136 Comments - Anonin' - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 7:40 am: The tragic skill limits of the Trilbies are on full display here, Endless,senseless name calling has failed so urge the termination of the town. Paper has been on a fast downhiller since they were caught on the Blagoof wiretaps. Did they outsource their experienced editors? - chi - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 7:47 am: It was an awful column, and remained awful after the edits (that were not noted by the Tribune). It’s amazing she and the Tribune can’t admit the wrong. I can’t even recall Ann Coulter or any other vile-spewer calling for a natural disaster to happen to one place, and completely disregarding the effects it had on another so brazenly. To make it worse, she’s dead wrong on her analysis of the finances and current status of the two cities. - Democrat Grrrl - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 7:52 am: Kristen McQueary doesn’t give a flying fig about the death and devastation wreaked By Katrina. I toured the Lower Ninth Ward in the aftermath, and it was heartwrenching. But for Kristen, Katrina was simply a useful tool to speed an agenda. Nothing more, nothing less. Human costs be damned. True colors revealed by this “chick” today. Tribune, there is a difference between conservative editorial stance and heartless thuggery. Your chick is firmly in the latter camp. Shame. Shame. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 8:13 am: To the Post, Don’t tell me she’s a swell person. Don’t tell me she’s thoughtful. I don’t want to hear about the differences between a column or an editorial. Don’t. Not today. I’ve been known to mock Ms. McQueary. I have taken her to task with a fake Twitter to shine a spotlight on her sometimes overreaching rationale. Her decisions in words prompted my reactions. There was a time Ms McQueary more than proficient as a reporter. While at the Daily Southtown, her coverage of Pat O’Malley, Maureen Murphy, Jack O’Connor, names of long ago, was thoughtful, was in-depth and 3-dimensional. There was a feeling many times her writing and covering local and state politics was what the heart of what the Daily Southtown wanted to be. Fast forward to McQueary, the Tribune Editorial Board member. “Tweets are my own” as McQueary groused about vacation spots needing a swim-up bar, opined about White Sox victories, martinis, slow drivers of mini vans, and hash tags like #FirstWorldProblems “complaining” about wine. Ten years ago, New Orleans had Third World Problems. Real problems. NOLA residents would have loved to worry about banter, use hash tags of mocking privledge, but they were too busy, on roofs, screaming for attention, hoping to survive, and not in a figurative way. What’s amazing is that McQueary recently tweeted about Haiti, and to write so callously about what happened in NOLA shows a complete lack of personal self-awareness or really making it more “look at what I’m doing” as opposed of what being there means to those in Haiti. The over 1,800 lives lost, for a writer as talented as McQueary to use as any type of want or desire is a reflection of wanting to make her name, her mark, without thinking logically through the old McQueary might never consider. Copies are never as sharp or relevant as originals. Mike Royko has someone trying and failing to be the next him. McQueary has been following that copy down the rabbit hole and proving the copy of a copy will never measure up on substance. McQueary’s changes? They only solidify that Kristen McQueary is so comfortable being a shill, that looking at the writings is about the monies received, not the impact of her own media platforms. Television, radio, Internet, Twitter, McQueary uses platforms. This time, her words are just too heavy for those platforms to hold up her “metaphor” Read the unedited version. I don’t need to go chapter and verse. Read the “new version”, now not titled a wishing for a national disaster that killed so many, and where NOLA will never be fully whole. You are not worth mocking Ms. McQueary because your own lack of self-awareness and elitism speaks louder than any quip I could muster. As you whine about your #FirstWorkdProblems, I hope the next time you feel the need to use tragic, life altering, world changing, metaphors, you realize you have become what you you probably never thought you’d be when you started at the Vidette so many years ago; a case study of a “media personality” willing to be controversial, just not aware enough of what you are saying… while also not worrying about water, on a roof, or hoping to be rescued, and not from Rahm Emanuel. - illini97 - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 8:22 am: So, the City of Chicago needs a catastrophic natural disaster in her opinion? Oh, sure, some thousands of people would die, but it would not be for naught. No. Then, the City could “force unpaid furloughs, cut positions and detonate labor contracts.” Yes. A human being wishes for a disaster that may or may not kill thousands so that we can finally tear up those pesky labor contracts. This person was given a platform to proclaim this wish from? Simply awful. - Kippax Blue - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 8:33 am: I read the first draft original thoughts of the writer. What a horrible person the writer has become. And to think I used to read The Daily Southtown primarily for her work. Obviously she has no shame; I am quite embarrassed for her. A wasted talent, that. