John McCain: Neil Steinberg Praises John McCain

My buddy Neil Steinberg, of the Chicago Sun Times along with legendary colunist Bob Novak, Pulitzer Prize winning Political Cartoonist Jack Higgins, Fran Spielmann, and the great Sports Departmemt - less Mariotti of course, are the only true Chicago voices that sinking paper has kept on.

Neil Steinberg is a patriot and an independent voice who honors Veterans, Law Enforcement and caring committed citizens. He writes about how people approach their jobs and offers insight to the heart behind their hands. Steinberg is free of the smarmy doctrinaire cant that saturates the prose of too many of in his profession. He is very much like John Kass, but for his Ohio roots and the editorial tether that limits his column space.

Here are Neil's thoughts on the candidates for President and he is especially poignant in his consideration of John McCain - like McCain, Steinberg is a Straight Talker.

N.B. - I will highlight, what I believe to be some pearls from Neil Steinberg - emphasis my own.

Give the Republicans credit. Just when they seemed determined to stake their presidential hopes on Mitt Romney, a pretty-boy plutocrat feverishly sculpting his beliefs to mirror political fashion, or Mike Huckabee, a snake-handling preacher offended by scientific knowledge, up pops John McCain, like Lazarus risen from the grave. He smiles, brushes the dirt of his recent political burial from his shoulders, and assumes his place as front-runner.

Amazing. A genuine war hero, with the courage of his convictions (true, his convictions include humming a hallelujah chorus to George Bush's Iraq war, but nobody's perfect.) And if experience is what we want, McCain has it. Sure, he groveled at the feet of his party's lunatic fringe, cuddling up with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. But he was just visiting where people like Huckabee live year-round, and, besides, the fringe will always hate McCain for offering a reality-based solution to illegal immigration, a problem that will only grow larger until somebody fixes it. John McCain is the one man on the Republican bench who stands a chance of becoming a president we could all be proud of.

That's a good thing. If, like many, I preferred party devotion to patriotism, I might be reluctant to say that. But I don't. The race is shaping up as a win-win-win situation, a choice among: a) the exciting, inspirational freshness of Barack Obama; or b) the wily, willful effectiveness of Hillary Clinton; or c) the fearless, nimble maturity of John McCain. That's a dilemma to celebrate.

Well said and true Neil. I will be voting for John McCain; I really like and admire Barack Obama and hope that he will become Governor of Illinois; Hillary Clinton is wildly capable - so was Bismark.