Events

Wow. You know you've jumped some serious GOP shark when even Peggy Noonan stomps on you: Mrs. Palin has now stepped down, but she continues to poll high among some members of the Republican base, some of whom have taken to telling themselves Palin myths. To wit: ... "The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public...

Yesterday's post "Subsidizing rural folk" generated more commentary than usual. All of it was through my Facebook profile (I cross-post the Daily Parker there), so I thought I should copy it over here. Debbie K. of Highland Park, Ill., wrote: "In urban areas, cities maintain roads, or the Fed maintains freeways. There are more county roads to maintain in rural areas. A fact also conveniently left out of a similar story when in ran in the SF Chronicle about a week ago." I responded: "But that's the...

Roland Burris won't run for Senate after all: The decision, which is expected to be formally announced Friday, comes as a surprise to absolutely no one in local politics. ... Mr. Burris has raised almost nothing of the millions of dollars he would need for a serious campaign, and another well known African-American figure, Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson, has formed an exploratory committee. So, with Madigan and Burris both out, the 2010 election campaign should be a hoot. I can't wait.

The New York Times has a must-read article today about disproportionately small shares of transportation stimulus money going to places that produce disproportionately large shares of GDP. More simply: we in cities are subsidizing rural roads: According to an analysis by The New York Times of 5,274 transportation projects approved so far — the most complete look yet at how states plan to spend their stimulus money — the 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest...

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick hypothesizes why Sarah Palin really quit: [W]hen the dust settles, the lesson may be that she was simply a woman who made no sense. Her meteoric rise and dubious fall will say less about America than you think, beyond the fact that America likes its politicians to communicate their ideas clearly. We will someday come to realize that while it's all well and good to be mavericky with one's policies, it's never smart to be mavericky with one's message. ...It's too easy to...

Chicago had its coolest July 8th in more than a century yesterday, capping the coolest summer (to date) in decades: For the 12th time this meteorological summer (since June 1), daytime highs failed to reach 70°F Wednesday. Only one other year in the past half century has hosted so many sub-70-degree days up to this point in a summer season -- 1969, when 14 such days occurred. Wednesday's paltry 65°F high at O'Hare International Airport (an early-May-level temperature and a reading 18°F degrees below...

As someone who has contributed to Lisa Madigan's campaign fund, thinking it would help her become governor, I'm surprised about her pre-announcement this morning that she's not running for that office in 2010: Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is expected to announce today that she'll seek re-election to her current office and bypass bids for governor or U.S. Senate, a source told the Tribune. Madigan has a 2 p.m. political news conference scheduled at a Chicago hotel. The move comes as a surprise...

Oscar Mayer, perhaps not a celebrity but certainly a household name in the U.S., has left us: Oscar G. Mayer, retired chairman of the Wisconsin-based meat processing company that bears his name, has died at the age of 95. Mayer's wife, Geraldine, said he died of old age Monday age at Hospice Care in Fitchburg. He was the third Oscar Mayer in the family that founded Oscar Mayer Foods, which was once the largest private employer in Madison. His grandfather, Oscar F. Mayer, died in 1955 and his father...

Andrew Sullivan has taken a moment out of his day to compile a list of 32 of Sarah Palin's most egregious lies: A couple of months ago, I asked an intern to re-fact-check all of them to make sure new details hadn't emerged that might debunk some. And I also asked to get any subsequent statements by Palin that acknowledged that she had erred in any of these statements that are easily rebuttable by facts in the public record and apologized and corrected. She has not. Since this was a vast project over the...

ESPN moved the start of last night's Cubs game back to 6pm so they could sneak in a second game after it, which gave me the unusual twin opportunies to (a) see the Cubs beat Atlanta and (b) get home before 9:30. Otherwise, not much to report about the team, except—oh, right, I almost forgot—the Tribune sold them yesterday: Tribune Co. has finalized a deal to sell the Chicago Cubs to a bidding group led by bond salesman Thomas Ricketts. Documents describing the fully financed deal were sent to Major...