33 Comments - Curious - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 8:45 am: I hope this latest veterans initiative includes all veterans. - Mr . Ethics - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 9:07 am: Did the Senator not pay attention during the mandatory State sexual harassment class? Or is the Senate above the rest of the employees? - Casual observer - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 9:25 am: Almost every business place I know requires training on sexual harrassment awareness. In my opinion, race is incidental in this case, as the comments were simply insensitive and inappropriate regardless of whether it’s in the State Senate or in any other employment setting. Conduct regarding sexual harrassment should be the same regardless of race, and these comments should be reported for what they are - inappropriate. It may be interesting, however, to see if Senator Hendon gets more latitude to make such comments due to the reluctance of many to criticize a minority official. - Randall Sherman - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 9:28 am: Having heard the remarks made by Senator Hendon on the radio, I am left wondering if he is in urgent need of the eye-care benefits on the General Assembly’s insurance plan. I mean, while Senator Axley looks younger than her 46 years, she is clearly no teen-ager. Either Senator Hendon needs to get his eyes taken care of quickly, or someone should check his health plan to see if it covers treatment for foot-in-mouth disease. - Walking Wounded - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 9:33 am: Regardless of race, Senator Hendon’s remarks were totally unbecoming of an elected official. His comments were more suited for a high school boys’ locker room. This type of sexual harassment is a “control” issue and makes the Senator appear a little creepy. I’m certain there are better ways to haze Senator Axley without making suggestive, tasteless “jokes”. - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 10:45 am: Sound to me like Sen. Hendon would be a great candidate for a Governor’s Commission on Sexual Harassment. But seriously, folks. The most disturbing thing to me about the whole exchange actually has nothing to do with race or even gender, but age – as in, “I mean, she looks like she’s only 16 or 17, I might be able to trick her, or something.” Apparently, Senator Hendon finds statutory rape hilarious, since he says such comments were made “all in fun.” - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 10:55 am: Sorry for the back to back post, but it may be worth pointing out that the person who seemed most in an “uproar” about the incident, according to all news reports, was Sen. Halvorson. Sen. Axley appears to have taken the comments in stride. In regards to Rich’s comment, perhaps race has something to do with that. I think it’s very possible (and sad) that Sen. Axley may be curbing some very justified offended-ness because she is afraid of the racial connotations that some may seek to put on it. - NW burbs - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 11:47 am: · I’m not saying that Sen. Hendon’s remarks were appropriate. They were clearly out of line and inappropriate for the state Senate. He should apologize. But I can’t help but wonder whether at least a little bit of the uproar has to do with the fact that he’s a black man and Sen. Axley is a white woman. You get the “nail on the head” award for the day. I believe that’s exactly what’s going on here because the conservative discussion board members at the now-dead Illinois Leader discussion groups made virtually the same comments regarding Sen Axley’s looks while talking about her taking over as Elk Grove GOP Committeewoman. Granted, it wasn’t on the floor of the State Senate nor were the comments as … suggestive. Still, the “Axley is good looking” comments have also been made by conservatives so this is nothing new. With the Leader offline and the Google cache expired there’s no way for me to link you to it. Maybe Dan Proft will release the old backup files to prove me right. (Ha!) (…Then again, she’s getting an awful lot of free publicity right after the primary… hmm, maybe that’s got something to do with it too — gotta rally that base! And a black man making comments like that about a suburban single mom with the likes of Ruth O’Conell and Penny Pullen right next door … naw, who’s that cynical about GOP election tactics?) - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 12:53 pm: Really, people on the Illinois-Leader were talking about how Sen. Axley looked like a high school girl they could take advantage of on a country road? Good thing for you that the links aren’t up anymore and you don’t have to be bother trying to back up that ridiculous charge. When you say, “Granted, it wasn’t on the floor of the State Senate nor were the comments as … suggestive,” you’re really low balling it aren’t you. I mean, even if it is true that comments about Axley “looking good” were made by conservative bloggers in the past, isn’t that a far cry from saying she looks like a 16 year old that you might be able to “trick?” Let’s pretend for a moment