By Steve Rhodes

Barack Obama’s relationship with Tony Rezko is the subject of a front page New York Times story this morning.
“There is no sign that Mr. Obama, who declined to be interviewed for this article, did anything improper,” the Times reports.
At least until you read the rest of the article. Then there are plenty of signs.
“Mr. Obama has portrayed Mr. Rezko as a one-time fund-raiser whom he had occasionally seen socially,” the Times reports. “But interviews with more than a dozen political and business associates suggest that the two men were closer than the senator has indicated.
“Mr. Obama turned to Mr. Rezko for help at several important junctures.”
This story won’t be the last of it either; there is still more to the Obama-Rezko relationship to be unearthed.
Our updated Political Odds, posted earlier this morning, can hardly keep up.

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Posted on June 14, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

Fourteen-year-old Roberto Duran, of Little Village, became the the 32nd Chicago Public Schools student killed in the last school year on Monday evening- the 24th to die by gunfire.
Father Michael Pfleger led a march last night, joined by the mayor and other dignitaries.
It’s a familiar sequence of events, one we have been watching for years. It always leaves the public with the uncomfortable question: What can be done? How can this madness be stopped?

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Posted on June 13, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

The Tribune discovers that “Obama” is just a brand cooked up by his political consultants; that his policy choices are fixed around that brand, not the other way around (and not always very well); and that his deepest political ties in Chicago reveal anything but a new kind of politician.
Welcome aboard!
Making of a Candidate
Today’s Obama piece is the last in a series, which is actually quite valuable, though it would have been more helpful if this kind of reporting had been done before the image of Obama had been fixed in the public mind by gullible media twits.
Reform Tha’ Police
“Mayor Richard Daley’s proposal to revamp the controversial police Office of Professional Standards was advanced Monday by a City Council committee, but not before critics contended that it won’t improve efforts to root out renegade officers,” the Tribune reports.
“Under one ‘very pernicious provision,’ the officer must receive the name of the complainant and advance copies of all witness statements, [lawyer Locke] Bowman said, and all previous unsustained complaints cannot be used against an officer in an investigation, even if there are several.”
Another provision allows accused officers to beat the shit out of their accusers for not keeping their mouths shut about their first beating.

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Posted on June 12, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

I don’t have HBO so I’ve only had the opportunity to see The Sopranos a few times, though I have to say it was every bit as good as billed.
But having read enough in advance of last night’s finale and then the papers this morning, I have to say I find it a perfect ending. Life goes on, as usual. Same-old, same-old.
The Cub Factor
Now this is more like what we expected out of the Cubs: Alfonso Soriano knocking the snot out of the ball and Jason Marquis and Ted Lilly slouching into mediocrity. Same result, but still. It was confusing losing the other way.
TV Guide
Face the Nation: Joe Lieberman.
This Week: John McCain.
Meet the Press: Pre-empted by tennis.
Fox News Sunday: Tony Snow.
You’d think the war was popular. I guess the French Open was the antiwar guest.
– Tim Willette

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Posted on June 11, 2007

By Natasha Julius

We thought about taking a week off, but there are some things you can’t cry your way out of.
Market Update
Hoping to stem the rising tide of investor worry, managers of Chicago, Inc., voted themselves a pay cut this week. However, analysts dismissed the move as a token measure that will do little to ease fears of budget shortfalls and cut-backs.

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Posted on June 9, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

1. Obama is at it again.
2. The Waco Brothers open for Blue Oyster Cult at Ribfest in Naperville on Sunday July 1. I smell Beachwood road trip.
3. Illinois leads the nation in subsidies to Wal-Mart. By a wide margin.

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Posted on June 8, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

“A couple of years ago, the graduation ceremony at Galesburgh High School had come to resemble a circus, but without the calming influence of elephants,” the Tribune’s Steve Chapman writes this morning.
“Students were dancing and making hand signs; friends in the audience were jumping up and raising a racket with air horns.”
Cool!
Go Galesburg!
“Deluged with complaints from parents and others who couldn’t see or hear at crucial moments, local officials decided a change was in order.”
Oh.
Crucial moments? At a high school commencement?
The only crucial moment is the one when it’s over.

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Posted on June 7, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

“I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and one of the principal architects of President Bush’s foreign policy, was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in prison for lying during a C.I.A. leak investigation that became part of a fierce debate over the war in Iraq,” The New York Times reports.
“The sentence was several months longer than the minimum recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, based on what Judge [Reggie] Walton said was his agreement with prosecutors that Mr. Libby’s crimes obscured an investigation into a serious matter and that his lies obliged the government to engage in a long and costly investigation that might have been avoided had he told the truth.
“If Mr. Libby goes to prison, he will be the first senior White House official to do so since the days of Watergate, when several of President Richard M. Nixon’s top aides, including H. R. Haldeman and John D. Erlichman, served prison terms.”

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Posted on June 6, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

“A commencement ceremony is supposed to be a joyous occasion, and it usually is,” the Tribune says in an editorial this morning. “But it is also supposed to be a dignified ritual marked by a solemnity appropriate to momentous events.”
Please. It is the responsibility of all graduating teenagers to mock and disrupt the pomposity of such momentous events to the cleverest of their abilities.
And if their family and friends want to blow air horns and clang cowbells, more power to ’em. It’s high school graduation, not a funeral. It should be a party.

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Posted on June 5, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

About 70 people gathered outside the Lake Shore Athletic Club on Sunday in a protest “aimed at the City Council – specifically newly elected Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) – to persaude members to designate the club a historic landmark and prevent the club’s destruction,” the Tribune reports.
“It’s to put [Reilly] on notice,” Preservation Chicago president Jonathan Fine told the Trib.
“Reilly, who attended the protest and spoke to participants, said he is holding off judgment of the demolition and new construction until he has all the facts on the project,” the Trib reports.
The facts seem to be in hand, though. The developer who bought the property has already been issued applied for a demolition permit and is preparing the building for the wrecking ball. Reilly toured the building as far back as November, and preservationists and neighborhood residents have been making their case ever since.
It’s certainly possible Reilly has some secret strategy in mind, but his lack of commitment to saving the building has neighborhood residents and preservationists understandably skeptical.
UPDATE 7:24 P.M.: Someone who was there tells me he counted 119 people at the rally’s peak. The Sun-Times reported “more than 100.” Also, I should have made clear that the building is now under a 90-day delay triggered by the demolition permit application. That grace period expires on July 17.
MORE RESOURCES:
* WBBM reports that “Alderman Reilly says the original plan to develop this particular plot was written in such a way that it guarantees the property owner certain rights . . . so it appears that the developer would be allowed to put up a new structure, so long as it doesn’t go any higher than the current one.”
Of course, the original plan doesn’t require the alderman to keep his mouth shut; landmarking the building would also protect it from demolition. It’s pointed out to me as well that the mayor could also step in to save the building, and that he will have the ultimate say anyway.
* Video of the protest. Check out the basketball referee.
Send us your insights and tips.

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Posted on June 4, 2007