Sunday Trib

Joey the Clown Lombardo “was arrested while sitting in the front passenger seat of a 1994 silver Lincoln parked in an alley outside a home in the 2300 block of North 74th Street,” reports Chi Trib’s Brendan McCarthy, supplying good detail.  But it’s 74th Avenue, as are all north-south numbered streets in west suburbia.  Where was the copy desk? 

“One World, Many Stories” is Trib’s Perspective section page one head.  Subhead says Trib is “one of a handful of American newspapers that field their own foreign correspondents,” etc., which smacks of a promotion, does it not?  First up is Hugh Dellios on “how Mexicans’ need for jobs and [villainous?] America’s drug habits collide at the U.S.-Mexico border.”  Ten other correspondents have stories, each probably respectable.  But the promo feel persists.

Trib’s Kathy Bergen has a page one Business section piece on Berghoff Restaurant closing, “Life’s `perfect’ plate being cleared away: . . .  many longtime workers will lose good-paying unionized jobs with full benefits, increasingly rare for Chicago food-service employees,” which cites high cost of unionization as maybe, in part why it’s closing.  It’s a fair speculation.

“Truth or consequences” — Remember that?

Debra Pickett of Sun-Times deserves warning: If I ever meet her, I will hug her, mostly because of today — her discussion and dissection of the latest truth controversy: Front & center, Oprah Winfrey, you lover of dissembling.  Oprah endorses the “emotional truth” defense mounted by fiction author in guise of nonfiction author James Frey of A Million Little Pieces best-seller fame. 

The book’s appeal, abetted by an Oprah show appearance, lay in this guy’s having conquered vice in pursuit of virtue — managing the transition from addict to role model, etc. — which he relayed to the gullible in excruciating detail, much of which he made up.  (For shame!)  Exposed, he says so what?  Said it on Larry King, and Oprah called in to agree with him, blissfully unaware that the halfway alert Oprah fan will be somewhat less likely to be inspired by her show’s next success story. 

If Oprah had any sense in the matter, she would have called in to Larry and reamed the author out.  Not on your Nielsen rating.

Along comes Ms. Pickett, noting that the author once lived in Chicago and drawing comparisons with his plea and Chi scam artists, many in office thanks to gullible voters. 

Read Ms. Pickett, please.  She has a nice touch and in her we may have a durable winner.

"Truth or consequences" — Remember that?

Debra Pickett of Sun-Times deserves warning: If I ever meet her, I will hug her, mostly because of today — her discussion and dissection of the latest truth controversy: Front & center, Oprah Winfrey, you lover of dissembling.  Oprah endorses the “emotional truth” defense mounted by fiction author in guise of nonfiction author James Frey of A Million Little Pieces best-seller fame. 

The book’s appeal, abetted by an Oprah show appearance, lay in this guy’s having conquered vice in pursuit of virtue — managing the transition from addict to role model, etc. — which he relayed to the gullible in excruciating detail, much of which he made up.  (For shame!)  Exposed, he says so what?  Said it on Larry King, and Oprah called in to agree with him, blissfully unaware that the halfway alert Oprah fan will be somewhat less likely to be inspired by her show’s next success story. 

If Oprah had any sense in the matter, she would have called in to Larry and reamed the author out.  Not on your Nielsen rating.

Along comes Ms. Pickett, noting that the author once lived in Chicago and drawing comparisons with his plea and Chi scam artists, many in office thanks to gullible voters. 

Read Ms. Pickett, please.  She has a nice touch and in her we may have a durable winner.

Mirrors, please

Dem interrogators of Alito have their own shady pasts lurking, notes Tom Bevan in Real Clear Politics.

Mirrors, please

Dem interrogators of Alito have their own shady pasts lurking, notes Tom Bevan in Real Clear Politics.

Association!

Dennis Byrne has a new McCarthyite.

Association!

Dennis Byrne has a new McCarthyite.

The longest 30 minutes

Judge Alito got in 72 words during his half hour with Sen. Joe Biden yesterday, according to John Podhoretz at NRO Corner, via Radio Blogger.

So?  What does Alito think he is, a judicial candidate?  It’s not his senate anyhow, it’s Joe’s.

The longest 30 minutes

Judge Alito got in 72 words during his half hour with Sen. Joe Biden yesterday, according to John Podhoretz at NRO Corner, via Radio Blogger.

So?  What does Alito think he is, a judicial candidate?  It’s not his senate anyhow, it’s Joe’s.

Bias alert: he blew whistle? Or just blew it?

You’d think one of our most main stream outlets would play it down the middle, wouldn’t you?  Letting us decide?  Not so in case of ABC, which has decided for us that the NSA operative who spilled classified beans to NY Times did not violate his so-called sacred trust but gave us news wholly fit to print:

“Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet,” says Brian Ross of ABC, hoping we all will think, if ABC says it, it must be so. 

However. “Did it ever occur to ABC News that maybe the NSA wants to keep Tice quiet because they take seriously the sensitive nature of what they do every day to protect the nation against terrorist attacks?” asks John McIntyre at The RCP Blog.

If it did, the thought was dismissed immediately, we presume.

“My question is,” continues the RCP man, “why is a guy who divulges highly classified information to people who aren’t cleared to have that information necessarily a whistleblower? How does ABC News know that Mr. Tice is a whistleblower and not a criminal?”

Hey, they have their sources.