The Tribune Company has selected a new owner to take the helm of the shipwreck that is the Cubs. Fittingly, the winning bidder is named after a debilitating ailment. That’s the perfect accompaniment for a team that has too often played as if it is physically impaired.

Once again, Frank Rich sums it up, capturing the insidious illusion of a post-racial America.

It was a day of joyous beginnings, but also a bittersweet denouement.

The beginning of Barack Obama’s Presidency marks the demise of our idolatry.  For the past 60-days, Obama has been exalted not unlike a messiah.  His likeness has been emblazoned on t-shirts, buttons, and even murals in a cult of personality that, honestly, is reminscent of Stalinist Russian or Saddam Hussien’s Iraq.

But the  euphoria that was unleashed by his election and ascension into office will now succumb to the humbling and demystifying slough of governing.    I wish it wasn’t so, because what Obama has come to embody — harmony, optimism, purpose — is enobling to our politics.

But in a few days,  abstract concepts such as hope, and unity, and change, will yield to the very ponderous and divisive choices that Obama will have to make as President.  People will be aggrieved or disappointed.  Their unrealistic expectations will be punctured.  And our soaring spirits will be curbed by the gravity of our national plight.

Things will never be quite as idyllic for Obama now that he actually has to become more than just a brand name for idealism.  This is a day to remember for so many wonderful reasons.  And also because things will probably no longer be so wonderful.

As inmates scratch their last day of captivity off the calendar, so we celebrate the final hours of the dreaded Bush Administration. 

We thought this day would never come – not least because we never fathomed that a governor, a secretary of state and a partisan majority on the Supreme Court would collude to defile democracy, steal an election and install an illegitimate president.   But eight years after George Bush wasn’t elected, his wretched reign comes to an end in less than a day. 

It’s only fitting on an occasion such as this to quote the last successor to a president with approval ratings as woeful as Bush’s.  Upon entering the White House in 1974, Gerald Ford to told the nation:  “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” 

Those words resonate today, although we scarcely could have dreamed of the havoc that Bush has inflicted on this country. Taking office in times of proverbial peace and prosperity, Bush leaves behind an economic calamity – possibly a rerun of the Great Depression – and a protracted war in Iraq that was launched on false pretenses, failed mightily and squandered the nation’s once-formidable international credibility.  Meanwhile he stood idly by while a major American city sank into the sea.  His administration desecrated sacrosanct international laws banning torture.  It illegally spied on American citizens.  It fabricated everything from evidence that misled the nation into war, to evidence purporting that global warming was not a threat.  It declared several hundred times that it was not obligated to heed the laws of Congress.  It fired capable U.S. Attorneys because they wouldn’t, in the tradition of Nixon, convert the Justice Department into an instrument for political retribution.  It raided the environment.  It exploited a ghastly terrorist attack on the U.S. for political gain. 

I’m sure I’m forgetting something.  Oh yeah, he stole an election, if not two. 

One of the most galling aspects of the Bush’s tenure is that it took so long to gain a measure of justice for the colossal injustice represented by his presidency.   His re-election is an eternal testament to the fact that some wrongs are never righted.  And with Obama’s current distaste for a serious effort to bring Bush and his cronies to justice for their illegal acts, it appears we will never be made whole after seeing our votes negated, our laws trampled upon, our international integrity disgraced. 

Nonetheless, it affords us some modicum of recompense that  Bush’s last day should coincide with the memorial of Martin Luther King, Jr. who embodied a commitment to so many principles — racial justice, economic equality, peace — that were mutilated by the current Administration. 

And so we close this abysmal chapter in our history, with words that Dr. King used to recite with exultation:   Free at last, free at last.  Thank God Almighty we’re free at last.

When Barack Obama delivered his lyrical victory speech after the Iowa primary last year — as he conjured up a vision of an America where partisan divisions disintegrated in a frenzy national kinship – I called a friend to say that 1) Obama was clearly the best orator and one of the most formidable political talents the Democratic  Party had produced in more than a generation; and 2) I hope he didn’t really mean all this blather about blue/red unity.

Those concerns were rekindled during the campaign when I read a lengthy NY Times account of Obama’s tenure as the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. According to Obama’s progressive colleagues on the Law Review, the future president made one concession after another to the conservative faction on the publication, all in the interest of showing them that he’s conciliatory.

