Barney, Fletch, and Videotape

More on T-shirts
I neglected to provide the local angle on yesterday’s post on novelty T-shirts.

Probably the most notorious shirt this town has ever produced was one promoting the fictional “Kelly Smith Film Festival.” Smith, you may remember, was bureau chief for WICS who fell from grace in an embarrassing, and to many, highly entertaining manner. He made the unfortunate decision to videotape what I’m told was a rather disgusting dalliance with a female companion and an oar. The highly sensitive tape, as these things often do, fell into the wrong hands. The rumor I heard was that a scavenging garbage man found the tape and duped it into wide release throughout the capital city. Smith is fortunate that the Internet was still in its infancy at the time or his infamy may have reached international proportions.

The anti-tourism line of T-shirts sold at Prairie Archives also made a name for themselves for a time. They featured made-up quotes from famous people that spoke unflatteringly of the Springfield experience. One had Abraham Lincoln proclaiming that they would have to shoot him to get him back to Springfield, while wife Mary Todd stated that she would have to be crazy to return. I’m not sure if they are still being sold, or if Richard Norton Smith sent a couple of heavies over to visit and “discourage” any further dissemination.

Irreverent T-shirts usually go over big. I might suggest a line honoring LLCC presidents of the recent past.

More on letters-to-the-editor
Barney Frank responded with a letter in today’s SJ-R to disavow a previous letter from a reader that claimed he was calling for the president’s impeachment. Not "a" Barney Frank, "the" Barney Frank. We know it was really him because his official title as U.S. representative appeared below his name.

I’ll say this much, he must have a crack team of P.R. flaks to make such a precision counterattack on what many would consider a rather harmless distortion given that it was made by a lone citizen far from his Massachusetts constituency. I’m not sure how they discovered the misrepresentation. The SJ-R does publish their letters-to-the-editor online, but a Google search of all of the relevant terms does not find the letter in question. Frank must have a confederate here in the heartland or maybe one of Durbin’s people tipped him off. We’ll see if Frank’s people snuff out a similar letter, probably from the same writer, that appeared in today’s Illinois Times.

The IT on JE
Speaking of the IT, the most sensible take I’ve read on the Edgar indecision comes from Fletcher Farrar in today’s editorial. While some are bellyaching that Edgar is holding the state GOP hostage and others are taunting “what’s so great about him”, Farrar lays it on the line. If Edgar has the drive to work with both parties to fix our ailing state and is willing to commit to it, then he should run. If not, stay home.

It seems to go against the conventions of partisan politics that a Republican governor could work better with a Democratic legislature in enacting reform, but the last two years under Blagojevich have made it an intriguing possibility. Farrar seems to think that Edgar has the ability to pull it off, but perhaps not the desire.

Farrar also includes a quote from Mike Lawrence that I thought was wonderful the first time I read it several months back in that it poses the perfect challenge for anyone who would be king: “Will the governor and lawmakers be statesmen who safeguard Illinois’ future even if it means jeopardizing their own, or will they repeat the sins of the past that helped create this mess?” Anyone who can genuinely answer affirmatively to the former, be they Republican or Democrat, will get my vote.