CRIME FIGHTING . . . "Very fine distinctions" are …

CRIME FIGHTING . . . “Very fine distinctions” are at play in the Libby indictment, says special prosecutor Fitzgerald, who is also working to put various Chicago Democrats and a Republican ex-governor in jail on corruption charges. Not too fine, I trust. That would bespeak fussiness. Nor too fine in Chicago, where apparently rampant dishonesty is on trial. (On the other hand, not everyone thinks criminal prosecution is called for in Chi, including Mayor Daley and a DePaul law prof, Leonard Cavise.

PICKING AND CHOOSING . . . From a soldier killed in Iraq, found on his laptop for sending to his girl friend back home:

“Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I’m writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I’m pushing my chances. [end of what NYT ran in its rundown on 2,000 dead in Iraq, leaving this part out:] I don’t regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it’s not to me. I’m here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.”

Michelle Malkin has this, plus comments by an uncle of this man, whom the Times quoted selectively. Would you say the Times was giving an honest account of this brave soldier’s letter to his girl back home?

HAVING THINGS BAD . . . Commenting on life in these U.S. as appreciated more by foreigners than us, David Gillies | October 29, 2005 04:25 PM, at Daily Pundit:

For truly mammoth death tolls on a semi-regular basis, you can’t beat ferries in South East Asia. These accidents kill thousands, maybe tens of thousands a year, and really the only sane response for someone like me, snug and safe in a relatively affluent country, is to roll one’s eyes, experience a fleeting pang of pity for the victims, and get back to what one was doing.

It really is extraordinarily dangerous to be born outside the developed regions of the Earth.

PRAYING . . . At mass today, 10/30/05, we were directed to pray that rich nations “do not hide behind complicated economic systems” to avoid helping poor ones. Uh-oh. A certain geopolitical world view there, wouldn’t you say?

THEY ALSO SERVE, ETC. . . . Sox parade and rally Friday, stood stuffed in crowd at Clark and Wacker for 45 minutes or so, then was allowed with fellow stuffees to move down Wacker toward the stage at LaSalle. From this direction came muffled sounds of announcer and various players etc. which led to cheers around me. But hearing- and height-challenged as I was, I had to settle mostly for views and observations of those around me, a mixture in all the usual respects, almost all happy and in the spirit of victory and celebration.

One guy in the earlier stuffing of bodies came to be cranky, however, eliciting finally some pronounced impatience from a sergeant who told him, no, he could NOT cross the lines to get across Wacker. “Sergeant,” he said irritatingly, “I’m not saying I want to cross, but WHY can’t I cross?” as if in the situation there was a difference. “You CAN’T cross,” said the sergeant, who had my sympathy but would have had my advice (“Be not afraid,” i.e. be calm) if he had asked.

The complainer had been going on and on: “Can’t see nothin’,” “this is badly organized,” etc. Badgering the sergeant, he was shushed by his wife, embarrassed by his display. Their kid was there. He had got up on wrong side of bed, the only one who had that day, and enough about him.

Oh yes, the pot smoker. He was mellow, however. That was in the midst of the cheering throng after the stage comments had begun. All of it was under a dazzling blue sky in 50 degrees or so, a perfect day. You could look at your fellow fans or at the skyline, buildings across the river. Glorious. That’s a groundling’s view. For a better one, you watch TV on such occasions.

IMPORTANT FIGURE . . . “Mr. Bush has three more years and three more months in which to take the lead in another direction. Will he use them well or squander them?” says Michael Barone in WSJ 10/29, concluding his wrap-up “Down but Not Out: After Katrina and Scooter, whither the Bush administration?” Barone, author of Almanac of American Politics, is a guy who deals in data; so his generalities deserve more than ordinary attention. As for the Libby indictment,

Fortunately, it appears that the Bush White House will have the services of Karl Rove available. Mr. Rove was not indicted along with “Scooter” Libby yesterday and, while he may remain in legal jeopardy, the comments of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in his press conference gave the impression that further indictments are unlikely. The indictment of Mr. Libby is of course a scar on the administration’s record, but not one nearly so visible or disabling as a Rove indictment would have been. Mr. Rove has played a role in this administration that no presidential appointee has played in the first 212 years of our republic: chief political operator and chief policy adviser. He brings to his work an impressive knowledge of history and a sensitivity to the historic currents running through our times. He seems to have, despite his legal travail, the complete confidence of the president.

In 212 years. Hmmm.