And, in the wake of this NY Times article yesterday, it’s beginning to sound as if Obama does, indeed, have a irksome tendency to prioritize getting along, rather than getting it right.

That’s pretty much the upshot of Obama’s remarks yesterday stating his opposition to a full-scale inquiry into waterboarding, unauthorized wiretapping of U.S. citizens, and other potentially unlawful acts that the Bush administration perpetrated during the past eight years.

In the same NY Times article, Obama said he still considers waterboarding to be torture. That would make it illegal. So apparently Obama believes that Bush Administration officials violated the law, but their conduct shouldn’t be reviewed by lawmakers.

Obama says he wants to look forward rather than backward, which is a euphemistic way of saying he doesn’t want to foment friction among Republicans and perpetuate the polarization that has crippled Congress.

Well, harmony is a virtue; but not if it sacrifices what’s right. And in his zeal to be perceived as a partisan healer, Obama is now prepared to tolerate abuses that he, himself, has defined as illegal.

It’s a bit reminiscent of the Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon, which he purported to do in the interest of national reconciliation.

Ford was generally lauded for this decision when he died in 2007, but I was always galled by that praise. After all, why would the nation ever want to reconcile itself to political leaders who brazenly violated the law and escaped with impunity?

So, Barack, why would you?

Hey Tribune Company:  When disgruntled Cubs fans used to clamor for you to spend more money on the team, they didn’t mean you should fling your cash around indiscriminately.  But the profligate mood at Clark and Addison continues with the announcement that the Cubs are on the verge of signing a new right fielder.

Not since a vintage edition of Connect Four sold on eBay has anyone overpaid so badly for a Milton Bradley.

I have no quarrel with the notion that Bradley can help the Cubs.  When he plays, his numbers are unimpeachable — a word not often heard in Illinois. But doling out $30 million over three years to a guy who has rarely mustered even 400 at-bats in a season makes little sense to anyone not named Daddy Warbucks.

Moreover, the acquisition of Bradley perpetuates the Cubs’ penchant for zealously overstating the value of corner outfielders.  They committed $160 million to Alfonso Soriano two years ago, leaving them shackled to one of the worst defensive liabilities in baseball well into the next decade.  Then they heaped $50 million on Kosuke Fukudome, who can hit as well as Soriano fields.

And now to rectify the miscalculation they made on Fukudome, the Cubs have showered $30 million on an outfielder so chronically injured he could make the guy in the game of Operation look healthy.

And then there is the issue of Bradley’s notoriously combustible temperment. I don’t particularly care if he’s surly or sweet, but there’s a reason Bradley has played for five teams in three seasons.  So why would the Cubs think he’s a sound investment for three more?

Obama’s obsessive “one-President-at-a-time” mantra was the right political posture to assume for most of the post-election transition.   Under the pretense of deference to the current President, Obama insulated himself from the political contamination he might have incurred had he publicly worked in concert with Bush on the collapse of the auto industry, the accelerating tailspin on Wall St. or the assorted other catastrophes that have marred the last days of this already disgraced administration.

But at this point, with the Mideast reeling from another round of violence, and a perception that Israel is perpetrating a humanitarian crisis in Gaza abetted by the White House, this message about one president at time sounds as detached and negligent as praise for Mike Brown.

And even if we do have only one President at a time, no one can find Dick Cheney. So that pretty much leaves Obama to do the job.

Neither side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a monopoly on truth or righteousness.  But there is no doubt that the current morass will have long-lasting repercussions that will resurface in some fashion during the Obama administration.  So it  would seem to behoove Obama to offer some indication now of how he will approach the problem in two weeks.  That kind of signal could go a long way toward shaping the kind of policy he intends to institute, rather than letting events shape his fate.

Or worse, letting George Bush shape his fate.  Americans effectively declared Bush irrelevant more than a year ago, which is why it’s grossly irresponsible for the incoming Obama administration, which will inherent this quagmire, to allow the outgoing President — who most of the nation deplores — to set a course that may dictrate or disrupt U.S. foreign policy and domestic security for foreseeable future.

Perhaps Obama’s public deference to Bush means there is no difference in his stance on this issue.  Otherwise, he should get off message and get on with governing a country that currently lacks a leader.

 From the Tribune account of Senator Dick Durbin’s request to commute George Ryan’s prison sentence: 

“I don’t do this frequently and although I can’t recall another time I’ve done this in a case at this level, I’ve spent my public career trying to help people who feel they’ve been mistreated or wronged by government,” Durbin said at a news conference at the Union League Club in downtown Chicago.

