President Obama is in full campaign mode and unlikely to heed a hometown call to drop out of the 2012 race. But the column by the Chicago Tribune’s Steve Chapman is drawing others’ attention. The reasons to take a pass are getting to be compelling, as Chapman notes: “The sputtering economy is about to stall out, unemployment is high, his jobs program may not pass, foreclosures are rampant and the poor guy can’t even sneak a cigarette. His approval rating is at its lowest level ever. His party just lost two House elections — one in a district it had held for 88 consecutive years. He’s staked his future on the jobs bill, which most Americans don’t think would work.” Noting that presidents’ second terms are “a bog of frustration, exhaustion and embarrassment” historically, Chapman wonders: “Why not leave of his own volition instead of waiting to get the ax?” Chapman’s idea for someone to run in his place: Hillary Clinton. “Her husband presided over a boom, she’s been busy deposing dictators instead of destroying jobs, and she’s never been accused of being a pushover,” he writes.
In the exchange at last week’s GOP presidential debate over Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s executive order requiring girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, it might have seemed as if the loser was Rep. Michele Bachmann for her anti-science fearmongering. But the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne was struck by Perry’s reaction to the suggestion he was too friendly with the drugmaker. Dionne wrote: “Perry’s response to the pay-for-play intimation . . . was one of the worst of its sort ever offered by a politician. ‘The company was Merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them,’ Perry declared. ‘I raise about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.’ The question this raised in a listener’s mind was: So how much can you be bought for? That question will linger,” Dionne predicted.
The Sedgwick County Commission may vote today to split up the Kansas Coliseum’s two chrome longhorns, especially because it has the consent of the wife of 87-year-old Chicago sculptor John Kearney. That might seem the best thing to do given that Maize South High School and the Historic Delano district both seek the bulls, which need $87, 560 in repairs. But a letter writer in today’s Eagle makes an excellent point: Kearney’s work, commissioned for the Coliseum’s opening in 1978, is titled “Two Steers.” Does the fact that they were sculpted of car bumpers make them less worthy of respect and preservation than sculptures made of bronze, ivory, marble, gold, silver and wood — materials the Italian-trained Kearney also worked in? It would be a shame to end the longhorns’ 33-year standoff. In any case, the demand for Kearney’s sculpture seems in keeping with the local popularity of the artist, who once told The Eagle: “This place is the No. 1 supporter of my work. Detroit’s second.”
President Obama is in full campaign mode and unlikely to heed a hometown call to drop out of the 2012 race. But the column by the Chicago Tribune’s Steve Chapman is drawing others’ attention. The reasons to take a pass are getting to be compelling, as Chapman notes: “The sputtering economy is about to stall out, unemployment is high, his jobs program may not pass, foreclosures are rampant and the poor guy can’t even sneak a cigarette. His approval rating is at its lowest level ever. His party just lost two House elections — one in a district it had held for 88 consecutive years. He’s staked his future on the jobs bill, which most Americans don’t think would work.” Noting that presidents’ second terms are “a bog of frustration, exhaustion and embarrassment” historically, Chapman wonders: “Why not leave of his own volition instead of waiting to get the ax?” Chapman’s idea for someone to run in his place: Hillary Clinton. “Her husband presided over a boom, she’s been busy deposing dictators instead of destroying jobs, and she’s never been accused of being a pushover,” he writes.
