Damn the potholes, full speed ahead

Sun-Times man Steve Huntley weighs in on aldermen as advisors to the U.S. government rather than allocation of pothole repairs:

What to do about Iran must cause countless sleepless nights for countless generals, Pentagon strategists and political leaders in the White House and Congress. Now they’re going to get advice from the Chicago City Council.

Yes, and in Chicago style, the fix is in:

The Council’s Human Relations Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing today on a resolution “opposing any U.S. attack on Iran.” The full Council could vote on it on Wednesday. The results are a foregone conclusion. Today’s hearing features among its witnesses the anti-war figure Scott Ritter and John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago professor known for seeing “Israel lobby” machinations behind U.S. foreign policy.

And as this blog made much of two days ago, the eminent Stephen Kinzer, apparently late of the NY Times and currently teaching at apparently two universities in this area, will also testify, surely about U.S. failures in the Middle East — a specialty of his — and the trouble with jousting with Iran.

Huntley notes “the lone voice” opposing the resolution, that of Ald. James A. Balcer (11th), a war hero from Viet Nam war days on grounds of “sending a wrong signal about protecting the lives of the young men and women our nation sends in harm’s way” (Huntley’s words). 

Note the eight-alderman sponsorship of the bill, including Joseph A. Moore (49th) and Toni Preckwinkle (4th) and newcomers like Sandi Jackson (7th) and Robert W. Fioretti (2nd).  These are your Obama liberals, if I may introduce a phrase into discussion of Chicago ward politics — thinking man’s and woman’s liberals, you know, who think globally and act locally, you know, cherishing their illusions through the thick and thin of gaping potholes and murder in the streets.  God bless ‘em.