The President At Valois.

President Barack Obama, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, and U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias picked up breakfast at Hyde Park's Valois Cafeteria this morning. For the President of the United States just about every public act is symbolic, even his dining choices. So it is with his choice of Valois.

I know Valois from a few years back when I helped my friend, the photographer Ray Flerlage, promote his book, Chicago Blues As Seen From The Inside. Ray lived in the nearby South Shore neighborhood but didn't like to receive strangers at his home, so at his suggestion I always took him to Valois to meet with reporters.

Sorry, France, but the locals pronounce it 'va-LOY.'

Valois has been there a long time and according to Ray, it was the first Chicago restaurant to serve blacks and whites together. That is its symbolic significance, that and the fact that it is a no-frills, regular folks kind of place, just a small storefront with about 20 tables and a steam table cafeteria line at the back. The food is hearty, good and cheap. The people are friendly, although like most cafeterias they don't let you dawdle in line.

The president and I like a lot of the same Chicago restaurants. Last night he went to Topolobampo. I've only been there a couple of times but years ago a girlfriend and I used to have brunch at Rick Bayless's other place, Frontera Grill, almost every Saturday morning. I also frequent Manny's Deli, a favorite with local cops, firemen, other city workers, and pols like President Obama.

I keep waiting for him to show up at Rosa's Blues Lounge on one of these visits. He held one of his first fundraisers for his senate campaign there. Somehow I managed to miss him at all of these places back when he was just a little-known local politician, at least so far as I know, but at least I know we have similar tastes.

Kass on Tuesday's Debate.

If you don't want to read the background, just the column, go here.

The background is that John Kass is a columnist in the Chicago Tribune. He is a self-identified conservative, but his columns are always well-reasoned, well-informed and intellectually honest, which is all I ask of any commentator. In July he wrote a column that impressed me so much, I promised to alert the readers of this space whenever he produced another one on the same subject, as he did today.

As the McCain-Palin campaign once again tries to beat the dead horse that is the supposed Bill Ayers connection, Kass shows them the way to score some real points. No one explains The Chicago Way better than Kass. What Kass doesn't get is that his story is a bit too subtle for knuckle-draggers, who are all the McCain-Palin ticket has left.

I wrote my own commentary about Obama and the Chicago Machine, which is here. By the way, if it isn't obvious, I support the Obama-Biden ticket. My answer to Kass comes from my Christian friends, who strive to be in the world but not of it. So, yes, I believe Barack Obama has been exposed to the Chicago Machine but has not been compromised by it.

Even at that, if one is uncomfortable with Obama-Biden, that alone shouldn't be a reason to vote for McCain-Palin, who scare me and would scare me more if I believed they have any chance of winning. If you can't vote for Obama-Biden, may I suggest Barr-Root.

Obama and the Chicago Machine.

The McCain campaign is pretty proud of its new ad that attempts to tie Obama to the Chicago Machine. It's smart political advertising and well timed, and if they can influence anyone's votes with it, well, that's the point.

So I'm not here even to say it's a cheap shot, because it's not. If there's anything strategically wrong with it, it's that some people may actually like Obama more because if they think he's too soft or cerebral, they might warm to the idea of him as a tough, Chicago streetfighter.

My purpose in posting is just to share a little bit of what I know from living here.

Mayor Daley bristles whenever anyone talks about the Chicago Machine. In one sense, I agree with him, because his is not his father's Chicago Machine and the image most people have when they hear the words "Chicago Machine" would apply to Daley senior's Chicago, but Daley junior's not so much.

(Some people refer to them as Richard I and Richard II, but I prefer Big Dick and Little Dick.)

The son's machine is, if I can mix my metaphors, a big tent machine. Yes, the Cook County Democratic Party controls just about everything that happens politically in Chicago and Cook County, and the Daley family controls the Cook County Democratic Party, but part of how they do that is by letting 1,000 flowers bloom. The price of admission is loyalty to the party, but loyalty mainly means helping the Party retain its grip on everything. Within the party, on matters of policy, things are generally pretty democratic. That's how someone like Obama can be acceptable to the machine without being in any way "dirty." Illinois Democratic U.S. Senators are rarely true machine insiders. Sending guys like Obama, who could become troublesome, to Washington is one of their favorite gambits.

So here are the people the ad ties him to, in order.

Bill Daley, the mayor's brother, and generally considered the clan's brightest bulb, is at least Obama's economic advisor and probably even more important than that behind the scenes of the campaign. Are the Daley boys inside the Obama campaign big time? Absolutely.

