Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has chosen to make the gun issue personal. Okay, I'll bite.

Daley's reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling last week (D.C. v. Heller) overturning the Washington, D.C. ban on gun ownership was as predictable as it was incoherent.

In one of his signature assaults on logic, Daley, a known enemy of modern contrivances like "facts", deftly managed to completely mischaracterize the Court's holding at the same time as embarrassing the faculty at DePaul University School of Law where he somehow obtained a law degree.

"You can't carry a gun into the Supreme Court...and so why should our streets of our American cities be open to someone carrying a gun?" Daley hissed to the compliant Chicago press corps.

In fact, the Supreme Court ruled on the issue of the right to own a gun not the right to carry a gun on the streets. Although, it will come as a great surprise to Daley that 40 of the nation's 50 states have laws that do indeed allow law-abiding citizens the right to carry a weapon.

Have those 40 states and the "American cities" in those states become the "Old West" as Daley intimated would now happen to bastions of peace and tranquility like Chicago in the wake of the high court's decision?

"The rest of the world is laughing at us," said Daley.

Perhaps, Your Honor, they are just laughing at an adult who pronounces the number 3, "tree"?

And who pray tell do you think 80% of America is laughing at, themselves or a hysterical ninny who fails to see the irony in presiding over a city that bans handgun ownership and yet is routinely afflicted with the highest number of handgun-related homicides in the nation?

The plain reality is that with more than 240 million guns in private hands in America, it no more feasible to eliminate the existence of guns than it is to eliminate the existence of ill-informed politicians.

Thus, in addition to confirming the plain language of our Constitution, the Supreme Court's decision simply advanced the idea that gun ownership should not be restricted to criminals. Revolutionary it is not.

It is political bullies like Daley who demonize the law-abiding because of their inability to control the lawless. The policies driven by his political sleight-of-tongue end up costing the lives of the law-abiding.

So call me a disloyal subject, but I am not interested in entrusting my fate to King Richard. I therefore appreciate the rare victory for ordinary, law-abiding Chicagoans provided by Antonin Scalia and the other four constitutionally literate members of the Supreme Court.

On the opening day of the Illinois Republican Party's quadrennial state convention in Decatur, please standby for this special message for Illinois Republicans: Hoping your political opponents get indicted is not an electoral strategy.

The combination of euphoria and self-righteous indignation streaming out of GOP politicos on the occasion of Tony Rezko's conviction on public corruption charges this week is predictable if not well thought out.

Considering he was elected Governor by running against that which has become the hallmark of his administration, it is natural for Republicans to delight in the possibility that Rod Blagojevich may soon be joining George Ryan for spirited games of Parcheesi courtesy of federal prosecutors.

Yet, while the media treats Gov. Blagojevich as a human pi'ata, Republicans should resist the temptation to take their gratuitous whacks and instead use this as an opportunity to come clean.

The fact is that a high-ranking Republican party official was mentioned throughout the Rezko trial and the government's star witness against Rezko was a longtime, major donor to Republican candidates.

Instead of banal finger-wagging and scorn-filled platitudes, Republicans should recognize that a little contrition could go along way.

Illinoisans have been waiting for someone--anyone--for more than a decade since our state careened into the wilderness to acknowledge responsibility for wrongdoing.

This weekend, at their convention, Republican leaders should issue an open letter to Illinois voters on behalf of the collective party that says something like this,

We do not celebrate the Tony Rezko verdict and the corruption that persists in state government now any more than we did under a Republican Governor.

We understand that Republicans bear responsibility for some of the wrongdoing that has undermined your trust and faith in state government.

We apologize for those times when Republican officials have failed to live up to the standards or abide by the principles that we have set forth to define our party. We will not excuse or tolerate bad actors within our party the way we did in the past.

We were once a party consumed with handing out the spoils of power. That approach led to excesses, but we are no longer that party. Instead, we are a party dedicated to system change in fundamental policy areas like education.

