“Tribune” editorials have moved…seemingly for the indefinite future…from the vague, on-one-hand basis that embodied their wishy-washyness for many years…to high caliber with verve, straight-from-the-shoulder opinionating based on unemotional and courageous analysis of the facts. The heightened quality of the editorials have marked the advent of the new ownership although assuredly on occasion they were on the way previously.

My favorite was the firm denunciation of the Daley effort to bull-con the people to believe that his transgression of the pristine nature of Grant Park to build an underground Children’s Museum was a humanitarian and even a racially progressive step. What ever happened to Lois Wille who used to be a defender of the open lakefront lands, I don’t know but she has been obviously beguiled and made servile by the little demagogue on the 5th floor who surveys his own greatness.

Daley’s flamboyant use of demagoguery to assume his opponents didn’t want to see black children was outrageous but par for the course for the Sultan of Bluster and Bravado. In the old days, the “Trib” would gesticulate feebly and try to move to a middle ground. Now the paper boldly opposed the move and did something else that made its editorials really masterfully persuasive: they outlined many alternatives for the Museum location. The fact that the mayor whom John Kass correctly called Little Big Man forced fed his views on a supine City Council notwithstanding, the “Trib’s” editorials were outstanding and were among the best the paper ever published-including through the reign of the late Robert R. McCormick, frequently right, sometimes wrong but never, ever in doubt—and that’s really saying something for this correspondent to aver.

Another editorial of the highest rate was the one opposing impeachment for Gov. Blagojegvich, specifying that it supported putting recall on the ballot, a move which was stymied by Emil (“I gotta have a raise! I’m on food stamps!”) Jones.

Digression here: Jones’s audacious insolence resembles only in lessened degree true legislative tyrants in U.S. history including Speaker Joseph (Uncle Joe) Cannon and Czar Tom Reed. Jones’ swaggering rhetoric illustrating his view that with an all-black constituency he can never be replaced makes one think of a series of strongmen in Africa who have descended from democratic leader to dictator. With one exception: the strongmen over there are superior in handling the English language to the guttural practiced by Emil Jones as he works his will. Jones’s arrogant ownership of the Senate and blatant violation of legislative procedure constitutes one of the worst exhibits of U.S. legislative history. If seeing this former sewer patronage hack elevated to the senate presidency is the embodiment of what early civil rights struggles were all about, one must become very cynical. It is no different from the era of white boss rule of the Louisiana legislature in the `30s. End of digression.

Back to the subject: the “Trib’s” editorials on state issues are balanced, fair and perspicacious.

Huntley’s Courageous Op Eds.

This space regularly blistered Steve Huntley when he was “Sun-Times” editorial page editor…for which an anonymous writer calling himself “Aesop” (Huntley in disguise) shot back that my criticism was caused by my being let go by Huntley. But I would not allow that circumstance to hobble criticism of the paper’s leftward lurch under the too obedient Huntley who was too solicitous of pleasing his bosses. But happily, now to bring the score up to date, Huntley is an Op Ed writer and not editorial page editor and is once again his own man…preserving what little remains of intellectual integrity to the city’s fast-fading pablum-spewing Democratic newspaper of record. How long can Huntley survive when the schlock editor wants to turn it into a crusading huckster paper for Barack Obama in order to entice black readers? Probably not long. But as he goes down, Huntley is fighting gallantly and we hereby welcome him as he will be in the future to the reputable army of the soon to be “Sun-Times” unemployed.