Tony Rezko is a perfect foil for the ad, because he's a recently convicted felon, but there's nothing about his connection with Obama that wasn't thoroughly reported in the Chicago Tribune during Obama's Senate campaign in 2004, or shortly thereafter. I understand why he's in the ad, but to us that's old news. Obama showed poor judgment in the one transaction they did together, and said so explicitly years ago. Nothing in Rezko's trial touched Obama in any way, which cannot be said for Governor Blagojevich, whose corruption was Topic A throughout.

Emil Jones, who is a State Senator from Chicago and the Senate's President, was not initially Obama's sponsor. He definitely didn't get Obama elected to the State Senate in the first place but as time went on, he took the younger man under his wing and showed him the ropes. Obama approached Jones to support his U.S. Senate bid, and it took some persuading, but eventually Jones did support him. If Jones has any serious legal problems, we haven't heard much about them here. He's considered a savvy political operator and nobody's fool, but he's probably one of the less scandal-plagued Illinois politicians.

Finally, they try to link Obama to Governor Rod Blagojevich, and that is a stretch. Although Jones has been a Blagojevich ally, Obama never supported or promoted Blago and he never supported or promoted Obama. Blagojevich is a true wild card, in that nobody can seem to figure out what he's up to, what his game is. Whatever it is, you really can't pin Blagojevich to Obama. That dog won't hunt.

Finally, the name they didn't mention: David Axelrod. From the beginning, Axelrod has been by Obama's side and if someone besides the candidate is speaking for the campaign, that someone is usually him. Axelrod is another example of the big tent. He's a genuinely progressive guy but he is also a Daley insider, who has worked for Daley and a long list of Daley-approved candidates.

So, that's what I know.

Kass on Obama and Hopium.

Continuing with my promise to tell you whenever John Kass writes about Barack Obama, today's column is particularly good, by which I mean funny.

It's also, of course, in the furtherance of a basic Republican talking point, which is that Obama's appeal to "hope" is naive, which I could consider insulting and offensive, but which mostly just strikes me as lame. At least Kass manages to dress it up with some creativity and humor, and the MoveOn.org ad that he mocks gives him plenty of ammunition.

Kass on Obama and Liberal Bias.

I promised to tell you whenever Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass writes about Barack Obama. This one isn't about the Chicago machine side of the story, which is where Kass is best, but a promise is a promise. It's a good read regardless.

Kass on Obama.

I have decided to make it my personal mission to alert readers of this blog whenever Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass writes about the Obama campaign. His column in today's Trib inspired this new commitment on my part.

Kass succeeded Mike Royko as the Tribune's columnist-at-large charged with broadly assessing the Chicago scene, especially its politics. I'm a big fan. I read him every day, despite the fact that he self-identifies as a conservative Republican.

For the most part (i.e., except on abortion), he is my kind of conservative Republican. He considers the current national administration to be an incompetent, duplicitous kleptocracy (my words, not his). He is always quick to expose and ridicule hypocrisy and corruption. He speaks truth to power.

His writings about the Obama campaign are important because no one writing today knows more about the real world of Chicago and Illinois politics than Kass, and no one else presents such a finely nuanced perspective. His piece today is a good example, as he explores why some on the left feel betrayed as Obama inevitably tacks toward the center for the general election.

Kass as his jumping-off place uses Jesse Jackson's castration comment. Jackson, too, is a Chicago political figure. His son is a local Congressman who would like to inherit Obama's Senate seat. One thing you should know about Chicago politics is that the local stuff always comes first. Usually that's what Kass writes about, but presidential candidate Obama is a product of the Cook County Democratic Party machine. Whether you support him or not, that's something you should know. It doesn't mean he is Dan Rostenkowski, but it does tell you something. Read Kass, he explains it much better than I do.

I don't agree with everything Kass writes, in this column or any other, but his commentary is always worth reading. That point I will defend.

Illinois Legislator Promotes Civil Unions as Social Security Scam.

Once again, my representatives to the state legislature are not making me proud.

Greg Harris (D-13th District) is promoting civil union legislation with a unique argument. He is touting it as a way for heterosexual senior citizens to get certain benefits and privileges without jeopardizing their spousal Social Security benefits as they would by remarrying. He isn't calling it a Social Security scam, of course. Here is how he positions it:

While a lot of attention has been focused on how civil unions would benefit same-sex couples, little attention has been given to the largest group of potential beneficiaries of civil unions in Illinois: senior citizens. This week, I along with Senator David Koehler, Senator Heather Steans and a group of seniors held a press conference to highlight these benefits. The fact is that many seniors who are widows or widowers stand to lose their pension or social security benefits if they remarry. However, without legal recognition of their relationship, such as a marriage or civil union, these seniors can be denied the right to visit partners in the hospital, participate in healthcare decision making, and disposition of a deceased loved one’s remains.