We have returned to our roots as a party based on extending enfranchisement to the disenfranchised and expanding available opportunities for all.

We respectfully ask that you inform your judgment on our party and our party's standard bearers based on who we are today, not who we were in the past.

Such an acknowledgement would in itself be evidence that Illinois Republicans have matured to the point where they have learned from the party's recent past and are ready to move confidently forward.

The party can then get to the business of defining its constituency and declaring the policy battles to be waged on behalf of that constituency.

This weekend, Illinois Republicans have a choice: they can continue to be the party of schadenfreude or they can be a party that provides true electoral competition.

Programming Note: Proft will join Beyond the Beltway host Bruce DuMont tomorrow (Tuesday) night from 10pm-12midnight on WLS-AM 890 (www.wlsam.com), to talk about the final two Democrat primaries (South Dakota, Montana) with a look ahead to the general election for the Presidency.

Click here to listen to an .mp3 of this commentary as heard on this morning's Don Wade & Roma Morning Show on WLS AM-890.

Click here to email Dan Proft

Maybe it is because I have so often been on the receiving end of "The Talk" that I am compelled to say, Trinity United Church of Christ deserved better, Senator Obama.

The "it's not you, it's me" break-up speech? Really? After 20 years of faithfully serving your political purposes in Chicago, all Trinity gets is the pro forma "we wish you the best", "you're better off without us", "we were stifling you" spiel?

No sooner was Trinity kicked to the curb then you were already talking about the new church you and Michelle are going to join. So I guess you do want a relationship, you just don't want a relationship with Trinity anymore, is that it?

Did Trinity mean nothing to you? Your wedding, the children's baptisms, Pastor Wright's racist histrionics (I know, you SAY you were never there for those...)--such sentimentality has no place with your new friends, I suppose, as you go off and court white, middle-class voters in swing states.

I am sure Trinity is sorry for embarrassing you with the sermon by that white priest from the Archie comic strip. They were just trying too hard because they really like you. After all, you put Father Pfleger on your campaign's Catholic advisory council.

Anyway, you too have made a lot of mistakes and Trinity stuck by you. They were cool with your friends like Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers. They did not judge you. And, just like Michelle, Trinity's pride in America is directly proportional to your electoral success, so can you not try and meet them halfway?

I noticed when you broke up with Trinity that you were careful not to say that you disagreed with the church or its teachings, so maybe there's still a chance to make this work?

If not, perhaps the folks at Trinity will just have to tell your fancy friends at your new church just who really are. After all, what kind of person who professes to possess a deep-seated faith would allow media scrutiny to drive them from their long-standing place of worship?

And what kind of President would such a person make?

Senator Obama, you call Trinity back and work it out.

Dan Proft is a Principal of Urquhart Media LLC, a Chicago-based public affairs firm and political commentator for the Don Wade & Roma Morning Show (5-9am) on Chicago's number one news talk radio station, WLS-AM 890. He can be reached at dan@urqmedia.com.

For other Dan Proft commentaries (radio & print), please visit: http://www.urqmedia.com/proft/

For other recent Don Wade & Roma interviews, commentary, and discussions visit: http://www.wlsam.com/sectional.asp?id=16410

© All Rights Reserved

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Today on Dane Placko's "Fox Chicago Sunday" public affairs program (with Fox anchor Byron Harlan sitting in for Fox political editor Jack Conaty), the always-entertaining Cliff Kelley, a radio talk show host on WVON ("V103"), and I verbally jousted over the latest Obama campaign controversy: Father Michael Pfleger's incendiary, racially-charged sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ.



Click here to view the segment on MyFoxChicago.com

(Note: The show taped on Friday so our discussion preceded the announcement Saturday of the Obamas' decision to take their leave of Trinity.)

Thought you might enjoy.

--DP

While Archimedes-in-a-pantsuit tries to rewrite the laws of mathematics, the rest of the nation has properly begun to weigh the Presidential contest between Sens. McCain and Obama.