that Sen. Hendon was white and/or Sen. Axley was African American, and the outcry was coming from someone other than former Leader-ites (actually, we don’t have to pretend on that last one, Senator Halvorson seemed pretty upset about the comments, as well). What would your position be? What if it was a Republican man making similar comments to a Democratic woman? I know I’d still find the comments just as inappropriate, and I would join with what I am confident in assuming would be a large chorus of Democratic voices calling for, at the very least, a sincere apology. I suppose it’s a shame that such comments aren’t more frequent around the chamber, so that conservatives can prove we aren’t hypocritical about who they criticize for making them, right? Well, the absence of such an opportunity should not mean that Hendon gets a pass. I thought the Democratic Party was the defenders of women’s rights and promoters of female empowerment. Apparently, that only applies to women on their ballot, or when doing so won’t require them to criticize an African American official. Pretty sad, indeed. - NW burbs - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 1:04 pm: Grand Old…. What don’t you get? Take your partisan glasses off for a moment or two. All I’m saying is conservatives have also made comments about her looks. Were they as rude? No. But they were objectifying her nonetheless. Moreover, like Pate Phillip never made stupid comments?! I’m not defending Hendon — I’m calling out conservative hypocrisy at raising a stink when a Democrat does something that Republicans have also done to one degree or another. My last point was that the fact this issue has gone statewide probably has more to do with Dan Kotowski’s strong showing in the 33rd’s Dem primary and the GOP feeling a need to rally Axley’s base. And I could care less if the people involved were green or purple or orange… Objectifying women like this is immature and uncalled for whether it’s done by a liberal, a conservative or an independent and whether the people involved are black, white, Latino, or whatever. But several folks now, on both sides of the aisle (including yourself), are indeed raising the race card as another issue in terms of whether it has anything to do with why this news story went statewide. - NW burbs - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 1:06 pm: PS: If the links were up I would be more than happy to link to it. It’s not a ridiculous charge. Why not call Dan Proft and see if he’ll dig out the old archives? I’m not the one who scrubbed all the ridiculousness that was the leader, the right-wingers in charge of that circus cleaned it out themselves. - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 1:21 pm: NW burbs: Excuse me, but I didn’t “raise the race card,” you did (actually, to be fair, Rich did). I was responding to YOUR accusation that Republicans are only upset about this because Hendon is black – something that is simply untrue and quite worthy of rebuttal. Nor are they motivated by a need to “rally the base” around Axley. Granted, there may be some residual benefit to her candidacy in the long run as a result of this episode, but every so often in politics you the right thing to do politically and the plain-old right thing to do are the same thing. In this case, the right thing to do is demand an apology from a state Senator demeaning and (in regards to the apparent humor in “tricking” a 16 year old girl) a rather disturbing remarks not worthy of his office or our great state. - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 1:24 pm: PS: Even if Pate was not the most enlightened man in terms of gender relations, but I never heard him make a joke about “tricking” high school girls. Did you? - NW burbs - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 1:34 pm: I wrote: And a black man making comments like that about a suburban single mom with the likes of Ruth O’Conell and Penny Pullen right next door … naw, who’s that cynical about GOP election tactics? That was a bit tongue in cheek which you obviously didn’t get — and yes, Rich did raise the topic and apparently now conservative radio talking heads in Chicago are taking it further. I can’t help it if it is elements of the Republican Party which apparently has a problem with people of color but your GOP leaders sure are doing a good job of getting half a million people of color out on the streets for peaceful 1st Amendment exercises seemingly every weekend. (Witness the Chicago immigrants’ rights rally a few weeks back and the LA rally this past weekend with 500,000 people.) It does seem odd that conservatives wouldn’t say anything about right-wingers objectifying Cheryl Axley but they do pipe up when a progressive says something. And any degree of objectification is bad. And in terms of your last post “Even if Pate was not the most enlightened man in terms of gender relations, but I never heard him make a joke about “tricking” high school girls. Did you?” — as bad as the joke was Hendon wasn’t talking about actual high school girls. What don’t you get about that? And no, GOP Senate PRESIDENT Pate Phillip was not the most enlightened person — on that we