(The underlining is mine. The non-parallel dependent clauses are all his.)

As you may recall, Harris's ally Senator Heather Steans is my state senator, and I've had some past complaints about her and Rep. Harris. This story is useful because it illustrates how their political minds are wired.

In fairness to Harris and Steans, this district has a high concentration of senior citizens and pandering to seniors seems to be key to political success here. The current U.S. Representative, Jan Schakowsky, built her political career as a senior citizens advocate.

The late columnist Mike Royko proposed that the Latin phrase "Ubi Est Mea" ("where's mine?") should be the Illinois state motto. Many Illinois seniors are way too comfortable with that particular ethos of Illinois politics.

Unfortunately, the benefits to seniors in this proposal are illusory.

Rep. Harris is the only openly-gay member of the Illinois General Assembly and if he does not support same-sex marriage, I'm sure the vast majority of his gay constituents do. I support same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage you can support on principle. Supporting civil unions always involves situational political considerations, since they are to marriage law normalization what medical marijuana is to drug law normalization.

One of the arguments for same-sex marriage and, by extension, civil unions is that life partners without legal status cannot access spousal benefits in Social Security and pensions. The simple argument in favor of civil unions in lieu of marriage has always been that they allow the redress of certain clear injustices without getting into the emotionally-loaded same-sex marriage argument.

Unfortunately, as civil unions have become more common, this use of them has been undercut in significant ways, probably most notably in 1996 by the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which, by the way, was signed by President Bill Clinton.

DOMA defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman, and explicitly denies to same-sex couples marriage-based federal benefits. These include Social Security benefits, veterans' benefits, spousal benefits under qualified retirement plans, the unlimited estate and gift tax marital deduction, the ability to file income taxes as a married couple, and the ability to make split gifts as a married couple.

While DOMA makes civil unions useless for claiming federal benefits and privileges, they can still provide a number of benefits under state law, including the ability to receive state benefits, and the right to be involved in health care matters that normally are restricted to family.

HB1826 and SB2436 are the two pieces of civil union legislation pending in Illinois. They are unique in that they would provide for civil unions for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. In all states that currently recognize civil unions, they are an option for same-sex couples only. The only rationale I have heard for allowing opposite sex couples in Illinois to opt for civil unions instead of marriage is the Social Security scam proposed by Rep. Harris.

The scam is also being promoted at CivilUnionsIllinois.org

If, in fact, Illinois does recognize civil unions between opposite-sex couples, how long do you think it will take for Social Security and every other affected entity to plug that loophole? DOMA defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman. Would it not then be reasonable to argue that DOMA effectively also defines marriage as any legally-recognized union between a man and a woman, regardless of its name?

Barack Obama, who Steans and Harris support for president, is on record as against same-sex marriage but for civil unions for same-sex couples. He also has said he supports allowing the states to legalize same-sex marriage if they want to, and to that end he opposed DOMA. (Symbolically, as he wasn't in a position to vote on it.) One can certainly imagine DOMA being repealed or substantially revised early in an Obama presidency especially if, as expected, Democrats control both houses of Congress. Assuming anyone falls for this silly proposition in the first place, how do you think heterosexual seniors who supported civil unions on this basis will feel when their little scam blows up on them?

Government and politics as practiced by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his legislative supporters gets more surreal by the day.

It's Not Race, Nor Religion, It's Politics.

I would think that any longtime church-goer would be rattled by the notion that he or she might be called to account for some nutty thing the pastor might have said from the pulpit some Sunday. Have you ever listened to a sermon and thought, "gee, I hope no one thinks I believe what he just said just because I'm sitting here." If you go to church, has such a thought ever crossed your mind? Exactly! It didn't cross Obama's mind either.

My golly, some of the things Monsignor Hebbler used to say about Protestants. I didn't understand a lot of them, but I'm sure they wouldn't look good on YouTube.

For that matter, if you go to church, can you remember what was taught last week? The week before? Especially when the sermon gets symbolic, how closely do you really pay attention?

None of this is racial. It has nothing to do with the Black Church or Liberation Theology. It's politics. It's what has been dubbed the politics of personal destruction. It is one of the practices Obama decries. The particular variety at work here is guilt by association. The trick is to concentrate all attention on the nefarious traits of the associate, not on the nature of the association. Explanations of the nature of the relationship are irrelevant. The inference, accepted as fact, is that knowing all about this bad other person tells us something crucial about the principal, in this case, Senator Obama, when in fact it may tell us nothing at all.

