The only time we need to count our fingers and make sure that the old wedding band stayed on after a handshake is with our elected officials and media-cross-trainer stooges.
Newspapermen and even TV anchors came from the neighborhoods and they respected the lives and sacrifices of the helots. The late Jim Gibbons of ABC 7 News was a gentleman and a hard-core professional. He grew up in Visitation Parish on Garfield Blvd, went to Leo High School and never took the short-cut to reporting. Jim died in 1994 and has been missed by everyone and remains memorialized in the fight against Leukemia with Jim Gibbons Traffic Jam Run.
Today, lick-spittles face the camera and then move on to lucrative sinecures made possible by years of making nice with politicians.
Like this:
Pays huge divdends!
Tossing softball questions to Pols of dicey-ethics at best and ignoring larger issues created by their boondoggles ensures young arrogant bloviating newsie of limited intellectual properties a great post journalism paycheck.
Andy Shaw was a legend at ABC and not for the reasons Joel Daly, John Drury, Fahey Fynn and Jim Gibbons might have been. Nope, Andy owns his Hindenburg moment: when he went all Snooky about his microphone which was in his hand at the time at the DNC some few semesters back - alas Andy had the You Tube scrubbed of it and it was a howl. You see Andy is now the BGA drum major -that's Better Government Association.
Andy and the BGA are bringing Illinois corruption to a $hit-screaming halt! Notice, it folks? Why, Smells like Honeydew Vinewater right here in Illinois!
The BGA gets pointed in the direction of businesses, institutions and individuals that Progressive stamped politicians want to punish.
Yesterday, Andy and BGA shut-down the 1st Amendment and a cop blog-site.
Way to go Andy! That'll keep the crooks out of our wallets and guests in your Old Town B&B! The cop site was pretty raw, but near as bad as prime-time HBO. The site cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war on bullshitters, frauds, phonies and felons . . . not all but certainly thick with elected officials.
I imagine that Andy got a call one night
(Ring X 20) Y'ello?"
Rahmish Boy Voice (RBV) -" Shaw! Andy Shaw! Wake the @#$% Up! You piece of #$%^ what the #$%% are you doing?"
Andy - "Bill Maher?"
RBV - " No you @##$^^^*&^%%! It's your future calling, you $%^&^! You get your crew on that @#$%ing cop site Yesterday!"
Andy- " SCC?"
RBV - "No you hapless fraud the other one with all the swears on it! You want to see what Better Government looks like up close and personal? Get that site scrubbed. Get that lisping twerp of a son-in-law of yours at MSNBC to get the other dykes and fairies to start crying about racist cops too and racist Army guys like them hillbillies in bum@#$% someplace or other."
Andy -" I'll talk to . . ."
RBV - " Why the @#$% are you still talking to me ? Why have I not heard click?"
( click)
Thus Andy and BGA went on to do the bidding of Good Government.
Full disclosure - I called Bob Herguth - like Andy a former newsie but from the Sun Times nice guy - who answer the phones for Andy at the BGA - ( 312) 821-9030 -but he did not get back to me. I wanted to ask about the 1st Amendment, the cop site, Andy Shaw, and why the payroll disclosure widget gives us nothing on Forrest Claypool.