can agree. - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 2:06 pm: NW burbs, My apologies for not recognizing your comment as jest. One of the drawbacks of online debates I suppose. I’m not exactly sure what the immigration rallies have to do with this, but whatever. And while I may not be able to speak for every commentator/individual in my party, I can honestly say that I didn’t even think about the racial aspect of this incident until Rich brought it up. And I don’t think I’m the exception to the rule here. In regards to whatever comments you may recall seeing on the Leader: isn’t there a difference between anonymous bloggers on an extremist website making rude comments and a member of the Illinois State Senate doing so on the chamber floor? Can you see why I don’t think it’s a big deal to criticize the later and not the former? And I think Senator Halvorson said it best in regards Hendon asking Axley to go ‘’on a township road with me later on tonight’” because she “looks like she’s only 16 or 17” and he “might be able to trick her, or something” ‘’All the more reason you shouldn’t be asking,'’ Halvorson said. I’m certainly not saying that it’s indicative of Hendon’s personal conduct. But it’s more than just a bad joke. It’s extraordinarily tasteless to say the least, given some of the stories that appear in the news all to frequently. - Bill - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 2:34 pm: It looked to me like Cheryl was digging it. Maybe Debbie was jealous. Ricky is really funny when he gets started. - NW burbs - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 2:41 pm: Can you see why I don’t think it’s a big deal to criticize the later and not the former? No, I can’t understand that. Just like there are a lot of things which conservatives do which make no sense. Objectifying women is wrong whether it is a conservative or a progressive doing it. And, recalling that thread from the Leader discussion boards, I think the right’s uproar (not Radagno — she and Halverson had their say — but the right-wing blogosphere and radio talking heads) over this is hypocritical to say the least. - Establishment Republican - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 3:14 pm: Cheryl Axley is indeed a very attractive woman, although she certainly looks more mature than 16 or 17, and she did some legal work for me a few years back and did a great job at that. She also seems like the kind of person who would take all this in stride and not be overly offended. I would like to take a brief moment to point out that once when I did a web search for Cheryl Axley to try to get the phone number of her law firm, I became aware that she apparently shares the same name with an adult film star. Was Rickey Hendon aware of that? - NW burbs - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 3:25 pm: Establishment Republican wrote: I became aware that she apparently shares the same name with an adult film star. No, I wasn’t aware — but apparently Establishment Republicans are more aware of the porn industry than us over here in the mainstream. - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 3:29 pm: NW, the distinction isn’t over the ideology of the person making the comments, it’s their status and position in government…. I consider it disingenuous to lump all ideologues or partisans in with each other the way you have. Perhaps I am guilty of that too at times, but I do try to make a conscious effort to only call people out on hypocrisy over things that they themselves have actually said. Do you that the people who alleged posted demeaning comments about Axley on the Leader are the same people as those calling foul over Hendon’s comments? No, you don’t. Is it hypocritical for conservative commentators (talking heads, as it were) to blast Hendon despite not condemning those alleged comments on the Leader? Perhaps in the strictest sense, yes. But is it that outrageous to think that a state Senator, speaking on the chamber floor, should be held to a higher standard than the admittedly ignorant bile that so often permeated the Leader’s comment board? I don’t think so. And that’s not partisanship….that’s just common decency. - Bill - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 3:45 pm: You guys(girls?) just don’t understand the urban culture. Buy a rap record and listen carefully. - Bill - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 3:50 pm: And another thing…am I the only one who is really sick of Andy Shaw annd his whiny, elitist, 43rd ward wimpiness. He is just upset that poor Eddie got killed in the primary. Too bad Eddie…too bad Andy, maybe you both should stick to the hotel business full-time if the Mayor doesn’t shut you down. - NW burbs - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 4:01 pm: GOP wrote Do you that the people who alleged posted demeaning comments about Axley on the Leader are the same people as those calling foul over Hendon’s comments? No, you don’t. You’re missing a word there but I think I understand your point. While I’m disappointed you chose to put words in my mouth I believe what you’re trying to say is that I don’t mean to imply Sen Hendon was posting