Chicago Daily Observer

I first started as a lobbyist…for Quaker Oats…in 1964 and continued until retirement in 1991. The beautiful thing about that job was the first day I started the CEO asked me to tell them what the company should be lobbying for or against. I drew up a list which, surprisingly, squared with my conservative values…and theirs. First, the company should lobby against high price supports in the farm bill which would cut the cost of the grain they bought but also coincided with consumer interest.

Second, it should oppose creation of ever-more regulatory agencies. Third it should oppose an industry plan to allow creation of a eunuch so-called Consumer Protection Agency, the 38th such body designed to protect the consumers-but a CPA that would have very little power to protect consumers and would be toothless, so as to be a sop to public relations and the public misconception ... Read More...

Back in 1979, before GDP growth had turned negative, Alfred Kahn, President Carter’s Chief Economist made a professional faux pas. He uttered the “R” word within earshot of the national press. Higher-ups in the White House quickly put the hammer to Dr. Kahn, suggesting that he never use the “R” word again.
To his credit, Alfred Kahn did not back down. He announced that from then on he would refer to the recession as a “banana.” He then began to say things like, “I think we are in for a serious banana.” He was funny, and he was right.
Twenty-one years later, in December 2000, Vice President-Elect Richard Cheney, told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that the US was probably on the “front edge of a recession.” At the time, GDP growth was still positive and most economists felt a recession was highly unlikely.
... Read More...

“Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great?”
Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene ii, by William Shakespeare

Given the fact that Barack Obama is the official licensed candidate from the
Oprah Book Club who conducts his campaign rallies like a evangelist leading
a revival in a rented tent, I fully expect him to adopt “Brother Love’s
Traveling Salvation Show“ as his theme song, provided that Neil Diamond will
grant him the musical rights. I have listened long and loud to “the Platitude
Dude” for months on end and I still cannot explain to you what his specific
policy proposals are. “Change that you can believe in” makes less sense to me
than Bud Abbott informing Lou Costello of the baseball line up in the immortal
“Who’s on first” comedy sketch.

Forgive me, but I ... Read More...

“Mom, Dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins sobbed in private, but made it through the Thanksgiving weekend without letting vivacious, popular, smart-as-a-whip, 6-year-old Zach know about the incurable, neurodegenerative disease he has, or the cruel expectation that it will cripple him before it kills him.”

So began a November 2001 article by Daily Herald columnist Burt Constable. The article went on to say:

“All Zach knows is that he isn’t as good at playing goalie as some kids on his soccer team, and that his shaky handwriting was the only blemish (C- in penmanship) on an otherwise perfect report card.

He suspects nothing.

His parents know far too much. They got the word on Nov. 15 that their only child has Friedreich’s ataxia, a very rare neurological disease known to weaken muscles, slur speech, bend spines, force kids into wheelchairs and deliver an early death, generally in the form of ... Read More...

I heard Tony Peraica’s presentation at the City Club of Chicago earlier this week. Inured to campaign speeches since I first started covering them in 1953, fifty-five years ago, I thought I’d load up on good Italian food and meet some old friends while Tony would recite a list of campaign truisms.

But what I heard was jaw-droppingly good. After years of watching this county shrug off misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance and incompetence with widespread waste of taxpayers’ money, for the first time in many years I heard one who knows the ins and outs of county government, is articulate, forthright and energetic. He is far better than the most recent Republicans to run for state’s attorney. Ben Adamowski was determined to get even with Richard J. Daley for a feud they had when both were in the legislature. In fact if there was any vote-fraud of consequence in the 1960 ... Read More...

I now have it from two three four sources (three who are close to senior Republicans) that there is video dynamite–Michelle Obama railing against “whitey” at Jeremiah Wright’s church. Republicans may have a lousy record when it comes to the economy and the management of the war in Iraq, but they are hell on wheels when it comes to opposition research. Someone took the chance and started reviewing the recordings from services at Jeremiah Wright’s United Church of Christ. Holy smoke!! I am told there is a clip that is being held for the fall to drop at the appropriate time. The last thing Barack and Michelle need is a new clip that raises further questions about her judgment and temperament.

A comment from Jim Bowman’s Blithe Sprit

Margaret // May 20, 2008 at 11:04 am

How does this woman manage to keep her high-paying job if she’s campaigning all the time? If her job is important enough to require someone worth $300,000, it would seem that it would need doing all the time.

