Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, or Evan Bayh?

Oh, you silly country rubes. There is not an audacious name in that bunch.

On Saturday, Barack Obama will return to the initial scene of his crimes against humanity with his vice presidential choice in tow.

That choice?

Does the phrase, "We're putting the band back together," mean anything to you, Chicago?

That's right, Obama's choice will be a friend to lobbyists big and small, the master of economic disaster, a man of few usually unintelligible words, and the man at whose ample teet Obama suckled for his seven vanilla years in the Illinois State Senate--I am of course talking about retiring State Senate President Emil Jones.

The campaign commercials write themselves: Let the Chicago Democrats do for America what they have done to Illinois.

While some may view this as the ultimate patronage hire, that take misses Emil Jones' robust record as an agent of change.

Think of all of the change Illinois has realized during Jones' tenure as Senate President and Governor Rod Blagojevich's BFF.

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In case anyone thought that we were on the cusp of a thoughtful discussion about education in Illinois, enter Al Sharpton.

Thanks to a confused Chicago press corps that has mistaken him for a "civil rights leader", Sharpton is now enjoying local airplay for piggy-backing onto State Senator James Meeks' Chicago Public Schools (CPS) student boycott scheduled for day one of the school year.

By allowing himself to be cast with Sharpton and other professional liars, Meeks is frittering away his breakthrough opportunity for low income families whose children are unfairly locked into failing schools.

While I disagree with some of Meeks' means and methods, I am tempted to believe he understands the need for system change in CPS and that his advocacy to that end is real.

That is not the case for Sharpton and the other vanguards of ineptitude like CPS Superintendent Arne Duncan.

Duncan, who exercises about as much independence of action from Mayor Richard Daley as does a monkey from its organ grinder, jumps up and down screeching that the problem with the Chicago Public Schools is that Illinois is 49th in the country in school funding.

Duncan's premise is a joke and his reference is misleading.

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I was too tough on Illinois State Senator James Meeks.

Last week, I offered both a commentary and rigorous interview of Rev. Meeks on the WLS airwaves as to Meeks' controversial declaration that he will bus thousands of Chicago Public School (CPS) students up to New Trier High School on Chicago's ritzy North Shore for the first day of school next month to protest state education funding inequities.

While I stand by the substance of what I said, I violated a cardinal rule of politics in making the perfect the enemy of the good.

On The Don & Roma Morning Show last week, in addition to discussing his PR stunt, Meeks also explained that he would be introducing legislation to effectively create statewide school choice whereby students could take state dollars and attend any public school they wish.

Meeks is on the right street but he's at the wrong address. While I have no philosophical aversion to his approach, major surgery on Illinois education is only politically salable at present to the sucking chest wound that is CPS.

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Supporting more money for the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is not the same thing as being a supporter of public education.

This distinction is lost on both the media and our political class as witnessed by PR stunts like the one pulled by Illinois State Senator James Meeks yesterday.

Meeks wants to bus Chicago public school students up to New Trier High School in Winnetka on the first day of school to protest the disparity in funding levels.

While it may be that per pupil expenditures for the Chicago Public Schools (roughly $11,000 per student) exceed the national average, exceed the state average and exceed the averages of each of the collar counties in the metropolitan region, Meeks believes that because another district is spending more then, by definition, Chicago is not spending enough.

Senator Jimmy One Note has conveniently chosen not to address the districts that spend considerably less for considerably better results and the Chicago media are polite enough not to press him on this matter.

Meeks has also been spared having to explicate how only 6% of Chicago public school students will go on to earn a bachelor's degree by the age of 25. That appalling result comes with a $4.6 billion annual price tag.

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During his address at the 99th annual NAACP Convention earlier this month, U.S. Sen. John McCain had an opportunity to make education reform a key issue in this year's presidential campaign. But, to paraphrase the immortal Don Adams (aka Maxwell Smart), McCain "missed it by that much."

McCain correctly fingered the fundamental hurdle to education reform when he said, "When a public school fails ... parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children ... No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity."

However, he fell short on delivering an adequate solution. Instead of putting forth a bold vision for education in America that addressed the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and recounted the burgeoning consensus on school choice, McCain offered the standard fare about merit pay, alternative certification, and devoting a few federal shekels to develop virtual charter schools.

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Illinois should go to a military strongman form of government.

Instead of the pretense of representative democracy, we should submit to one of those charismatic, totalitarian dictators with the Captain Kangaroo get-up who makes people disappear.

After all, isn't that what the "Chicago 9" are doing?

The Chicago 9 are the nine Chicago Democrats who live within about five squares miles of one another and who control more than $70 billion worth of government and more than 125,000 public sector jobs in Illinois.

[The 9: Daley, Blagojevich, (Lisa) Madigan, White, Hynes, Giannoulias, Jones, (Mike) Madigan, Stroger]

It was reported last week that the Chicago 9 had made more than 6,000 private sector jobs in Illinois disappear between May and June. Only four states in the nation lost more jobs during that period.

The Chicago 9 have Illinois' unemployment rate at a robust 6.8%, nearly 25% higher than the national average (5.5%), and at its highest point since June 1993.

As with your old school despots, the Chicago 9 are not fond of dissent and so over the last decade they have created more than 727,000 Illinois refugees who have sought sanctuary for their families and their pocketbooks in other states.

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