Chicago Daily Observer

This point cannot be emphasized enough: Obama, in opposing the surge, was wrong on the most important politico-military decision since the war began. He not only opposed the surge, he predicted in advance that it could not succeed and that it would not lead to a decrease in violence (on January 10, 2007, the night President Bush announced the surge, Obama declared he saw nothing in the plan that would “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place there.” A week later, he repeated the point emphatically: the surge strategy would “not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly.”)

Both predictions were demonstrably wrong. And for Obama to state that Iraq’s leaders “have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge” is misleading and false. Iraqi leaders have reached comprehensive political accommodations, including passing key laws having to do with ... Read More...

The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president.

I was born in Chicago. The year was 1960, and I no doubt voted for John F. Kennedy for president.

When I worked in Illinois thirty years later, the political process was often explained to me as a contest over which set of county officials — Democratic Cook or Republican DuPage — could stay up the latest on election night to manufacture the greater number of votes.

Such is the reputation of Chicago and Illinois. Corruption remains an integral part of the political culture.

Today, the state’s previous governor has retired to a prison cell. The current governor is the target of an ongoing criminal probe. State government — though controlled wholly by the Democrats — is wholly gridlocked.

Worse yet, as a report by the Commercial Club of Chicago bluntly puts it: “Illinois is headed toward financial implosion.”

This is the environment from which Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s presidential ... Read More...

Mary Mitchell pulls another little race-baiting scab in Sunday’s Chicago Sun Times to remind whites that they are evil mean nasty haters and to pump up the Maywood reunion of the Mt. Greenwood Seven,

There’s a Mt. Greenwood Seven Eleven at 111th and Kedzie on the Northeast Side of the Street, but Mary invents the Mt. Greenwood Seven as new Civil Rights Icons. Seven black children who attended Mt. Greenwood Elementary School from February until June ( I guess) in 1968.

In 1968, I was working at Gee Lumber which was at 79th Street & Western Ave. behind Sharko’s and Quigley South ( now St. Rita of Cascia – which was at 63rd and Claremont – see?) Things do change.. I remember quite a bit from that time, but nothing about Selma in Mt. Greenwood.

Busing, as I recall, began in the 1970’s. Black kids moved about pretty freely ... Read More...

The audit comes in response to a Chicago Sun-Times report on highway Supt. Rupert Graham’s order requiring road repair crews to observe “no-drive” days twice a month to save fuel.

The policy calls for road repairers, who make about $62,000 a year, to spend every other Wednesday doing odd jobs at district garages.

Ah, Bensenville, glorious Bensenville—it’s become my home away from home since I realized that Mayor Daley intended to plow over about 15 percent of it to make way for another one of his Great Ideas, in this case the O’Hare Modernization Program. Before our green mayor is done he will have spent well over $15 billion expanding O’Hare just in time for the collapse of the airline industry. Hey, how’s that for planning?