Obama has, however, learned a valuable Clinton trick from this protracted primary--how to obliquely reference the "vast, right-wing conspiracy" to misdirect people's attention away from glaring, personal deficiencies.

During his victory speech in North Carolina on Tuesday night Obama said, "We know what's coming...the same names and labels they (Republicans) pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all of their ideas."

Actually, we have some new names and labels thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Obama's own words and ideas, as well as the Senator's cozy relationships with corrupt influence peddlers, domestic terrorists, and a hateful, bile-spewing spiritual advisor.

That right-wing conspiracy shtick--being "Swift-boated"--is going to work out about as well for Obama as it did for Clinton and for the same reason-because it is without merit.

"Swift-boated" has been added to our political lexicon by the Left to lament the alleged unfair attacks to which John Kerry was subjected in the 2004 Presidential race.

And yet, it was John Kerry who made his military service an issue. He sought to use his service to distinguish himself from President Bush and to characterize both Bush and Cheney as reckless chicken-hawks.

It was John Kerry who saluted the nation nearly four years ago and said, "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty." It was John Kerry who brought several of those with whom he had served in Vietnam on stage at the Democrat National Convention to show them off to the country.

On the contrary, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were effective with their anti-Kerry message because it was a substantive one. The facts were on their side. The fact was that Kerry's entire chain of command, every officer under whom Kerry served in Vietnam, questioned his fitness to be Commander-in-Chief. Many Kerry detractors were Democrats but they were also proud and decorated veterans who believed that Kerry had acted dishonorably and that his campaign was being run disingenuously. Theirs was a legitimate perspective for the country to hear.

Similarly, it is Barack Obama who has presented as his core argument that he possesses the superior judgment to be President. That demands a thorough examination of both his personal history and professional record.

The process demands and will extract the same from John McCain.

So as we begin the compare and contrast on the matter of the two men's judgment, at the behest of Obama, consider these two snapshots at a watershed moment in each one's life:

At the same respective points in their lives as grown men in their early 30s, Obama decided to sidle up to Chicago political machine bosses and their financiers and the chichi Hyde Park set of pseudo-intellectual socialists to advance his political career. That earned Obama an appointment to a State Senate seat in 1996.

At a similar age, John McCain made an important decision as well. He decided to forgo his early release from a North Vietnamese POW camp, an offer extended to him because of his father's position in the military. McCain would not walk unless the other POWs who had been captured before him were also released. That earned McCain an additional five years of torture in a Viet Cong prison camp and, for all he knew at the time, was a decision that would cost him his life.

What would you have done if presented with the same offer with which McCain was presented?

What do you think Barack Obama would have done as you have watched him over the last couple of months provide ever-evolving answers and, ultimately, denunciation of his 20-year pastor (only because Rev. Wright wasn't properly concerned about Obama's campaign)?

These snapshots of course do not tell the whole story of either man, but they do tell an important part of the story for each, about the values that have informed their lives.

Call it "Swift-boating" if you want but Obama's ethereal campaign will be done in by his own bad judgments measured against the very standard he has set to define the race for President.

The two Jerrys are in the news again.

One is a pompous ringmaster who appeals to the lowest common denominator, exploiting ignorance, and preying on people's irrational fears.

The other one is Jerry Springer.

Together, Jerrys Wright and Springer represent the most startling examples of a disturbing socio-political phenomenon where we are instructed to treat remorseless carnival barkers as serious contributors to civilized society.

Barack Obama's ole, kooky uncle Jeremiah, a living, breathing Horn of Plenty for John McCain, spent yesterday giving David Axelrod heart palpitations by roosting his chickens before the National Press Club.

Reverend Ocho Cinco tended to his theatrical excesses high-fiving one audience member, pointing and winking to another like he just scored a touchdown while he boasted about his military service as evidence that he was more patriotic than Dick Cheney.

By Wright's, ahem, logic, Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh, and John Allen Muhammed, all of whom served in the U.S. military, are also more patriotic than the vice president. The point is that military service, including Wright's, is deserving of respect and thanks but it does not provide lifelong absolution for everything a person does or says.

