Sun-Times woman Mary Mitchell apparently sees no connection between test scores and performance:

If my house catches on fire, I’m not going to worry about how high the firefighter scored when he or she applied for the job.

In which case she should call for abolition of testing entirely.

What she cares about is that the firefighter

had the capability to apply for the job, the character to get through the training needed to be on the job, and the courage required to do the job. After all, when it comes to training to be a firefighter, aren’t those the things that matter the most?

“Capability to apply”?  What’s that?  It’s being able to find your way to the fire dept. HQ and sign your name.  As for character and courage, who can cavil?  But can these virtues coexist with incompetence?  If so, why not?

Moreover, she sees “good news” in the 83% passing rate on the latest exam because it means “a larger pool of applicants to draw from.”  But if there were no exam, there would be an even larger pool.  Is she on to something here?

Down would go literacy requirements and ability to figure things out, up would go “agility testing,” etc.

Soft, soft the lede in Mark Silva’s front page Chi Trib story about Bill Clinton:

Say this much for Bill Clinton. He doesn’t walk quietly.

How nice.  Quietly flows the darn puff piece.

Mr. November?  Democrats count on Clinton for late-inning campaign magic

is the head. 

His white-hot, finger-wagging interview on “Fox News Sunday”–filled with accusations about conservative bias and Bush administration blunders–has thrust Clinton into the midterm election campaign just as the Republicans appeared to be erasing some healthy Democratic advantages.

is to put a Democrat spin on it, to say the least, buying into the best light in which Clinton’s outburst can be put.

All in all, it’s a clear-cut thumbsucker, easy-going and casual, to which faithful readers will respond: Where the “analysis” tag?  Wash bureau chief Tackett gets it, doesn’t his colleague/underling Silva deserve it for his soft, soft, shadow of those old-time Trib page-one cartoons?