Chicago Tribune

Tribune Backs Up Fitzgerald On Peraica Mailer

Josh Kalven — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:40:25 -0700

Today, the Tribune editorial board slammed Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica for refusing to retrieve campaign materials that use U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's image -- even after Fitzgerald requested that he do so:

Fitzgerald is right when he writes that Peraica's flier "creates the misleading impression that I have endorsed your candidacy in my capacity as the United States attorney in this district."

A candidate seeking the highest law enforcement job in Cook County ought to be the first to distance himself from even potentially misleading campaign propaganda. And this flier goes beyond "potentially."

Instead of ceasing and desisting, Peraica has responded to the U.S. attorney with . . . an invitation to lunch. So far, no response.

Mr. Peraica, quit trying to be clever. This stunt doesn't inspire confidence that you'd be a judicious prosecutor—or that you'd enjoy the respect and cooperation of the U.S. attorney's office.

Fitzgerald doesn't want to be a prop on your flier, and he won't be a prop at lunch. Better to apologize, recall the misleading fliers—and put all half-million out for recycling.

Tribune's Silva Repeats Palin's Claim That Dems Attacked Her Family

Josh Kalven — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:26:28 -0700

Yesterday, Media Matters caught the Tribune's Mark Silva simply repeating GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's claim in a fundraising letter that "Obama/Biden Democrats" leveled "vicious" attacks at her family. From his September 4 post on the newspaper's Swamp blog:

Democrats have criticized Palin for her pointed remarks about Obama, deriding his experience as a community organizer for isntance [sic]. But in a fundraising letter issued today, Palin maintained that "the Obama-Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain. The misinformation and flat-out lies must be corrected."

Meanwhile, some other reporters actually questioned Palin's accusations and found their wasn't much to support them. From Media Matters:

[I]n a September 4 entry on his Political Punch blog, Tapper wrote, "I asked spokespeople of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee just which 'Obama/Biden Democrats' they're referring to. The response I got was that Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski erroneously attacked Palin as a supporter of Pat Buchanan. That's it. That's the evidence. An attack on Palin herself. In other words, they can't name one person affiliated with the Obama-Biden campaign who attacked the Palin family."

The Surgetastic Surge

Adam Doster — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:27:04 -0700

According to John McCain, the decision to increase troop levels in Iraq has been an unmitigated success, responsible for all that is wonderful about life there today. Even though President Bush didn't deploy additional forces until 2007, McCain's definition of the "surge" -- which now apparently encompasses our entire counterinsurgency strategy -- was already working by 2006, easing violence in Iraq's Anbar Province. How can anyone, including Barack Obama, claim this isn't an obvious testament to McCain's prescience and foreign policy superiority?

Steve Chapman gives a nice rebuttal to this nonsense in today's Tribune, explaining that McCain's argument only holds up if one defines "success" by a very narrow metric -- namely, a decrease to pre-surge levels of Iraqi and American deaths:

The troop escalation has not been the complete failure Obama suggested it would be, but it has fallen far short of the triumph claimed by Republicans. The level of violence, though down from the very worst months of the war, remains at levels comparable with 2005, which were considered awful at the time.

Iraqi civilians died at a higher rate in the first four months of this year than in the same period of 2005. The number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces is about the same. Here is McCain's definition of success: returning to a pace of bloodshed that was once regarded as intolerable.

What's more, such reductions in violence can't be attributed solely to the increase in troops. One has to also factor in the decision of Sunni militias to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq, the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad and other mixed neighborhoods, and Muqtada al-Sadr's cease fire. All contributed to the current situation, and lumping them together under the "surge" label is disingenuous to say the least.

And what about political reconciliation, one of the primary goals of the troop increase? Former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi says little has been accomplished.

Reminding Rohrabacher that the original objective of the surge was to create a safe environment for a process of national reconciliation, Allawi said, “Now, militarily, the surge has achieved some of its goals. Politically, I don’t think so.”

Allawi rattled off a laundry list of perils that still confront the Iraqi people: internal displacement of large numbers of people, millions of refugees outside Iraq, security forces he described as sectarian militias dressed in national uniforms and no regime for enforcement of the national constitution, which he described as a “divisive” document.