Meanwhile, Jerry Springer was busily figuring out how to fit a pithy anecdote about a Nazi werewolf boy who married his pet parakeet into the commencement speech he was invited to deliver at Northwestern University Law School in two weeks.

One can only hope U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a NU Law alumnus, is on hand for this dignified affair to join in the chanting: "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!".

In response to the howls of protest over selecting Springer, Northwestern Law School Dean David Van Zandt offered the non-responsive response that Springer held public office and was successful in the entertainment industry implying that he was therefore a legitimate choice.

Dean Van Zandt glossed over the fact that while in public office Springer distinguished himself by getting caught paying for a prostitute with a check and that Springer's "success" in entertainment was predicated on himself being a prostitute, servicing the general public with every possible incarnation of inbreeding.

So here's my "Final Thought": What a society exalts, it begets.

I am not concerned that the two Jerrys are held in high esteem by common sense Americans--that is certainly not the case.

Rather, I get concerned when I consider exactly what we as a nation are begetting when a venerated law school and the likely Presidential nominee of the Democrat Party take their respective Jerrys seriously.

I have had the good fortune to speak at many county GOP Lincoln Day dinners and before a number of Republican organizations around the state over the past several months. The speech I have linked to here was last week before a great group of concerned Republicans in Yorkville (Kendall County) as represented by the Kendall County Women's Republican Club.

Click below to watch the video...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5918482949442718112&pr=goog-sl

My talk breaks down into four component parts and is, in part, my contribution to the important discussions and debates Republicans across the state are having as to how to make our party relevant and competitive again in Illinois. The four parts: (1) Where are we? What is the landscape?; (2) How did we get here?; (3) Where do we want to go? What kind of party do we want to be?; and (4) How do we get to where we want to go?

I want to again thank the Kendall County Republican Women for their indulgence as well as offer my thanks to the many other GOP county chairmen, township GOP organizations, and rank-and-file Republicans throughout Illinois who have welcomed my thoughts and observations (and who, of course, have expressed their undying devotion to WLS-AM 890 and the "Don Wade & Roma Show").

I would welcome your feedback and your ideas as to the policies and practices the Illinois GOP must embody in order to be successful again.

--DP

Hillary Clinton downs a boilermaker at a local watering hole in Crown Point, Indiana, and we are supposed to understand that symbolic act to mean she is a regular Johnny Punchclock?

We know instead that Hillary would bite the head off of a live kitten and drink the blood from its still twitching carcass if that should earn her one additional vote.

Barack Obama offers condescending statements about small town Americans who "cling" to "guns or religion or antipathy to people that aren't like them" at a San Fran funder with his effete, liberal friends, but he just chose his words poorly.

In response to the firestorm, we get glibness from Obama to make it all better, "Now I am the first to admit that some of the words I chose I chose badly, because as my wife reminds me, I'm not perfect," so said Obama.

Actually, Obama was not the first to admit it and he only reluctantly conceded the point after being pressed on the issue. Further, Obama's imperfection is not being hotly contested. It is rather his perfectly clear mischaracterization of those who have not embraced his candidacy.

But is not the pandering or the indignation that most clearly exposes both Clinton and Obama as tasked, in their minds, with having to save all of us mouth-breathing troglodytes across the American countryside from ourselves.

It is that both believe that they are entitled to make choices for which others should not be similarly endowed.

Both Clinton and Obama can send their children to expensive, private schools but believe that low-incomes families in failing school districts should not have such a choice.

Both Clinton and Obama can make millions of dollars through politics but target producers in the private sector with class envy politics and redistributive policies.

So is it Clinton or Obama who is the elitist? Yes.

On Sunday, Fox Chicago Sunday with host Dane Placko featured a full hour devoted to the discussion of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's impact on Sen. Barack Obama's Presidential campaign and the larger issues of race and religion in the political arena. The first two segments featured an exchange of views between: WVON (V-103) radio talk show host Santita Jackson; Eric Easter, Director of Digital Strategy for EbonyJet.com; and yours truly.