(10/30/05)

AllKids by Blago

From reader Cal Skinner:

The only Chicago mention (or elsewhere, for that matter) that [Gov. Blagojevich’s] AllKids [health insurance program] includes for the first time those children in the US illegally was by Dick Kay on a WTTW show.  Don’t you think that ought to be at least part of the debate?

From Dick Kay, asked about this:

He has it exactly right! They will not apply under Kids Care because that is a federally funded program. All Kids is state-only and will cover illegal immigrants so long as they can pay the monthly premium and the co-pay. For that matter it would cover children of billionaires so long as they could pay the much higher premiums that would require. Our sister station, Telemundo, has done a couple of stories on the program.

From Rockford Register-Star columnist Chuck Sweeny just today: AllKids was a stealthy victory by Blago, an opening shot in his re-election campaign:

The governor?s plan to provide universal health insurance to 253,000 uncovered Illinois children and pay for it by putting Medicaid recipients on managed care, was dropped on the public Oct. 6 as a big surprise.

Soon the bill-signing, “ at a Chicago school or maybe at his favorite steel mill, A. Finkl & Sons, surrounded by smiling children with colorful balloons.”  Then the campaign:

When the ink’s dry, the governor will take the “All Kids” campaign on the road to sign up families in the run-up to the program’s July 1 start. That’s eight more months of campaign-style rallies paid for by taxpayers and amplified by your friends in the free media — that’s us. He won’t have to spend a dime of his massive war chest, which held more than $14 million as of June 30, and could hit $20 million by year’s end.

Smart guy!

AllKids by Blago

From reader Cal Skinner:

The only Chicago mention (or elsewhere, for that matter) that [Gov. Blagojevich’s] AllKids [health insurance program] includes for the first time those children in the US illegally was by Dick Kay on a WTTW show.  Don’t you think that ought to be at least part of the debate?

From Dick Kay, asked about this:

He has it exactly right! They will not apply under Kids Care because that is a federally funded program. All Kids is state-only and will cover illegal immigrants so long as they can pay the monthly premium and the co-pay. For that matter it would cover children of billionaires so long as they could pay the much higher premiums that would require. Our sister station, Telemundo, has done a couple of stories on the program.

From Rockford Register-Star columnist Chuck Sweeny just today: AllKids was a stealthy victory by Blago, an opening shot in his re-election campaign:

The governor?s plan to provide universal health insurance to 253,000 uncovered Illinois children and pay for it by putting Medicaid recipients on managed care, was dropped on the public Oct. 6 as a big surprise.

Soon the bill-signing, “ at a Chicago school or maybe at his favorite steel mill, A. Finkl & Sons, surrounded by smiling children with colorful balloons.”  Then the campaign:

When the ink’s dry, the governor will take the “All Kids” campaign on the road to sign up families in the run-up to the program’s July 1 start. That’s eight more months of campaign-style rallies paid for by taxpayers and amplified by your friends in the free media — that’s us. He won’t have to spend a dime of his massive war chest, which held more than $14 million as of June 30, and could hit $20 million by year’s end.

Smart guy!

No wuxtry for a reason: Churchill at DePaul again

Remember my wondering a few days ago if Chi Trib or S-T would report pseudo-Indian, accused plagiarist-college progressor Ward Churchill speaking at DePaul?  Then noting the next day that nothing had appeared?  Well there was a reason for that having nothing to do with editorial assignment.  It was that reporters were not allowed.  Nor were tape recorders.  American Thinker showed what amateurs can do on a website with its reporting of the Churchill talk by a non-reporter, a lawyer however, and so one expected to get things straight.  He had to finagle his way in at that and did not feel free even to take notes (!) on Churchill. 

He came up with this, in which Churchill is reported explaining away his “3,000 Eichmans” comment on the 9/11 victims and otherwise arguing his various positions.  The reporting is detailed and arresting; so much for amateurism, since people who can observe and listen and write clearly can do this work.  “We know you can write,” Daily News managing editor Daryle Feldmeir told me when I was hired without newspaper experience in 1968.  He had clips of mine from several magazines.  “But we don’t know if you can give us 500 words on deadline.”

The best part of the American Thinker reporting, by Chaya Gil, a Chicago attorney, is the ambience of it, where DePaul is shown as being so concerned about trouble or even publicity as to bar reporters — even Gil, who is apparently known at DePaul.  That being the circumstance, it’s not surprising that Churchill was misquoted, as he said back in Denver: what he said was in an email to him was presented by Gil as directly from Churchill.  It was about Hitler exterminating the wrong people and thus incendiary.  Churchill apparently reads The American Thinker and made a point to refute this allegation.