In 1995, I attended a law school class in which Bernardine Dohrn was a guest speaker. Does that mean I endorse everything she said that day? Does it mean I endorse everything she has ever said and done? How does that differ from what is being attempted with Obama? I say "being attempted" because I don't think it's changing any minds. The people stoking these fires oppose him for other reasons. Like I said, it's just politics.

And, as politics, it smacks of desperation. Is that all you've got? A nutty old preacher and two aging student radicals from 40 years ago? Please, here's a free one. Go back to Rezko. That's the interesting story. Of course, that's also a story of high-level bi-partisan looting of the public treasury. Why would we want to pay attention to that?

Remember 7th grade civics? That's the last time I believed that the way people ran for office was they stood up, gave a true account of what they believed and what they intended to do if elected, and then the voters chose the person whose ideas and proposals appealed to them the most. Obama seems to be doing exactly that. I say "seems" because I haven't consumed all of the Kool Aid yet, but what would be so bad about having a president who is young, idealistic, smart, sensible, articulate, well-educated, thoughtful, handsome, a good dancer, and not from privilege but from a modest and very diverse background?

Calling one of today's few major national political figures who is not from privilege an out-of-touch elitist is politics. Also irony and, quite possibly, parody.

But back to Jeremiah Wright. It is in the nature of symbolic speech for individuals to read it differently. You read the American flag one way, someone else reads it a different way. When you condemn that person, what are you really condemning them for? Not thinking like you? How has their different reading harmed you? Or has it benefited you by showing you a way to read the symbol that you hadn't considered, a way you may ultimately reject, but how has being exposed to another person's thought process, maybe part of that person's experience, an experience that is different from your own, harmed you?

By the same token, the meaning you attach to the words "God damn America" is personal. It may not be the meaning another person takes away or what the speaker intended. As I interpret it, all Wright was saying, in the context of a teaching and pastoring address to a voluntary audience, was that God may, in fact, have a harsher judgment in mind for America's behavior than a blessing.

Pat Robertson, among others, has expressed similar sentiments, that America deserves to be punished, not praised, for some of its actions. He would cite different reasons than Wright does, but it's the same idea. "Don't be so proud of yourself, America; you ain't all that."

I'm not saying I agree with the sentiment, I'm just asking what is so shocking or damning or dangerous about it, especially if all the real target of this did was sit in the room with a lot of other people while it was being said?

The Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations.

In September of 1999, Texas governor George W. Bush was already running for president. On September 2 he gave a major address on the subject of education to the Latin Business Association Luncheon in Los Angeles. During that speech, Bush introduced a memorable phrase, “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Here’s what he said:

Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less – the soft bigotry of low expectations. Some say that schools can’t be expected to teach, because there are too many broken families, too many immigrants, too much diversity. I say that pigment and poverty need not determine performance. That myth is disproved by good schools every day. Excuse-making must end before learning can begin.

It is great political rhetoric because he defines a set of beliefs, allegedly held by his political opponents, then easily repudiates them on high principle. I don’t know who was saying those things, about schools not being expected to teach, surely no one, yet the phrase “soft bigotry of low expectations” rang true.

It came to mind today because the Geraldine Ferraro pot is still boiling. On “The McLaughlin Group” today, Pat Buchanan kept pressing the point of, “if he were white, with his resume at the time, would he have gotten the keynote speech in ’04?” The thrust of all this, still being argued with vigor by Clinton supporters in so many words, is that Obama’s is an Affirmative Action candidacy, possible only because of White Guilt and consequent soft treatment by the media.

Obama called Ferraro’s original statement “ridiculous” and that is the correct word for this whole line of reasoning. The most cynical part of the Clinton strategy is that many, perhaps most, of the people making the argument know it is disingenuous, but they’re making it because it resonates with whites of a certain age whose racism takes the following form. Although they do not practice racial discrimination as they perceive it, they still hold a deep-seated belief in white superiority and, therefore, they believe non-whites can only achieve positions of power and authority if they get extra help, i.e., an unfair advantage, i.e., an Affirmative Action pass.

I have seen this in every sphere of life, from people who aver in the most aggrieved way that they are not racists. Yet every time a non-white receives a promotion at work or is singled out for recognition in some other sphere, they grumble about Affirmative Action and Diversity.

That, too, is the bigotry of low expectations, and it is not so soft. The great irony of this flame being fanned by Clinton supporters is that high-achieving women are plagued by the exact same prejudice. About the only time you hear about this is when the speaker is arguing for the abolition of Affirmative Action programs, but it is a lot more pervasive than that. I know many people who react this way to any achievement by a non-white in any sphere.