The former prime minister, who is now a member of the Iraqi parliament, also alleged that the process known as “deBaathification” is “being used to punish people.” Originally designed to purge Saddam Hussein’s loyalists from military and security forces, Allawi said the process has become politicized and can be used against virtually anybody, since Saddam Hussein’s “Baath party ruled for 35 years, and every individual had to join…”

“So, if you measure the surge from a military point of view, it has succeeded,” Allawi said. “But I don’t think this was the [prime] objective, because soon you will have reversals. Security has not prevailed, and the key element in security is reconciliation, and building national institutions for the country. If this does not happen, then the surge will go in vain.”

Trice: Daley's Targeting Of Media Coverage "Shameful"

Josh Kalven — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:27:54 -0700

Yesterday's "Tuesday Commentary" on WTTW's Chicago Tonight went toTribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice, who voiced her hope that Chicago police will "step up" in the face of the city's rising violence without resorting to brutality. She also took aim at Mayor Richard Daley's ridiculous statement last week that fear of unfair media coverage has made officers timid, calling this suggestion "nothing short of shameful." Watch it:

Also of note, in a Sun-Times op-ed last Sunday, Chicago activist and journalist Jamie Kalven (full disclosure: he's my father) responded to Daley's remarks:

It is a first principle of our democracy that public officials in whom we vest substantial power must be subject to public scrutiny. This principle applies every bit as much to the police officer on the street as to the high government official.

We give the police great powers -- to arrest and detain, to use force, and, under certain circumstances, to kill -- and we allow them considerable discretion in performing their duties. Public scrutiny is the necessary antidote to abuses of those powers.

For Daley to suggest that officers must be sheltered from core democratic principles in order to show up for work is a diservice to both the police and the communities they serve.

"Wrong"

Adam Doster — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:32:07 -0700

It's great that the Tribune's Swamp blog is publicizing John McCain's latest lie about Iraq, in which he falsely credits America's troop surge for the "awakening" of Sunnis in Anbar province. As MSNBC's Keith Olbermann noted last night, the Anbar Awakening in fact began long before the troop increase.

But rather than directly address McCain's revision of history, the Tribune's Mark Silva decided instead to report on MSNBC's segment about McCain's lie. Indeed, Silva refers to Olbermann's statement that McCain got "the basic timeline and history of the surge entirely wrong'' as an "assertion." And check out the headline:

Why the quotation marks? This isn't a he-said/she-said debate. McCain is wrong -- plain and simple -- and the Tribune should say so in its own words.

Below are a few links laying out why McCain's claim is flat false.

First of all, read over McCain's original exchange with CBS anchor Katie Couric:

Kate Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?

McCain: I don't know how you respond to something that is as-- such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar Awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn't make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.

McCain says the surge "began the Anbar Awakening." Now for "what actually happened."

Via, Spencer Ackerman, we have an interview with now-Gen. Sean McFarland briefing the media on the Anbar awakening on Sept. 29, 2006, months before Bush announced the Surge. And via Ilan Goldenberg, we have the New York Times talking about the Anbar Awakening back in March 2007, in which they cite that the formation of the group shocked many Sunni Arabs in September, as well as this nugget from Colin Kahl in Foreign Affairs.

The Awakening began in Anbar Province more than a year before the surge and took off in the summer and fall of 2006 in Ramadi and elsewhere, long before extra U.S. forces started flowing into Iraq in February and March of 2007. Throughout the war, enemy-of-my-enemy logic has driven Sunni decision-making. The Sunnis have seen three "occupiers" as threats: the United States, the Shiites (and their presumed Iranian patrons), and the foreigners and extremists in AQI. Crucial to the Awakening was the reordering of these threats.

Even McCain himself knew the timeline at one point. Speaking to the American Enterprise Institute on January 5, 2007 alongside fellow Senator Joe Lieberman after their trip to Iraq, McCain cited the Awakening as reason for the Surge itself!

"Too often the light at the tunnel has turned out to be a train, but I really believe -- I really believe that there's a strong possibility that you may see a very substantial change in Anbar province due to this new changes in our relationships with the sheiks in the region. ... But it's important, as I said in my opening remarks, that this troop surge be significant and sustained. Otherwise, don't do it."

Tribune Loses Top Investigative Reporter

Adam Doster — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:04:59 -0700

Bad news for Chicagoans who value the Fourth Estate: Maurice Possley, a Tribune investigative reporter who helped bring about the state’s death penalty moratorium, is resigning from the paper before it trims roughly 60 newsroom staff positions.

From Crain's:

Mr. Possley’s decision was based on what he referred to as the “stunning . . . dismantling of our newspaper in such a short time,” according to his note.

