on Iraq said clearly, cleanly and without troublesome ambiguity at last…

I for one would love to know what role State GOP chairman Andy McKenna played in the run-up to the Topinka primary win i.e. was he properly neutral or did his office weigh in on Topinka’s side: meaning, friends, incontestable facts not just emotional allegations—including communications from the Chairman himself…Isn’t it true that big business types usually wimp out and retreat behind professional liberal p. r. types when they have to face the public--as did the Civic Committee of the august Commercial Club of Chicago, headed by the retired CEO of Illinois Tool, when it advocated hiking personal income taxes to pay for the state’s red ink instead of prescribing the more difficult political solution of cutting spending to the bone or cutting taxes to increase the revenue?...

Tell me why William Safire, a good wordsmith but little else got the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush?...Gee, after having written several columns extolling him here and in the “Sun-Times,” it would have been nice to hear from Peter Roskam before he left us to serve in Washington which was an abrupt change from the oft-expressed gratitude for support that came this way following each election from his predecessor, Henry Hyde…Speaking of post-electoral gratitude, David McSweeney has been nice enough to stay in touch often including our most recent get-together: breaking-bread at the Marriott Sports Bar Saturday where his enthusiasm for private sector and public issues continued unabated…

This coming New Year’s Eve marks the second anniversary of the death of Msgr. Ignatius McDermott whose opening of Haymarket coincided on New Year’s Eve 23 years ago: a fitting time with that date rife with temptations for drunks…Some wistful wishing from Republican big businessmen, mostly of the retired variety, that Peter Fitzgerald consent to come back and run for governor with some effort to contact him despite the obvious unlikelihood of that occurring…Some growling from Republicans following the 8th district race that commentaries by Russ Stewart, a favorite on my radio show, centered unduly on David McSweeney’s stand on social issues, with a vitriol reflecting Stewart’s own biases in that regard, the critics not including McSweeney…

Mary Cheney’s pregnancy though a lesbian begs the question who was the sperm donor—but likely it was in vitro fertilization in which case she and her lover could always observe each Father’s Day by sending a bow-tie to a syringe at Washington Hospital Center…No WLS “Political Shootout” for the next two Sundays—next Sunday, Christmas Eve, being devoted entirely to Christmas music and the following Sunday to a network roundup of 2006 top events—although on December 31st I will be on the nationally syndicated radio-TV show “Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont” which plays here on WLS from 6 to 8 p.m and later on Channel 20…

This coming Thursday marks the end of the very successful Roosevelt University course, “Influencing the System” with talks by WVON radio host Cliff Kelley at 6 p.m. on the politics of Chicago with special reference to the African American community and the candidacy of Barack Obama…and at 7 p..m. a lecture by Mike Noonan, Democratic campaign manager extraordinary who ran the successful Todd Stroger campaign about which he will explore any special problems that arose…Now an ancient farewell communicated without the scatological addition that occurred in the 16th episode of “The Sopranos”: Toodle-oo.