Thinker got to someone who had recorded the talk secretly, hiding the machine in his shirt or somewhere where the recording was muffled, and that recording finally, after much careful listening, backed up Churchill on this one point.  Newspapers can’t do this as quickly in hard copy.  But the upshot is that people who care about DePaul and Churchill and what happened have thorough reporting in difficult circumstances with honesty in admitting mistake and info about DePaul and it’s Toonerville Trolley administration. 

No wuxtry for a reason: Churchill at DePaul again

Remember my wondering a few days ago if Chi Trib or S-T would report pseudo-Indian, accused plagiarist-college progressor Ward Churchill speaking at DePaul?  Then noting the next day that nothing had appeared?  Well there was a reason for that having nothing to do with editorial assignment.  It was that reporters were not allowed.  Nor were tape recorders.  American Thinker showed what amateurs can do on a website with its reporting of the Churchill talk by a non-reporter, a lawyer however, and so one expected to get things straight.  He had to finagle his way in at that and did not feel free even to take notes (!) on Churchill. 

He came up with this, in which Churchill is reported explaining away his “3,000 Eichmans” comment on the 9/11 victims and otherwise arguing his various positions.  The reporting is detailed and arresting; so much for amateurism, since people who can observe and listen and write clearly can do this work.  “We know you can write,” Daily News managing editor Daryle Feldmeir told me when I was hired without newspaper experience in 1968.  He had clips of mine from several magazines.  “But we don’t know if you can give us 500 words on deadline.”

The best part of the American Thinker reporting, by Chaya Gil, a Chicago attorney, is the ambience of it, where DePaul is shown as being so concerned about trouble or even publicity as to bar reporters — even Gil, who is apparently known at DePaul.  That being the circumstance, it’s not surprising that Churchill was misquoted, as he said back in Denver: what he said was in an email to him was presented by Gil as directly from Churchill.  It was about Hitler exterminating the wrong people and thus incendiary.  Churchill apparently reads The American Thinker and made a point to refute this allegation.

Thinker got to someone who had recorded the talk secretly, hiding the machine in his shirt or somewhere where the recording was muffled, and that recording finally, after much careful listening, backed up Churchill on this one point.  Newspapers can’t do this as quickly in hard copy.  But the upshot is that people who care about DePaul and Churchill and what happened have thorough reporting in difficult circumstances with honesty in admitting mistake and info about DePaul and it’s Toonerville Trolley administration. 

That camel again

Sen. Sam Brownback on why the Miers nomination fell through: “At the end of the day [news of speeches she gave] was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” 
 
Go Brownback, Metaphor Man of the day! 
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Elements of style

I’ll tell you what’s been a joy to watch, has been the daily 350 or so p-1 words summing up each Sox game in Chi Trib by Dan McGrath.  It’s been a lovely thing, to see copy so clean and substantive, enough to make E.B. White and his mentor William Strunk Jr. stand up in their graves and say Yippee, this stuff has no needless words.  See today’s if you don’t believe it.

Elements of style

I’ll tell you what’s been a joy to watch, has been the daily 350 or so p-1 words summing up each Sox game in Chi Trib by Dan McGrath.  It’s been a lovely thing, to see copy so clean and substantive, enough to make E.B. White and his mentor William Strunk Jr. stand up in their graves and say Yippee, this stuff has no needless words.  See today’s if you don’t believe it.

Harriet, we hardly knew ye

From John Fund’s Wall St. Jnl piece:

“We spent about 1,200 hours together and had in excess of 6,000 agenda items, and I never knew where Harriet was going to be on any of those items until she cast her vote,” Jim Buerger, a former Miers colleague on the Dallas City Council, told the Washington Post. “I wouldn’t consider her a liberal, a moderate or a conservative, and I can’t honestly think of any cause she championed.”

Fund’s exertions bore no fruit.  He “called all over Texas and Washington in search of people she might have talked with about [her judicial philosophy].  No luck. In fact, it became clear Ms. Miers is a complete mystery.”

Somewhere I saw it said that Rove has been so busy with the Valerie Plame stuff that he hasn’t been doing his usual advising of GW, and Rove is reported as not having recommended Miers.  Reminds me of FDR’s pollster, the first to help a national politico, whom FDR did not have advising him during a difficult time when FDR made a lot of mistakes, as told in Mel Holli’s The Wizard of Washington: Emil Hurja, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Birth of Public Opinion Polling (Palgrave, 2002).

In any case, Rove or not, Miers appears devoid of philosophy, judicial or otherwise — in other words, a pedestrian individual, a girl picked to do a woman’s job, though why it’s a woman’s job this time around may be an important unanswered question.