In an interview with Good Morning America, during which Barack Obama called the so-called attacks on his wife Michelle “low class” and “detestable” and warned the Republicans to “lay off my wife” he seems to ignore a basic reality of politics–when someone chooses to enter the political arena, whatever they say becomes fair game for the other side.

Michelle Obama’s senior year thesis at Princeton University, obtained from the campaign by Politico, shows a document written by a young woman grappling with a society in which a black Princeton alumnus might only be allowed to remain “on the periphery.” Read the full thesis here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

The thesis, titled “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community” and written under her maiden name, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, in 1985, has been the subject of much conjecture on the blogosphere and elsewhere in recent weeks, as it has been “temporarily withdrawn” from Princeton’s library until after this year’s presidential election in November. Some of the material has been written about previously, however, including a story last year in the Newark Star Ledger.

Chivalry is still charming, as Barack Obama proved when he recently warned Tennessee Republicans to leave his wife alone.

He was commenting on a GOP Web ad that highlights Michelle Obama’s comment, made at a rally in February, that she was proud of America for the first time in her adult life. When asked about the ad Monday during an interview on “Good Morning America,” Obama said Republicans were welcome to pick on him and his track record, but not his wife.

Sen. Obama has sent out a snippy statement via ABC‘S Good Morning America warning his opponents they should “be careful” in making his wife an issue “because that I find unacceptable.”

The Chicago Daily Observer has been a critic of Sen. and Mrs. Obama since starting publication 9 months ago, so we flatter ourselves to think that Sen. Obama may be distressed by any scrutiny or criticism of his full time campaigning wife in our newspaper. The thought of a man trying to gain trust as the Chief Executive of the United States threatening his political opponents with retribution for daring to speak out against his political campaign is truly stifling to democracy. Michelle Obama is campaigning for a man promising to raise our taxes, tear up trade agreements with Canadians, and establish gender based wage equity across industries enforced by the Federal Government. Isn’t it punishment enough to ... Read More...

Liberal talk-radio star Ed Schultz has been a Barack Obama guy. In April, he spoke at a Democratic fundraiser in Fargo, and caused Obama to disassociate himself from Schultz’s remark that John McCain is a “warmonger.” Sampling the show in the noon hour here in Virginia on Tuesday, Schultz said Obama’s “lay off my wife” comments on ABC were a “little sensitive” and “really short-sighted.” Schultz thought it implied to people “And don’t believe her when she’s on the stump.” Here’s a summary from my quick note-taking:

Editors Note: Ed Schultz is broadcast on AM-820 Chicago Monday – Friday 11AM-2PM.

Barack Obama is sticking up for his woman. Very manly. But that doesn't mean he is right.

The headline on the May 20th Chicago Sun-Times reads, "Leave My Wife Out Of This." Well, that isn't up to us. It is up to the Obamas. Does she want into this hot kitchen or doesn't she?

Back when little Chelsea Clinton was struggling through puberty in a very public way she sometimes found herself the brunt of ugly and unfair "humor." Shame on those who attacked her. She didn't make her father president and she didn't make her mother a lightening rod.

But now she travels the country, mostly to colleges, stumping for her mother. She's fair game in terms of what she says and the positions she champions. So is Michelle Obama.

Barack shouldn't be so thin-skinned about this.

When Mrs. Obama told America that she has ... Read More...

Firing a warning shot across the deck of the entire media, Sen. Barack Obama warned the press against covering subjects which he does not like. Stating “If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful”, Sen. Obama made clear that he does not want his full time campaigning wife scrutinized, as his political opponents could benefit from this scrutiny.

(Isn’t Obama supposed to be the Web 2.0 candidate? How dare his opponents have the audacity to use YouTube to highlight controversial points that the mainstream media have neglected to cover.)

So we are faced with an editorial decision. Should we let Sen. Obama dictate what he wants covered during this campaign, or report as if there is a free and independent press in this country?

The answer is a simple one. The First Amendment guarantees the Freedom of the ... Read More...

Preparing for growth beyond its proposed new hospital in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood, Children’s Memorial Hospital said it paid $18 million Tuesday for a 99-year lease on a building from the Archdiocese of Chicago at 155 E. Superior St.

The six-story building is less than one block from the future site of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. That facility, which is scheduled open in 2012 and cost $1 billion, will replace Children’s Memorial’s Lincon Park hospital.