It was perverse -- not to mention tone-deaf and foolish -- for Barack Obama's supporters to pick the week of July Fourth to attack John McCain's military background. The cliche rings true: With political friends like these, Obama doesn't need enemies.
Mayor Daley's reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's gun decision was typically over the top: "Do you think your next door neighbor should have an Uzi, an AK-47? Any type of gun? Do you really believe that?"
Today's political debate over energy is, to put it mildly, uninspiring. Republicans want to drill for more oil in environmentally sensitive places such as the oceans or the Arctic, only underscoring our reliance on a fuel of which we have limited reserves. Democrats, believing the world is divided into villains and victims, seek to penalize U.S. oil companies with a "windfall profits tax" and scapegoat free markets by saying speculators drive up gas prices, ignoring the realities of supply and demand in the energy-gulping economies of China and India.
It's been a source of local pride, to me at least, that the tired, knee-jerk, left-wing politics casting a dreary uniformity of thought over so many college campuses has largely been absent from our academic star, the University of Chicago. But even that bedrock of intellectual integrity has proven not immune to the silly, petty politics that can too often characterize academia.
Barack Obama has found more change he can believe in -- as in changing his position on a fundamental issue.
Voting matters. Sometimes folks find that out the hard way. That unhappy lot would include Cook County suburbanites jousting at windmills in their uphill campaign to secede from the county.
Oil prices surged to a record high a week ago after an Israeli official said an attack on Iran was "unavoidable" if Tehran continues down the road toward acquiring nuclear weapons. No such reaction followed President Bush's renewed declaration the other day that all options, including the military one, were on the table for dealing with Iran. That tells you which country has more credibility on this issue.
Glowing is the only word to describe the effusive endorsement Hillary Clinton gave Barack Obama. Her face, however, was not glowing. Her expression was serious, even grave. And why not? All the good words about Obama and the much more time spent on the positives of her campaign added up, in the end, to the acknowledgement of the death of a dream.
If an energized base, adoring crowds and soaring oratory are harbingers of things to come, Barack Obama is riding a Democratic crest that should carry him to the White House. His optimism should rocket into the stratosphere when Hillary Clinton finally throws in the towel and endorses him Saturday.
