To a man—and a woman, when there was one—the Republican debaters all gave muscular, macho answers to the Iran question: None, other than Ron Paul, would “permit” Iran to develop nuclear weaponry.

Unfortunately, none of the big-time media questioners ever followed up with the big question, “Exactly what would you do to prevent Iran from obtaining such a weapon—and when?” Therefore none of the muscular, macho candidates stepped forth to say, “I would bomb their nuclear sites—alone or in concert with Israel and I would …

We ain’t postracial yet, despite a black man in the White House.
You’ll never convince me that—despite many legitimate problems both progressives and conservatives may have with him—most of the brutal, ferocious, out-of-bounds attacks on that man remain race-based. Everything from the birth-certificate idiocy to allegations of being a secret Muslim, even the anti-Christ, fit that category.

Tell me, too, that all those new restrictions on voting, requiring governmental photo IDs, are not targeted directly at blacks.
Or hear the thinly veiled code words …

A unique contest is under way for one of the least understood but most important offices in Cook County: Clerk of the Circuit Court. The Clerk simply keeps records, but they are vital records: the filings and findings of the county’s 2.4 million caseload. She collects fees and fines, depositing millions in favored banks. Not very exciting, but it keeps the entire, complex justice system flowing. Or should.

 
It should be an appointive office, but with nearly 2000 patronage workers—including a personal chauffeur—and a $74 million budget, it’s a political plum.
Incumbent …

The title is Mike Royko’s, but the opinions are mine. Some fast responses to the news of a news-loaded week:
++Obama’s “compromise” on the birth control/religious freedom controversy, though it doesn’t satisfy everyone, still saves his campaign from a divisive wedge issue. He made just enough change to preserve his coalition by satisfying the 10 percent of the Catholic vote that swings—along with independent voters who recognized that beneath the smokescreens and bullying rhetoric of the right, there was indeed a legitimate 1st Amendment issue in conflict with the fundamental principle …

Back in 1965 Bob Dylan sang, “Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?”

Now it’s 2012, something is happening here again and I think I know what it is: A new energy on the progressive left of American politics that’s outpacing the once potent right-wing drive of the tea partiers in 2010. Republican primary turnout is down.
What’s special? Organized labor—under severe new attack—joined forces with students and other movements on the liberal …

April 27, 1968: some 8,000 peaceful peace marchers walk about a mile to Chicago’s Civic Center where a phalanx of police wade in without provocation, beat dozens bloody and jail scores more who are tear gassed in the Center’s jail cells.

Roosevelt University’s President Emeritus, Edward Sparling, led a citizens commission to investigate the incident and found total fault lay with the police and Mayor Richard J. Daley. It was obviously Daley’s forewarning of what would befall demonstrators who might show up for the Democratic National Convention …

The two remarkable last-minute victories of Rick Santorum in Iowa and Newt Gingrich in South Carolina are wonderful object lessons for those who place too much faith too early in poll results.

A week before those elections Mitt Romney was comfortably ahead by somewhere around 10 points and looking inevitable. Even two or three days before those elections, though the margins had shrunk, he was still looking good—except to those who were either on the ground sensing serious movement or doing tracking polls right down to the …

The run-up to Saturday’s Republican primary offers an intriguing laboratory testing out several political assumptions and hypotheses—plus the spectacle of conservatives arguing the very nature of American capitalism.

 
Soon we’ll see the effects of some of the ugliest, most negative internecine political warfare of our time. Negativity and ugliness of course are nothing new to the Palmetto state, where John McCain’s first run for the presidency in 2000 was ended by a tsunami of robocalls alleging he was the father of a black baby. (He and his wife adopted a Bangladeshi …

One has to wonder whether Mayor Rahm Emanuel is actually trying to provoke a violent confrontation between police and demonstrators next May when both the G8 and NATO hold their international meetings here in Chicago. Maybe show the country what a really tough mother a ballet dancer can be.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote of his plan to massively increase fines for resisting peace officers—one of those catch-all crimes like “disorderly conduct”— to say nothing of deputizing almost anybody he wants as a “peace officer,” plus purchase all the …

I’m not big on lists, but here goes.
By far the worst idea of 2011 came, not unexpectedly, from Newt Gingrich. All he wants to do is destroy our tripartite system of government: separation of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.

Gingrich, in his over-the-top pandering, announced that if elected he would ignore federal court rulings that displeased him.
Worse yet, he proposed sending various police out to arrest the offending judges and bring them before Congress for an inquisition—or worse. He continued to …