Having Sacrificed its Old Gutsy Tone for Political Correctness.
The news from Old Lucifer…the dirty-mouthed, tie-less, cloven-hoofed little guy with the fringe hair, reddish beard and the motorcycle…that the “Tribune” is filing for bankruptcy…didn’t surprise me since the “Trib” has been CULTURALLY bankrupt (with the notable Kass exception) long before Sam took over. But when he started, at least the paper had a clean, level, crisp appearance; the editorials were taking on a definiteness we hadn’t seen for decades. The editorial page was on the last page of the first section, where it should be. Oh there were faults—the inanity of Garrison Keillor as an Op Ed contributor for example…but his shrugging lefty predictability was more than compensated for…by Denny Byrne. Molly Ivins had died, giving its intelligence quotient a much-needed lift. Yes, there were still the imponderables as to why a good journalist like Clarence Page had to be ordered to remind us…writing from Washington, D. C.—40 years after Selma (in which he was too young to participate)—of the necessity for whitey to appreciate what it is like to be black: `60s stuff.
Why, to write that high school essay stuff, does he have to be based in Washington? So he can appear whenever there’s a black issue as a guest on McLaughlin (which nobody watches today anyhow)?
But then Page can be good on occasion. Not so Dawn Turner Trice who wants us all to “explore race.” Yes-yes-yes-yes…with a black president and black First Lady, black ex-senate president probably set to be the next U. S. senator, who has the distinctive pedigree of having graduated…literally…from the sewer department to politics (now that I think about it, that was a lateral move)…in the hometown of Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, the two Jesse Jacksons, Sandi Jackson, Valerie Jarrett, Todd Stroger, Michael Pfleger (the black wannabe) and Oprah…dear god yes-yes-yes it IS time for us all to explore race! Why haven’t we done it earlier? We don’t hear enough about race, I tell you!
It’s bankrupt because its city hall and political coverage is not nearly as good as the “Sun-Times’”. It’s bankrupt because it utterly cannot face up to having an editorial page cartoonist (the “Sun-Times” has the Pulitzer prize-winning Jack Higgins)...because the “Trib” is so slavishly indeterminate, so relativistic, that it cannot abide someone with a pencil drawing lines that cannot be altered or equivocated. When you draw a cartoon, you are forced to take a stand. Taking a stand except for the most egregiously, fastidiously correct views are not the “Trib’s” style…gee, how courageous of it to sock Stroger’s borrowings on top of tax hikes! How absolutely heedless of possible unpopularity for it to endorse Barack Obama in this his hometown! That REALLY had to emerge after R. Bruce Dold had a visit with his Maker, Sam: or after Sam discussed it with God CEO to CEO.
In the race to the bottom between the gutless “Trib” and soft-pornographic “Sun-Times,” good riddance to them both…and may they emerge at the bottom in a tie.
No jab at Zorn today?
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