‘South Pacific” is a morality play for our time. Sarah Palin is the Ensign Nellie Forbush — an All-American girl as racist, this time a racist with her eye on the White House. She can stir up crowds to shout “Kill him!” at the mention of the presidential candidate of the other party a couple [...]

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I was wrong about the first McCain/Obama debate. A third of the way through the event, I said to one of my guests, “My guy is getting creamed!” Note that I did not say, “My candidate is being beaten into the ground.” I don’t have a candidate. Priests, like columnists, are not supposed to endorse [...]

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The moment during the Democratic convention was astonishing. In my imagination I fell on my knees and muttered the Bible prayer appropriate when one has witnessed a miracle: “Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace!” (“Now, O Lord, you may dismiss your servant in peace!”) Simon, the holy man in the temple, [...]

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The typical article written about Chicago politics by a journalist from somewhere else tells us as much about this city as does the too-long-by-an-hour “Dark Knight.” You come into the city, talk to some of the approved journalists and political outsiders (the so-called independents), clip stories from newspaper archives, and begin to write. Thus American [...]

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