This attitude seems to be most prevalent in people my age and older. (I’m 56.) I hope I’m right about that, which means it may die out eventually. Many see signs of this in Obama’s success.

Many American whites of my generation grew up hearing overt racism in our family and community, and consciously rejected it. By comparison with that, we’re not racist. But how can we make sure we’re not guilty of “the soft bigotry of low expectations”?

I think it begins with recognition and acceptance of racial awareness, recognizing that no one is “color blind,” either by birth or by training. We have to examine our own beliefs and reflexes with honesty. As white Americans, we have to recognize that the subject of race doesn’t arise only when a person of color enters the room. We have to recognize that all this racial “stuff” is a construct created by whites and racism is primarily a white problem.

So, the seemingly meaningful point being made so earnestly by several commentators, that Barack Obama “wouldn’t be where he is today” if he was white, is ridiculous. Why? Because he is not white. He is who he is just as every other candidate is, and there is only one sense in which that statement is true, and that is by the exact same logic that says Hillary Clinton would not be where she is today if she was black, and John McCain would not be where he is today if he was black, etc.

This is, in fact, a very handy test to determine if you are a racist or not. If you don’t see the statement about Obama and the parallel statements about Clinton and McCain as saying the exact same thing, if you see one as meaningful and the other as spurious and irrelevant, then you are a racist.

Thank you very much. So glad I could help.

Save Us From Well-Meaning Racists.

Geraldine Ferraro strikes me as one of those people who says things that sound better in her head than they do out loud. She is being condemned, correctly, for racism, but this flap is a perfect example of how racism can impair ones judgment.

Here is what she said:

If [Sen. Barack] Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

I have no trouble accepting her subsequent statements that she is not anti-black. That is one kind of racism, this is a different kind, the kind that causes one to process just about everything in terms of race. That kind is a little more complicated but no less racist.

As a consequence of Ms. Ferraro's excessive awareness of race, she fails to realize that her statement is incorrect and illogical. Obama isn't where he is because the media and the rest of society is "caught up in the concept" of an African-American president. Just the opposite is true. To the extent anyone is "caught up in the concept," it is because Barack Obama is an extremely attractive candidate who happens to have dark skin. For Ferraro's statement to be true, she would have to argue that the culture was ardently looking for a black man to install as president and found Barack Obama as a result of that search. Where is the evidence of that?

The important story here is the game the Clintons are playing. What they are doing, in a very clever way, is offering racists a kind of permission to let their racism influence their decision. They want to make sure that people whose racism is weak and in danger of being overwhelmed by other considerations, such as disdain for the type of politics the Clintons practice, get the kind of reinforcement that will bring their racism back to the surface. They're appealing to the person who will think, "well, although I'm not racist, there are a lot of racists out there and that will hurt the Democratic ticket in the fall, therefore I must vote for Senator Clinton."

That they got Geraldine Ferraro to carry this particular water for them is also offensive. Everyone in politics talks about their base. Senator Clinton's base appears to be elderly, alienated, disaffected white women.

Who Can You Trust? Chuck Todd.

This year, everyone is a political commentator, even fictional characters from 1980s sitcoms.

With all the blather out there, who can you trust for the straight scoop? My choice is MSNBC's Chuck Todd. His title is Political Director, but he is the numbers guy and, as a friend of mine likes to say, "without good data, you're just another asshole with an opinion."

As Todd points out, behind all the hysteria about Tuesday's Clinton comeback are some hard numbers. Hard, that is, for Senator Clinton to overcome.

Delegate totals have to be estimated because it's unclear which super delegates are committed to whom and because the final delegate allocation from Texas isn't known yet, due to the caucus system. But Todd estimates that the net gain for Senator Clinton from Tuesday is about eight delegates, which leaves her about 140 delegates behind Senator Obama. For her to overtake him, she not only has to win in the remaining primaries, she has to beat him like a drum. Unless his campaign collapses, that seems unlikely.

Which explains all of the spinning, especially in the Clinton camp. About all she can do at this point is prevent Obama from getting to the convention with 2,024 delegates (the magic number) already in his pocket. He most likely will finish the primary campaign with the lead in delegates, votes cast and states won. Which is why she is furiously selling the idea that she has done best in the key states Democrats have to win to prevail in November. True enough, but that argument depends on the assumption that large numbers of her supporters in those states won't support the Democratic nominee in the fall. That proposition is debatable, but it's all she has.