Following our panel was a revealing conversation in terms of how those who present the news view the newsworthiness of the Wright/Obama connection wherein several reporters and anchors for Fox-32 offered their views.

A lot of thought-provoking material from persons with widely diverging views. Thought you might be interested to give it a look in case you missed it.

--DP

+++

Click below to watch the video:

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/myfox/pages/News/Politics/Detail?contentId=6225138&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.14.1

Note: There are five separate segments that follow the one linked above. To view the remaining five segments of the program, please click the images in the "Side Bar" area next to the video player on the website.

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His autobiography was entitled, "In the Arena" and that is most certainly where Charlton Heston lived his life.

When fundamental principles of individual rights and human liberty were at stake, Heston wheeled his chariot into the arena to do intellectual battle. He was the rare iconic figure who did not let his status inhibit him from consistently acting in furtherance of what he knew to be just.

News accounts about his passing have detailed his record on civil rights and gun rights but it is on free speech rights that I am able to give eyewitness testimony.

There is an independent, student newspaper on the campus of Northwestern University today because of Charlton Heston.

Ten years ago, at the behest of the student government and with the tacit acceptance of the university's administration, the Northwestern Chronicle was to be silenced.

The student government did not like some of the right-of-center views expressed in the Chronicle so as leftist hypocrites who preach tolerance and practice intolerance are want to do, they moved to "derecognize" the newspaper, which effectively would have prohibited its publication.

Northwestern University President Henry Bienen (who is still the university's president) said at the time that expunging the Chronicle was not a matter of free speech.

The Northwestern alumni who founded the Chronicle in 1992--including me--strongly disagreed.

Heston had also attended Northwestern (where he met his wife) prior to being called up to serve by the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. We believed he would be concerned about what was happening at his alma mater-and he was.

We brought this matter to Heston's attention and he intervened on the paper's behalf.

Heston corresponded with President Bienen and availed himself to both local and national media outlets that picked up the story.

Upon further reflection, the university's administration rekindled their stated love affair with academic pluralism on campus and a permanent stay of execution for the Chronicle was so ordered.

There were many prominent persons of varying political stripes that entered the fray to defend the Chronicle. Liberals like Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn and Medill Journalism Professor David Protess as well as conservative commentators like Tom Roeser and John Leo all came to our aid. But Heston's involvement was clearly the key.

This may not seem like a big deal to some. Heston used his influence to save one campus newspaper at one small, private university. So what? How much difference did that make in the grand scheme of things as political correctness still rages on in colleges across America?

To assess Heston's actions in terms of scope is to miss the fundamental point.

Heston saw an opportunity to assist those who were acting in accordance with a shared belief that institutions of higher learning should be free marketplaces of ideas. Because it mattered to us, it mattered to him.

Heston made all the difference for us as well as for the annual addition of new students that publish the paper to this day.

Fortunately, in one of the true highlights of my life, I was able to publicly thank Charlton Heston for the difference he had made when he came to speak at Northwestern and I was privileged to introduce him.

The morale of this story and, for that matter, of Heston's life is not to be found simply in the magnitude of his accomplishments but in his enduring personal example of principled activism.

Maybe his friend Oprah can hook him up with Dr. Phil?

After watching Sen. Barack Obama's major speech on race in America yesterday (read: Rev. Jeremiah Wright), I am convinced he is dissociative.

Webster's dictionary defines the psychological condition of dissociation as "the separation of whole segments of the personality or of discrete mental processes from the mainstream of consciousness or of behavior."

Obama's speech was thoughtful, history-rich, deftly composed, and, in parts, refreshingly candid about racial divides in America and the sources of those divides.

However, he spoke as if he was an innocent bystander to the history he recounted.

Obama discussed our nation's failings as though he was powerless to act previously or presently.

Obama lamented, "Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students."

That is true.