 Well, I guess after spending his career trying to help people who feel they’ve been mistreated by the government, Durbin has decided it’s time to help the guy who did the mistreating.  After all, George Ryan is pretty much the personification of governmental misconduct a state that is legendary for its desecration of the public trust. 

In the eight-year period that Ryan was Secretary of State and then the Governor, his henchmen systematically bartered state contracts and licenses for campaigned contributions and personal enrichment.  Some of that loot ended up being blood money when a drivers license traded for a campaign contribution wound up in the hands of a truck operator involved in a crash that killed six children. 

So if Durbin is truly interested in advocating the plight of those mistreated by government, he should continue to focus his energies on the roughly 12 million Illinois residents who are casualties of this state’s congenitally depraved political culture.  The Senator has done a decent job in that capacity.  And with the state’s finances in a shambles due to both global economic trouble and a local intra-party feud in Springfield, there are plenty of other issues that should occupy the Senator’s attention beside the fate of George Ryan. 

I’m not without sympathy for Ryan’s predicament and the hardship it has inflicted on his family.  It’s conceivable to me that a case could be made to commute his sentence.  But Durbin’s arguments just don’t meet the threshold of credibility.  It appears that Durbin feels Ryan has paid a sufficient penalty by forfeiting his pension.  But it’s hard to give the guy credit for losing his government pension when he bilked the state for more than it owed him in the first place.  
 
It’s also seems questionable whether Ryan’s current destitution will be prolonged after he is released from prison.  Considering that his family’s expenses were pretty much bankrolled by cronies while he was governor — remember, this is a guy who withdrew only a few hundred dollars from his account while Governor — it seems unlikely that he won’t find a job and a decent salary from the many friends who  prospered during his reign  in the statehouse.

All in all, Durbin knows better — and that’s exactly what his constituents deserve.

It’s at least ironic, if not troubling, that the leaders of Obama’s new economic team subscribed to the same doctrine of deregulation that helped catapult the country into its current financial morass.

But today’s Tribune editorial is quick to rationalize that pesky flaw by claiming that “it would be hard to find anyone with the relevant experience in these areas who didn’t make similar mistakes.”

I suppose it’s true that it would be hard to find anyone with experience running the U.S. economy who wasn’t associated with the catastrophic collapse of the markets recently.   Indeed, that would seem to be a good reason for Obama to fill his administration with people who haven’t been setting policy in Washington over the past 10 years.

And wasn’t that the “change” that the candidate vowed to usher into Washington?

I mean, if you’re going to hire a fireman, you probably don’t want to search for applicants an arsonists’ convention.

I fervently want Obama to succeed, and I’m not insinuating that either the Lawrence Summers or Timothy Geither appointments are miscalculations.  But I do have nagging doubts about whether his appoitnments will is put the nation’s money where the new President’s mouth is.

Meanwhile, here’s another thing that won’t change in an Obama administration.

For a man who brooks no infighting within his ranks, Barack Obama could be assembling a cabinet that brings back memories of MacBeth.

Even before Hillary Clinton has been named  to his cabinet, today’s NY Times reports that her aides are squabbling with the Obama camp.

Both sides were engaged in a delicate public and private dance, maneuvering for position and reputation in case the deal falls through. Aides in each camp have grown increasingly sour toward the other in recent days as the matter played out publicly.

Gee, perhaps that’s a harbinger of things to come if Hillary is hired by the man she still considers unworthy of her throne.   Clinton may well make a capable Secretary of State, but she isn’t the only one in the political or diplimatic community with the savvy, prestige and aptitude for the job.  So is she really worth the political fallout her appointment would unleash on the left and far right?

Beyond that, is she really worth the risk that the rivalry between her and Obama — as well as Bill Clinton’s palpable resentment toward the next President — could interfere with U.S. foreign policy and the general affairs of state?

I mean, seriously, “No Drama” Obama couldn’t pick a more Shakespearan couplet than Bill and Hillary Clinton.  If they’re loyal to this President, they could be persausive ambassadors on his behalf.  But that’s a big “if.”

For a man who brooks no infighting or drama, Barack Obama Hillary Clinton may make a capable Secretary of State, but are her qualifications so unsurpassed that she’s worth the political price.  Consider this passage from today’s NY Times

I still can’t figure out why the Obama camp wouldworth the political fallout?