Silver Linings

Those of us who have some vague association with Chicago and follow politics like the baseball boxscores know by now that the Chicago Tribune endorsed George W. Bush for president last weekend. Due mainly to my bias, but also my principles, I was, to say the least, disappointed in my hometown paper's choice for 2004.

The Chicago Tribune, one-time home of the late-great Mike Royko, is by local standards a fine paper rising head and shoulders above the city's dish rag, the Chicago Sun Times, previously owned by media mogul and king of sleaze, Rupert Murdock. The Trib also has traditionally been a popular conservative newspaper despite the fact that Chicago itself leans politically far left.

With that in mind, I wasn't completely caught off guard with this weekend's endorsement, but a little, small fact I didn't realize until today cheered me up a bit:

[The Tribune has] endorsed the Republican candidate in every presidential election since at least 1872, and [supported] Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate in all but two or three cases.

So raise your chin up, Chicagoans, as you always seem to do after every disappointing loss. This latest setback is no different than every season in baseball, football, hockey, and except for a brief 6-year gift from the gods, basketball. Crack open an Old Style, rip open that bag of White Castles, and smile. As much as things seem to change (space ships for football fields, Migs Field no more, bean-shaped sculptures, french-style bus depots, condos in Cabrini, new Trump tower, a Democratic governor), in reality, they remain very much the same.