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What Would Harold Think?

ArchPundit February 24, 2003 No Comments

He’d think he’d want a good street brawl followed by a good drink is my guess. Kass laments the lack of opposition in Chicago Politics.

I’m not so sure. Certainly Harold would have wanted to see the corruption spotlighted–well as long as they weren’t his pals, but he started the path Chicago is on now and I think he’d love to see a city that might be imperfect, but is certainly maintaining itself as world class even in tough times. Does anyone miss Vrdolyak (well besides the Outfit)? Does anyone miss the overtly racist campaigns? Did anyone like the Chicago Public Schools having the worst in the nation as a modifier?

Kass is right in saying that the city needs a loyal opposition, but the city has come a long, long way since 1983 and Daley deserves some credit for that. So does Washington because he started a lot of the improvements. I think Harold is up in heaving smiling down at a beautiful city and watching Barak Obama and some other young turks who don’t have to associate with the thugs that used to run the South and West sides and thinking things will work out just fine….

And another thing…

ArchPundit February 24, 2003 No Comments

And I’m pretty damn sure one can go to Instapundit, USS Clueless and any other host of right wing sites and find really much worse arguments for war than Kevin’s….

Back off Kevin

ArchPundit February 24, 2003 No Comments

It appears the left of the blogosphere is piling up on center-left Kevin Drum at CalPundit for his comments about the war. Essentially Kevin argues that pulling out now would be disastrous sending a signal to the region and specifically Saddam that he can get away with flouting the inspection regime. And Kevin is right. Pulling out now will signal to Saddam that the US doesn’t have the backbone to fight. Like it or not, the reason inspections have gone as far as they have is because of the credible threat of US force. Backing down from that makes our threat to use force incredible and the credibility of our using force is keeping the Middle East and Korea from blowing up currently.

I would have like to have seen more deft coalition building process take place without as short of a timeline as we now see. I think getting Saddam to jerk around the inspectors would have eventually brought along more allies. That being said, I’m stuck with Bush and I don’t want to see a repeat of Somalia where the message was sent the US would back down from the good fight. And fighting a warlord happy to starve his own people was the good fight.

Of course, the war must first be moral for this argument to make any sense, and I argue it is. Saddam is a threat to international peace and security and continues to attempt to build weapons. Containment is unlikely to work against a man who has an uncanny ability to make bad decisions repeatedly. And he is a savage dictator to boot. Whether we need to go to war is a debatable point, but arguing that once you have made the conclusion the war would be moral, arguing that credibility requires it is a reasonable view. Most of the criticisms of Kevin fail to see the two step logic–Kevin already concluded such a war would be moral and then moves on to the issue of what we should do now.

He’s less right about the intelligence matter, but I think people are being unfair in their criticisms. I guess the first question there is does one accept that intelligence as a meaningful trait. All, but the Sowell article seem to dance around that question. I accept it as a meaningful trait. We can measure the difference in intelligence between different human beings. Sometimes our measures are quite crude, but that is a measurement issue. I guess if people are going to dispute his point, everyone should begin with this basic point. So let’s hear the comments. This point is completely separate from the hack work in the Bell Curve.

Does it Sting when Dan Hynes hits you over the head like that?

ArchPundit February 24, 2003 No Comments

Blagojevich all of a sudden seems to have been smacked over the head by someone and given the Senate Republicans haven’t been able to see him, it must have been Dan Hynes pointing out how close to not being able to pay some bills the state is. Today, Blago ordered a 10% across the board cut in spending for this fiscal year. This is a good sign, though it would have made more sense the day he was inagurated. Better late than never, but every day he puts off making tough choices, the tougher the choices he will ultimately have to make.

Gay Rights Bill to go through the Senate

ArchPundit February 21, 2003 No Comments

Apparently the House is tired of taking the flak for it and are insisting it get out of the Senate before they bother. Profiles in courage!

For once it isn’t the Chicago Public Schools

ArchPundit February 21, 2003 No Comments

The irony of making the Chicago schools relatively solvent is that when the next funding problems crept up, the suburbs and moderately funded downstate schools would be screaming for help from the state when it had been them screaming the loudest about Chicago.

I hope those districts teach irony well

Speaking of leaks

ArchPundit February 21, 2003 No Comments

Isn’t it strange how all these leaks from Chicago US Attorneys and FBI people go to Kass? Perhaps Patrick ‘the quiet’ Fitzgerald handles his press contacts a bit differently than he portrays in his press conferences.

What do you mean the records are missing?

ArchPundit February 21, 2003 No Comments

It appears that Outfit operators are getting nervous as a former Outfit member’s prison records are now unable to be located. Kass points out to those of us with a bit less of clue, this is probably due to entering the Witness Protection Program.

Fire Finger Pointing

ArchPundit February 21, 2003 No Comments

I’ve not commented on the fire at E2 yet because I was unable to make any reliable judgments of the politics surrouding the whole deal. Certainly, the city dropped the ball in checking on the location as Phil Kadner points out. This seems to me not to be a big story.

The question is whether there is more going on underneath. The uber-cynical version is in audio by NPR which interviewed John Kass.

Kass’s argument is that a restaurant that fell on the wrong side of the oxymoronic Coalition for Better Government and the power brokers in Chicago.

The problem I have with Kass’s argument is that it is a lot different to neglect to figure out whether a club is open and actively trying to shut down a restaurant. That being said, Kadner’s last few lines explain what probably happened.

The problem of corruption in Chicago is not that all politicians are corrupt, it is that too many accept it as a way of doing business and don’t actively root it out. And Kass points out the problem with having few independent voices willing to stand up to Daley.

Jesse Jackson came to Chicago as an outsider, but now has an amazing degree of influence over local politics. That influence is unfortunately more interested in Jackson family wealth than making waves.

Kass points out that Sr. was more upset over the Barbershop than he was over 21 young adult African-Americans losing their lives. For this and many other reasons, Chicago misses having people like Harold Washington around. They played the political game and the greased the wheel, but they also kept people honest. In fact, you didn’t see Jackson in Chicago much during Washington’s time in office because he exiled him.

Devine Starting To Wake Up?

ArchPundit February 21, 2003 No Comments

It might seem odd to many readers of this blog why I have so much respect for Richard Devine. I am highly critical of his positions on death penalty reform and what is a somewhat mediocre view on prosecutorial misconduct. In the interest of disclosure, I’m familiar with some people close to him though I don’t receive tips from them. From those relationships, I’ve developed a good deal of respect for him.

He is moving in the right direction on two issues. First, he is working on a pilot taping program for police. Much of the resistance to taping confessions is coming from the police departments. They feel taping will hamper their effectiveness. The flip side of the argument is that by taping confessions, claims of coercion won’t be so easy to make. I fall in the second camp and believe taping will ultimately improve police effectiveness. The problem is getting police to buy into it. Devine is seeking to start a pilot program that will help do so. What has seemed like intransigence is starting to look like consensus building.

On a second issue, Devine has set up a special team to examine DNA evidence of convicted felons in Cook County. This is to be commended. While I would like to see a team working on all prosecutorial misconduct, this is a good start.

If death penalty reform is to work in Illinois, supporters of the Death Penalty such as Devine will need to seek some common ground with reformers. While I have no hope for DuPage County prosecutor Joe Birkett, there is some hope for reform with prosecutors like Devine.