Although I would offer another notion that may help explain those achievement gaps. What about the cowardly politicians in the pockets of the teachers unions who pay lip service to education while they let generations of low income kids be forced into schools that they know will fail them?

That is what Obama did as a state senator representing Chicago's south side. And that helps explain why, when he left his state senate seat, there were more than 12,000 kids in failing schools in his district (according to the No Child Left Behind standards).

Obama had seven years in the Illinois General Assembly to do something about perhaps the worst urban public school system in America. He did nothing except propagate the status quo. It is Sen. Obama who has countenanced the pernicious philosophy of "separate but equal" for the children of low income families during his time in public life.

Obama called for white and black middle class Americans to focus on the "real culprits of the middle class squeeze" decrying a Washington that is "dominated by lobbyists and special interests."

Yet, as Illinois annually contends for the title of most politically corrupt state in America, what was Obama's record here?

Well, last week Obama appeared before the editorial boards of both Chicago daily newspapers to answer questions about his association with Tony Rezko, an influence-peddling, fundraising impresario who is under federal indictment for a variety of alleged pay-to-play schemes that involved shaking down companies that did business with the state of Illinois. In other words, illegal special interest politics.

Late last year Obama pegged the total amount of campaign contributions he had received from Rezko in the $50K range. Upon further review, Obama disclosed last week that the number is more like $250K.

Moreover, while Rezko was widely reported to be the subject of an ongoing federal probe in 2005, Obama transacted a hinky land deal with him that ultimately resulted in Obama purchasing a parcel of land from Rezko for about $300,000 less than the original asking price.

Obama now calls the land deal with Rezko a mistake.

Obama has also refused to take money from lobbyists and PACs--in his presidential campaign. That is a luxury he can now afford.

When it was not such a luxury regarding the financing of his campaigns in Illinois, Obama was not so doctrinaire, choosing instead the path of least resistance relative to "special interest" campaign cash. This is typical of how Obama cleverly dissociates himself from such previous unpleasantries, as if it was a failure of the system he wants to fix and not his personal choice.

Following the Obama editorial sit-down with the Chicago Tribune, columnist John Kass quoted Obama as saying, "I know that there are those, like John Kass, who would like me to decry Chicago politics more frequently. I'll leave that to his commentary..."

The implication of Obama's glib remark is that it is not his job to rail against rampant political corruption in Chicago and Illinois. That is a job for op-ed writers. When, in fact, that is precisely part the job, particularly in Illinois, of someone who seeks to be a leader in public life.

The operative word being "leader".

When Obama fails to venture into the fray, we are told that he is transcending politics as we know it. What it may instead be is a willingness to do the right thing amidst controversy or political danger only as a last resort.

And that brings us to good ole Uncle Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor and spiritual advisor.

Obama's answers to even the most basic, staple questions from the media about his relationship with Wright and his knowledge of Wright's views have clearly "evolved" over the last several days as the controversy went from percolating to boiling over.

I will leave the parsing of words to Obama and rather note the more general observation that, here again, for two decades Obama had the opportunity to go on the record, publicly or even privately (of which he has made no mention to date), and rebuke Jeremiah Wright's hate-filled spewage.

For two decades, Obama had the opportunity to open up the frank and rational discussion on race that he was forced to endeavor to facilitate yesterday in order to create space in the public's consciousness between Wright and him.

For two decades, Obama chose to instead go along to get along--with a radical, anti-American, bile-discharging "man of God", just as he did with the Chicago political machine bosses and their financiers.

Do I think Obama subscribes to the kooky conspiracy theories and overheated rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright? No, I do not. That is only my sense from those who know him well, however, because Obama certainly has not earned the benefit of the doubt on this score.

Going along to get along, not standing up when he knew better, has finally caught up with Barack Obama.

The consequence is that Obama will not be able to dissociate from this political reality: his 35-minute treatise on race relations in America will quickly evaporate into the ether whereas the videos of Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright's fire-breathing denunciations of the "U.S. of KKK A" are hermetically sealed to his candidacy.