to the Illinois Leader — I highly doubt it. And the comments at that Leader thread weren’t nearly as lewd as Sen Hendon’s (who has since apologized) but they did in fact objectify Mrs Axley for her “looks”. Given the anonimity of the Leader’s discussion boards (like this board) who knows? Maybe it was some prominent Republican or conservative making the “good lookin’” comments too. You never know… - nobody important - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 4:05 pm: He apologized, said that in the heat of the moment it got out of hand, and she said that she considered the matter settled. Talk about blowing something out of proportion-must have been a slow day in the news. And Establishment Republican, was your sharing that tidbit of information really necessary? It would seem to only fuel further inappropriate and unseemly comments. - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 4:39 pm: Nobody – thanks for the update. I just noticed the WBBM update now, and I’d agree that the matter is effectively closed. If Sen. Axley accepts his apology, that is good enough for me. I also agree that it was somewhat pointless and counterproductive for Establishment Republican to mention that. Just for the sake of clearing up a misunderstanding, however – NW, no offense, but you missed my point entirely…..allow me to re-explain, just for clarity’s sake: You said that people on the Leader Board (who are presumably conservative Republicans) posted demeaning comments about Axley. Even giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that this happened, how does that make it hypocritical for conservative Republicans who didn’t write those comments (but also didn’t care enough about the Leader’s pointless rambling’s to give it any acknowledgement) to now criticize Hendon’s more recent comments? That was my point. You don’t know that the same people who made the comments are now the one’s criticizing Hendon for making them. And while I was never an avid reader of the Leader’s comment board, I don’t feel hypocritical in criticizing the later despite not condemning the former. And I think the majority of people who were attacking Hendon were in the same boat. - Establishment Republican - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 5:17 pm: I came across the name coincidence thing by happenstance while doing a Google search looking for a phone number and others have found the same thing as I have seen it mentioned online before. It certainly has nothing to do with Sen. Axley who is a very respectable and accomplished woman. Many of us happen to share first and last names with others with whom we might not have much in common. I just thought I would mention it in the spirit of Hendon embarrassing himself with the inappropriate comments that he has apologized for. Not exactly sure why others feel that a blog where 95 percent of commentators remain anonymous was an inappropriate venue. I have seen far worse comments on here. Loosen up. - steve schnorf - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 5:24 pm: Man, you guys are something. I thought I had too much time on my hands. - nobody important - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 5:41 pm: Established, you should quit while you’re ahead-you almost sound like you are defending or justifying Mr. Hendon’s behavior yesterday. - Establishment Republican - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 5:47 pm: No, my point was taking a shot at Hendon for being a dope on this. He has apologized though and Cheryl seems ok with it, so this is probably the end of it, although I see Fox News maybe mentioning this as part of their “Political Grapevine” or something like that. The whole thing is just sort of funny though. Let’s just not be Eisendraths here and not find the humor in any of this. Have a good evening. - grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 8:40 pm: Steve, you are absolutely right. This ridiculous episode wasn’t worth this much debate. I’m glad he apologized. I’m glad we can just leave it at that. - Marta Elena - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 9:02 pm: Bill, Or anyone interested in urban culture. Do NOT listen to a rap CD if you want to learn about urban culture. Most rap music (not all) are degrading to women, and they do not portray the black community in a positive light. - Anon - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 9:39 pm: As usual, the trib is sticking its nose into Will County (i.e., the airport) without having the facts. The pending legislation which sailed through the senate has nothing to do with airport governance. - Six Degrees of Separation - Tuesday, Mar 28, 06 @ 10:24 pm: In another month, Will County will indeed be “ripe” for those who stick their nose in it, as farm fields will be fertilized. The Trib did have a point about Elk Grove, though. As long as they are at the table to promote and control a project in someone else’s back yard, while having a NIMBY stance about the O’Hare expansion, they poison the atmosphere - and rightly so - for a project that is really about Will and southern Cook counties. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.