I like Chris Matthews; I watch his show most days, and I appreciate his genuine love of politics and politicians. (He likes politicians so much that he wanted to be one; he lost the primary for a House seat in 1974 and flirted with running for the Senate from Pennsylvania...

I've been thinking about political operative Pat Caddell for years, but haven't written about him because I figured that anyone interested enough to care about the subject must know that Pat Caddell is quite conservative--and rarely disagrees with cable pundits such as Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck. I've watched Caddell,...

For a short time last January, it appeared that the Illinois legislature, the state's new governor, Pat Quinn, and the Democrats in the U.S. Senate might actually do the right thing and deny our local laughingstock, Roland Burris, the Senate seat formerly held by President Barack Obama. No such luck....

When I checked my BlackBerry this morning while stumbling to the kitchen to make coffee, I saw the headline "Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize." My first thought was, "This must be a hoax." When I saw the "News Alerts" from the Washington Post and the New York Times I knew...

So much strategizing and lobbying, in the wake of Ted Kennedy's death, to change the law in Massachusetts to make certain the 60th Democratic vote is there for the health care bill.

Why so little attention to West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, 91, who is more often than...

In their Sunday editions, the New York Times and other major dailies (my hometown Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, for example) gave Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Shawn Hannity huge hunks of red meat for their Monday shows.

Expect to hear repeatedly about how the New York Times in...

To my eye Oprah was looking good on Tuesday, taping her show's season's opener -- it will be aired on Thursday, Sept. 10 -- on an outdoor stage on Michigan Avenue. Dressed in a stretchy yellow top and stretchy black slacks -- both of which were undoubtedly uber-pricey but...

In February, 2002, my family traveled from Chicago to visit our daughter in London where she was studying abroad for the semester.

We were hurrying to the theater when our son, then 10, was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the street.

...

So the two Chicago dailies have one more thing in common, in addition to being in bankruptcy and cutting staffs and news holes.

Both papers now have right-of-center political cartoonists. Each paper employs only one staff cartoonist, so that's a mighty megaphone.

With Tuesday's hiring of Scott Stantis...

So sad today to read of the death of Don Hewitt, 86, the brains behind 60 Minutes.

I talked to him at length in September, 2006 -- and posted about it last year, not knowing at the time that Hewitt was ill -- when I was writing...

Add a federal investigation into adults clouting kids into Chicago's selective enrollment magnet schools to the city and state's pile of corruption -- a kind of local version of the University of Illinois admissions scandal.

Asked about Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) calling the principal of the first and most celebrated...

Cheryle Jackson, the head of the Chicago Urban League, announced on Monday her intention to run for the U.S. Senate seat that Barack Obama gave up when he was elected President.

I met Jackson, now 44, in the spring of 2003 when I was writing a profile for...

As is often the case with Bill Clinton, the details of his personal life can't help but push him and his good works a bit off center stage. Hours after his triumphant walk down the steps of the private plane that flew him and his entourage to North Korea to...

Besides the two young American journalists released by the North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-il, the biggest winner in Bill Clinton's mission to Pyongyang was the weird and reclusive dictator, who just days ago called Bill's wife, Hillary, "a pensioner going shopping" and "by no means intelligent."

The...

Ad man Donny Deutsch was co-hosting with Tamron Hall on MSNBC's afternoon show Friday, I caught the final few minutes, as I awaited Chris Matthews and Hardball. I know that Deutsch is an important name in the advertising business, and he's a favorite of Matthews--he recently introduced Deutsch...

Monday's Wall Street Journal features an op-ed by the new president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti. The bio that runs at the end of Micheletti's "The Path Forward for Honduras," describes him as such:

In the fascinating chain of emails that runs in Wednesday's Chicago Tribune under the headline, "Clout gets a job," is the name David Ikenberry, who is identified as chairman of the U of I's department of finance.

Ikenberry is one of the U of I people whom Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Richard...

Rumor has it that Chelsea Clinton will marry her boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky, in late August at the Vineyard home of Bill's buddy and confidante Vernon Jordan, Jr. The Clintons have denied the rumor, but Marc, 31, and Chelsea, 29, both Stanford graduates, are, reportedly, still a couple, so who...

Does anyone else find it discordant that Obama, campaigning for Governor Jon Corzine Thursday in Holmdel, New Jersey--attempting to rescue a Democrat at real risk of losing the State House to Republican Christopher Christie-- delivered lines that would have worked were the candidate, say, Jon Tester, the Montana farmer recently...

Bill Clinton has been uncharacteristically silent lately. Hillary, too, who has had to contend not only with a fractured elbow but also with a crew of Obama-appointed special envoys who cover the world's hot spots and condense her portfolio. She finally, this week, found her voice, responding to pundits'...