“I always had envisioned retiring from the Tribune, but events of the past year, including (Editor) Ann Marie (Lipinski’s) resignation, convinced me that now is the time for me to seek my fortune elsewhere,” Mr. Possley wrote.

It's been said before, but the decision by Sam Zell and the Tribune front office to focus on a not-so-snazzy redesign of the paper just isn't a sound use of resources. Steve Rhodes elaborates:

Redesigning newspapers, by the way, as the Trib is now doing, will not garner many new readers no matter how snappy. It's too late for that. The cycle of habit has been broken. The purpose of the print product now ought to be as a supplement to the website. And putting consumer and entertainment news front and center is an awful idea. Strip the paper down to news and news only. You can't compete with stale entertainment news. Then develop new print products, like a sports weekly, a photo weekly, a local Onion . . . it's time for newspapers - and their websites - to disaggregate. Ironic, isn't it?

He's An Oil Man

Josh Kalven — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:16:29 -0700

Today, the Tribune editorial board gets really excited about T. Boone Pickens, the former oil man who's pushing a new proposal to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. I saw Pickens' first TV spot over the weekend. Have a look:

I have to admit, the first 50 seconds of the ad impressed me. I liked the emphasis on the "transfer of wealth" and thought this line was solid: "This is one emergency we can't drill our way out off." That was followed by Pickens' mention of harnessing wind power, which is fantastic.

But then he proposed "using America's abundant natural gas as a cleaner, cheaper alternative to foreign oil."

Oh, T. Boone.

Here's the Tribune's summary of the so-called "Pickens Plan":

He proposes replacing the 22 percent of electricity the nation gets from natural gas with wind energy. That would free up that natural gas to become an alternative fuel for cars. He says cars running on natural gas could cover 38 percent of U.S. transportation needs.

Climate Progress' Joseph Romm explains why this proposal is problematic:

Seriously, though, it’s great that gazillionaire TBP is talking up peak oil and joining the wind power bandwagon (see “Wind Power — A core climate solution“). And it’s great he plans to spend tens of millions of dollars pushing this idea and delivering the mesage that $15 billion dollars for the wind production tax credit is peanuts compared to the $700 billion this country is going to spend on foreign oil this year.

But if you want to displace oil, the obvious thing to do is use of the wind power to charge plug-in hybrids (see “Plug-in hybrids and electric cars — a core climate solution“), multiple models of which will be introduced into the US car market in two years. Indeed, with electric utilities controlling the charging of the plug-ins, they can make optimum use of variable windpower, which is mostly available at night time. That would be win-win-win.

The Pickens Plan, however, is based on the utterly impractical idea that “Harnessing the power of wind to generate electricity will give us the flexibility to shift natural gas away from electricity generation and put it to use as a transportation fuel.”

Uhh, never gonna happen, T. Boone. Never. The most obvious reason is the gross inefficiency of the entire plan.

Read Romm's whole response. He goes on to explain why the government is never going to spend the money necessary to convert to natural gas vehicles and why such a conversion would do little to curb greenhouse gases.

The Trib Hearts McCain's So-Called Economic "Plan"

Adam Doster — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:40:28 -0700

Yesterday, John McCain came out and proposed to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Today, the Chicago Tribune editorial board lapped it up:

Since winning the nomination, Obama reportedly has been moving toward the middle of the political spectrum. But on the budget, he still sounds left of center, with no interest in eliminating deficit spending.

So it was heartening to hear that at least John McCain is determined to restore fiscal discipline—and not in eight years, as he had previously suggested, but in four. On Monday, he released a plan that explains how he will manage the economy and says flatly, "John McCain will balance the budget by the end of his first term."

The board tempers their excitement with the acknowledgment that McCain has laid out virtually no plan for how to reach this budgetary bliss. Perhaps that's because it's politically unfeasible, a rather important point the Tribune considers only after heralding McCain's announcement.

In a post we highlighted in the Early Bird, the Center for American Progress' Wonk Room suggests that McCain will face a deficit of $700 billion, thanks to his extension and augmentation of Bush's expiring tax cuts. A "generous estimate" of the savings from McCain’s proposed spending freeze would be $50 billion, leaving a budget hole of $650 billion, a whopping total that could not even be erased by eliminating 10 whole cabinet agencies (Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, HUD, Interior, DOJ, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and the EPA).