Forget Eliot Spitzer, the entire Democrat Party is melting down before the nation's very eyes.

Last week, America was both introduced to the electoral cure for white guilt in the form of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and reminded by Geraldine Ferraro why Walter Mondale lost 49 states.

The Democrat Party and its two competing Presidential candidates have been hoist by their own petard of race- and gender-identity politics.

Feminist icon Ferraro, a Hillary Clinton-backer, was branded a racist by the Obama campaign for curious statements about the "concept" of Barack Obama. Ferraro essentially argued that if Barack Obama were different, he wouldn't be the same.

In defending herself against the Obama-mainstream media complex's backlash, Ferraro conceded on Good Morning America that had her name been Gerard Ferraro (presumably implying that had she been a man) in 1984, she would not have been selected as her party's ill-fated Vice Presidential nominee that year. So while Ferraro identified race as that which only distinguishes Obama, she at least volunteered that it was solely gender that distinguished her.

Meanwhile, back at the mothership, while Clinton was offering pro-forma denunciation of her comrade-in-arms, team Hillary finally got around to pushing out their special edition "Best of Rev. Jeremiah Wright" DVD collection of selected anti-American ravings and black helicopter conspiracy theories from the good reverend, Obama's long-time spiritual advisor.

If you think George W. Bush controls the media--yes, that President, the one with the 70% disapproval rating; if you think Israel is a state-sponsor of terrorism; if you think black Republicans are sell-outs; and if you think that America is a racist country that should be damned by God, then you are just going to get the biggest kick out of Rev. Wright's gyration-filled, pulpit pontifications.

It turns out that Michelle Obama is not the only one who saw no reason to be proud of America prior to her husband's political ascension.

The other Obama attempted to square Wright's affinity for hateful demagoguery with the post-racial "One America" vision of his campaign offering to ABC News the rationalization that Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with."

You know what the difference is between Louis Farrakhan, who Obama was quick to categorically repudiate, and good ole Uncle Jeremiah Wright? Louis Farrakhan plays the violin.

Both Democrat campaigns have now been reduced from pandering on the basis of race and gender to polarizing on those bases in order to make their best case to Democrat superdelegates that their opponent is unelectable in the fall against McCain.

Before this is over, they will be both be right.

Democrat Bill Foster’s victory over Republican Jim Oberweis in Saturday’s special election in Illinois is evidence of the clamor for change in the countryside?  Perhaps.

Are exurban Chicagoans disgusted with Washington?  Yes, they are.

But there were some uniquely local factors that were more decisive.  

This was Oberweis’ fourth run for high office since 2002.  Over the past six years, he has turned in more stale, lackluster, straight-to-video performances than Matthew McConaughey.

The dairy magnate’s gaffe-filled campaigns have demonstrated one thing clearly: he has exponentially more personal wealth than good sense. 

He burst onto the scene in 2002 running for the U.S. Senate by comparing pro-lifers to the Taliban.  Oberweis was endorsed by then House Speaker Dennis Hastert in that campaign, as he was in the congressional race just concluded.  He lost the primary.

In 2004, he ran for U.S. Senate again and egregiously overplayed the anti-illegal immigration sentiment, even among GOP primary voters, with a now infamous ad that would have made 18^th century Know Nothings blush.  He was also fined by the FEC coming out of that cycle for a thinly veiled attempt to run television ads paid for by his dairy to benefit his campaign.  He lost the primary. 

In 2006, he ran for Governor and was in the ethical soup once again for using fake newspaper headlines attributed to real newspapers in his television ads.  He also got whacked during that cycle for allegedly and hypocritically hiring illegal aliens to clean some of his dairy stores, a charge that re-appeared in the election concluded on Saturday.  He lost the primary.

Subsequently, he ran ill-fated, intraparty campaigns for both state party chairman and county chairman in his home county.  He withdrew from both contests when it was clear he could not win. 

