On FOX Chicago News at Nine this evening, station legal analyst Larry Yellen reported on “John Wayne Gacy speaks: FOX 32 uncovers never-before-heard tapes.”  Yellen noted:

The part-time clown and one-time precinct captain killed 33 young men between 1972 and 1978--most of them by strangulation, hiding many of their bodies in the crawl space of his Northwest Side home.

What the legal analyst didn’t mention is that Gacy was a Democratic precinct captain.  In 1978, he even managed to have his photo taken with First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

Maybe Yellen thinks the serial killer's political affiliation is irrelevant.  But would that have been true were Gacy a Republican? 

Yesterday, NewsBuster Kyle Drennen detailed how NBC Today co-host Ann Curry fretted about the latest Kennedy scandal's impact on Caroline Kennedy.  "What about Caroline, who is still alive? " she asked John F. Kennedy mistress Mimi Alford.

Last night on Fox Chicago News, anchor Bob Sirott picked up on the same theme in his "One More Thing" opinion segment:

I wonder if she (Alford) feels guilty now about how President Kennedy's only living child Caroline might feel about her story?

Just a guess, but I imagine the daughter, now older than her father was when he died, didn't go into a state of shock.  Yet the mainstream media worry about her as though she were a teenager, like Alford was when the 45-year-old Kennedy took her virginity. 

 Sirott ended with:

So what does this do, if anything, to the Kennedy legacy? I agree with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin who says we have already factored in the idea there were other women in JFK's life, and after absorbing these stories it hasn't changed the fundamental liking the American people have for his memory.

I do wonder what Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Bill Clinton are thinking about all this -- don't you?

Perhaps many have "factored in the idea there were other women" for Kennedy, but did they factor in a teenager?  Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Bill Clinton shouldn't even be mentioned in the same context.  They've never been accused of jetting women in for their satisfaction.  Of directing girls to have sex with other men while they watched.   Of forcing a woman to inhale a sex drug.

Instead of worrying about how Caroline will take the "news," those in the mainstream media should ponder why it's taken decades - in this case close to half a century - for them to disclose what a shallow lout John F. Kennedy was.  If he hadn't been a liberal hero, it wouldn't have taken nearly so long.

Fox News Chicago  reports this morning:

Tim McCarthy, a former Secret Service agent who took a  bullet intended for President Ronald Reagan, will observe the 30th anniversary  of the attempted assassination on Wednesday by going to Springfield to oppose  legislation that would repeal Illinois's ban on concealed carrying of  firearms.

McCarthy said he's alarmed that an Illinois House  Committee approved a concealed carry proposal. The full House could vote  soon.

As happens so often, the fact McCarthy, now the police chief of Chicago  suburb Orland Park, is a Democrat isn't reported.  In 1998, he sought  his party's endorsement for Illinois Secretary of State.

We admire Tim McCarthy for doing his job bravely and possibly saving  President Reagan's life.  But that doesn't give his views on concealed  carry laws any special credibility

Interestingly, the alarmed Chief McCarthy notes (at about 1:27 of the  video):  "I know the gang members will still get their guns and that  criminals will still get their guns."

Given that obvious truth, why does he not want to give law-abiding citizens  an even chance?  Oh, that's right.  He's a Democrat, a fact Fox News  Chicago didn't find relevant. 

When former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL) passed away this week, Fox Chicago News's political editor Mike Flannery described the late Ways and Means committee chairman as 'a giant of Chicago politics, remembered and beloved for negotiating legislation that helped create projects all over the state."  Rostenkowski did indeed bring home the pork.  But Flannery also writes that the congressman "was as responsible as anyone but Ronald Reagan for the 'Reagan tax cuts' of (the) early '80s."

In an accompanying video on Fox Chicago's Web site, Flannery recalls (at about 4:30) speaking to Rostenkowski and House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill (D-MA) in the first days of Reagan's presidency.  They said that Reagan had been elected and "we're going to give him what he wants.  He told us the number one thing is this tax deal and they said we're going to work with him."

Rostenkowski and O'Neill vigorously worked against President Reagan's plans.  Neither of them joined the 48 Democrats who voted in July, 1981 for tax reduction.  The day after the tax cuts passed in the House, David Rogers of the Boston Globe reported:

"Mr. President, you're tough," Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan Rostenkowski told Reagan in a telephone call after the House vote, and for the Chicago Democrat and his friend Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., the defeat was a bitter end to a raw partisan fight which the leadership had hoped would give it a much-needed victory over the President.

Roland Evans and Robert Novak wrote:

Nevertheless, in his gracious speech to the House Wednesday, Rostenkowski pledged to campaign against the right through steeper graduation of taxes "as long as I'm chairman."

In his considerably-less-than-gracious speech closing Wednesday's debate, Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill showed he had learned nothing.  Beginning by calling this "a great day for the aristocracy," he claimed the nation's big corporations had artificially stimulated that flow of telephone calls to congressional offices.  To the very end, Tip O'Neill could not believe that the people really prefer lower taxes to bigger government.

Dan Rostenkowski was as responsible as anyone but Ronald Reagan for the "Reagan tax cuts" of the early '80s?  Only in the rewritten history books of the mainstream media.

On Fox Chicago News Friday evening, reporter Tera Williams did a piece on Chicago's gun buyback program scheduled for today.  The city gives prepaid credit cards for weapons turned in.  This year it's paying $100 for each assault weapon, $75 for guns and $10 for BB guns, air guns and replica guns.

Williams questioned several residents on the effectiveness of the program.  One man told her (at about 1:47 of the video), "It's a good way to start."  Williams replied: "Something's better than nothing, right?" while nodding her head affirmatively.

Chicago's been trying to do "something" about guns for years.  Since 1982, it's outlawed hand guns.  The gun buyback scheme has run since 2006.  Yet, as of two weeks ago, homicides for the year hit 113 and two Democratic lawmakers recommended National Guard deployment to quell the violence.

The gun turn-in program is no more successful than the many "stop the violence" marches that gun-grabbing Chicago mayor Richard Daley and his police chief participate in.  In asserting that something's better than nothing, reporter Williams revealed her own bias.