Chicago Daily Observer

Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged today that he had failed to understand how much violence would decrease this year in Iraq, but he contended that President Bush and Sen. John McCain, the Republicans’ presumptive presidential candidate, had made the same mistake.”

Well, the difference would be that the surge was even more successful than McCain anticipated. Not really the “same mistake” as trying to do everything to prevent implementation and completion of a successful strategy.

— In February, you said you might support vouchers and charter schools if empirical data showed that they improve education (it does). Admirably, your position was, “I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn.” After pressure from the teachers unions, you quickly backed off from that position, stating that your campaign doesn’t support vouchers “in any shape or form.” What prompted that change? And if it’s important that we not “throw up our hands” and “walk away from the public schools,” why do you send your own kids to private schools?

If you are not a lover of that most American of art forms, jazz, then kindly skip to the next article.

If you are, then stop reading and walk over to your radio. Turn it to 90.9 on the FM dial and chances are that you’ll hear something wonderful that will help you forget about things like high gas prices and your cholesterol count.

Like television, radio is a vast wasteland unless you know just where to look. Skim the radio dial and you’ll likely encounter the kind of vapidity that now characterizes much of American popular culture.

Fortunately, there’s a fresh wind blowing from the direction of DuPage County. It’s actually been blowing for decades but isn’t well known because, like many things of quality, it’s been overshadowed by louder and more strident voices—or stronger radio signals.

In a City of Big Shoulders known for muscular jazz, it’s the ... Read More...

Things change.

Since I last discussed vice presidential prospects for Sen. Barack Obama, of the three most significant candidates, two pulled themselves out of contention and one may have disqualified himself for telling too much truth too soon.

I thought Ohio Governor Ted Strickland was just about a perfect choice: 66, a Christian minister with 12 years of congressional experience and immensely popular in his crucial home state. He gave a Shermanesque “will not serve” statement weeks ago.

Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia was almost as close to perfection: tough, widespread military and administrative experience, popular in another crucial state but with some temperament issues—also said he wasn’t interested, rather definitively.

Gen. Wesley Clark is still available, but stirred up a premature hornets nest on the right by noting that McCain’s prisoner-of-war experience alone did not exactly qualify him for the presidency. A truthful blasphemy, but the last thing Obama ... Read More...

mportance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up.

Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset.

I understand and respect passion in a person holding to a political position and supporting a candidate—especially in a Presidential contest.

Barack Obama, I believe, could possibly bring about the change he pledges, lead in giving this nation a new birth of freedom, help us restore our commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and get us to join in a national agreement consonant with the final words of the Declaration of Independence:

“We mutually pledge to one another our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

With so much at stake, why shouldn’t we be willing to fight fire with fire, to propagandize and to use the attack bite to do it?

The answer is we should not—because it would be horrible for us individually and as a nation if we waged a Civil War, even one on the Internet.

Propaganda, I believe, is no more justified ... Read More...

Tired of getting “pummeled by the newspapers every day,” Cook County Board president Todd Stroger’s administration has decided to counter with a new magazine overseen by county officials.

Publisher/editor Theresa Tracy said Cook County magazine would be “independently published” and a “credible, compelling and valuable resource” for county residents.

But county officials have the final say on what’s published. And Tracy accepted $24,999 from Stroger’s administration last November to launch the magazine—$1 under the amount that would have required the approval of the full Cook County Board.