In the 2008 race to succeed Hastert, Oberweis ran a bitter primary against 14-year incumbent State Senator Chris Lauzen.  He won the primary but engendered lingering vitriol from Lauzen and his supporters.  Lauzen refused to endorse Oberweis—admittedly this reflects poorly on Lauzen as well.  As such, some conservatives inclined to be less than enthusiastic about Oberweis to begin with became outright hostile.  This translated, at least in part, to the underwhelming GOP turnout on Saturday.

Additionally, Oberweis mucked it up again in the waning days of this latest campaign by taking a quote from Foster grossly out of context in a television ad he ran.  Oberweis was properly excoriated by the Chicago Tribune among others who have seen his act before. 

So consider this candidate Oberweis in a state in which every constitutional officer is a Democrat, the two legislative leaders are Democrats, and the two U.S. Senators are Democrats. 

And consider this candidate Oberweis in a district, admittedly GOP leaning, that the third most powerful man in the world, Speaker Hastert, a 20-year incumbent, won only 60-40 two years ago against a no-name Democrat with 1/17^th of the funds Hastert had at his disposal (and thus could not afford retail media buys). 

In spite of the Obama ads and the dominant dogma of change, this congressional race between the blunder-prone Oberweis and the excruciatingly humorless (wait until he gets to Washington, you’ll see what I mean) Bill Foster was a decidedly local matter.

Senator Dick Durbin did his best to nationalize the race and cleverly divert voters’ attention away from this inconvenient reality saying of the Foster victory, "It tells me that voters are ready for a change.  They want new leadership in Washington.”

And, of course, who knows more about change than the number two man in the U.S. Senate, a 25-year congressional incumbent?  Since Durbin is up for re-election in November perhaps change should include his departure.

While Beltway insiders may spin Foster’s victory as one for the change insurgents, it is in fact most clearly a win for the Democrat establishment that has had increasing command control of Illinois over the past decade. 

Regardless of what ultimately happens in November, the Oberweis loss then is much less a harbinger of the future for the nation than it is an indicator of the present in Illinois.

Break out the "We're No. 1" sponge-fingers, Chicagoans.

The implacable Todd Stroger has brought us to the mountain top.

Unburdened by his campaign promises, Stroger cobbled together the necessary 10 "harrumphs!" from Democrat Cook County board members on Friday night to pass his budget, protect all the important phony baloney jobs, and solidify Chicago as the city with the highest sales tax in the nation at 10.25%.

The other nice thing about Stroger's 133% increase in the county portion of the city's sales tax is that it ensures Chicagoans will continue to enjoy the highest gasoline prices in perpetuity.

Lesser men would have perhaps concerned themselves with the nuisance of reform or gotten bogged down with the laws of economics. Not Todd Stroger. He heroically kept his eye on the prize, even while being terrorized by the Chicago press corps with, of all things, questions!

"My fault is actually running for office and being Todd Stroger," he decried during an apparent out-of-body experience requiring him to refer to himself in the third person.

While it is unclear to whom else the responsibility for Todd Stroger's condition of "being Todd Stroger" should be assigned, there are others who richly deserve to share in the credit for his most recent policy achievement.

A tip of the cap goes to the good government guys, U.S. Senators Barack Obama and Dick Durbin, who endorsed Stroger and rallied for him in the waning days of his 2006 campaign for Cook County Board President.

Acknowledgment is owed to those 10 Democrats on the county board whose vision was best expressed by Commissioner Deborah Sims when she told the Chicago Tribune, "This country was built on taxes." It is that kind of laser-like focus on wealth transfer rather than the tedium of wealth creation that will help transform Chicago into downtown Detroit.

Last but certainly not least, recognition of the people without whom none of this would have been possible--the 2 in 3 self-flagellating Chicagoans who voted for Todd Stroger.

In the supermarket checkout line, at the gas pump, picking up a prescription at the pharmacy, if you were a Stroger voter, please make a point to introduce yourself to your fellow Chicagoans so that you may be afforded a proper salutation.

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