That leaves only two options: ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he won't do and can't say how much the savings will be anyway, or gutting Social Security, one of the most popular social programs in American history. McCain's proposal-- without saying as much -- amounts to a privatizion of the program. But a Democratic Congress will never allow it. So where to get the money? Ezra Klein says it's time the press asks the right questions:

If you are going to balance the budget by doing something to entitlement programs, you are going to do one of two things: Raise the payroll tax, or cut the programs. In other words, the accurate headline for this piece would read "McCain Promises to Cut Social Security And Medicare Or Drastically Raise The Payroll Tax." If enough pieces like that were written, McCain would have to explain which of those he intends to do. As of yet, he's been able to dodge the question, saying repeatedly that he'll "talk" to Congress. But Congress won't cut Social Security or Medicare. So is McCain promising a massive payroll tax increase? Or is he just spouting platitudes?

It's likely the latter, which makes the Tribune's excitement over nothing -- and their criticism of Barack Obama for not promising a balanced budget -- so silly. If the Tribune is worried about "fiscal irresponsibility," maybe they could stop championing a war that costs this country $12 billion per month.

Chicago's Walled Gardens

Josh Kalven — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:29:42 -0700

In a great post over at Urbanagora, Kiyoshi Martinez uses the Huffington Post's impending arrival on the Chicago media scene as an occasion to examine the current state of the Sun-Times, the Tribune, and various online outlets. As he notes, Arianna Huffington picked a really interesting time to jump into this pond:

I think the decision to target this city in particular shows a shrewd familiarity of the weaknesses of the two daily papers and their online properties. It seems almost paradoxical that at a time when two newspapers face financial turmoil, one of the largest news and political sites decides it's a good time to move in.

Martinez also highlights how Chicago's two major dailies have utterly failed to embrace the new media environment:

Rarely does the Tribune or Sun-Times link outside of their Web site to local bloggers or other Chicago-media sites (i.e.: EveryBlock, Chicagoist, Gapers Block, Chi Town Daily News). Nor do they embed YouTube videos, make use of Flickr, be active on Twitter or actually understand the concept of creating a community on their Web sites through commenters. And we haven't even talked social networking yet.

Instead, they build walled gardens, which defeats the philosophy of the Internet. Making things worse is that most of their new media content, such as videos, cannot be embedded to a reader's blog or shared easily. And the Tribune removes its articles from the public view after little more than a week, meaning that search engines can't index it and send them more page views and more revenue.

Read the whole thing here. And also make sure to check out the comments section where, interestingly enough, an argument breaks out over ... whether Martinez's post was too lengthy for the internet.

You Heard It Here First

Adam Doster — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:12:44 -0700

In a front-page article today, the Tribune's Mike Dorning tells readers today what we at Progress Illinois pointed out over a month ago: by activating under-represented communities, Barack Obama can dramatically alter the electoral map.

From the article, headlined "Obama's 10 Percent Solution":

If Obama could inspire just 10 percent more Democratic voters under 30 to go to the polls than did four years ago, that alone could be enough to switch Iowa and New Mexico from red to blue, the analysis suggests.

Just a 10 percent increase in turnout among blacks would make up more than 40 percent of Bush's 2004 victory margin in Ohio and more than 20 percent of the Republicans' 2004 victory margin in Florida.

Turnout increases of 10 percent of both young voters and African Americans could virtually eliminate the Republicans' 2004 victory margin in Ohio and go a long way to closing the gap in Colorado, Nevada, Missouri, Virginia and--a bit more of a stretch--possibly North Carolina.

Think these goals are unattainable? The Tribune highlights Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential run, which also focused on registering African-Americans and young voters of all races. The Rainbow Coalition couldn't secure the nomination, but black voter registration and turnout both went up 11 percent from four years prior.

This year, Obama has hordes of resources, the Democratic Party infrastructure behind him, and over four months to organize. The results could be striking:

"Based upon the enthusiasm and the greater historical significance this time around, I certainly think a 20 percent increase in black turnout would be entirely within the range of possibility," said David Bositis, a research associate who studies African-American voting trends at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies

To play around with the numbers yourself, you can download Nate Silver's youth and minority turnout model here (last updated on June 11). To experiment with different scenarios, just change the turnout numbers in the yellow section at the top of the page. To recalculate the state-by-state projections, hit F9 on a PC, or Command + = on a Mac.

Image used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user Tom of Lebanon.