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 8:41 am: She’s out of her mind. Barton and commenters have pointed out the crazy, the inconsistent, the contradictory. the ignorant and the despicable. But the hatred of the city itself is palpable. The hope is for “Chaos. Tragedy. Heartbreak.” in pursuit of some political agenda. Big Brain Bruce sure can pick them. Nice hacks you have fhere, governor. - Anonymous - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 8:45 am: This may be inconsistent with our theory that she was taking dictation from Lance or ck. - Arsenal - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 8:49 am: Give McQueary credit, at least she has the political chops to understand that it would take a biblical disaster to get her agenda passed. But give her demerits for thinking that’s a fair trade. - Nope, Nope, Nope - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 8:49 am: If there were one ounce of integrity left at Tribune Tower, McQueary would be packing a box right now while security waits to escort her out of the newsroom. As is, she’ll get some corporate rationalization that “she regrettably let her passion for shaking up Springfield get the best of her,” and a pat on the back. - LakeviewJ - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 8:56 am: Shorter McQueary response: “Actually, it’s about ethics in government.” - Jorge - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:01 am: I thought I was reading the lyrics to a Tool song when I read this yesterday. Lunacy and ignorance over there. - Anonymous - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:02 am: I always thought Kristen McQueary was a terrible journalist. Now I think she is a terrible human being. - Anonymous - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:02 am: Whe it is a horrible excuse for a column, she is correct about Rahm’s failure to make tough decisions. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:03 am: Even with the most generous interpretation, how does a deranged column like that make it the paper? The death and destruction of Katrina turned out to be a good thing, because NO got a new mayor and tore up some comtracts? That’s insane. Her chronic hydrophobic rantings about fiscal issues are demented. They’re problems that require tough decisions, not Old Testament retribution. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:04 am: Barton makes some good points. As for what kind of financial disaster McQueary is hoping for, I can only assume it is the same one that the right has been hoping for when they were pushing for downgrades in Illinois’ credit ratings and suggesting plunging Chicago into bankruptcy like Detroit wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Now, cooler heads tried to point out at the time that forcing Illinois into a credit downgrade was only going to hurt taxpayers in the long run, because of a pesky thing called the Constitution. And rational analysis shows that a Chicago bankruptcy would not only be costly for every municipality in Illinois, it would also would be highly unlikely to lead to massive rewrite of labor contracts or renegotiation of pension benefits. Moreover, an excellent piece in Washington Post tells of huge teacher shortages in Indiana due to massive cuts in teacher compensation and workplace rights. Rauner and his Turnaround Agenda are a solution in search of a problem, and Republicans have proved already that it is not beneath them to manufacture a problem, or undermine earnest attempts to alleviate the problem that don’t include radically undermining unions or trial lawyers. McQueary - in Kasslike fashion, not Royko-like fashion - jumped with hyperbolic feet squarely in the middle. But two things should be noted: first, editors write headlines, not columnists. Secondly, you can bet atleast three other folks at the paper reviewed this without raising any red flags. Someone suggested that a more diverse editorial room would have prevented this from happening. I think they meant racial diversity, and I am always for more. But more than anything I think what’s needed is some ideological diversity. The editorial board for the past 18 months has been largely unquestioning and largely in lockstep with Governor Rauner, that you expect them to blame this weekend’s high temperatures on Madigan and praise Rauner for signing the federal pass through of home energy assistance even as he blockades state funding for the program. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:09 am: ===Whe it is a horrible excuse for a column, she is correct about Rahm’s failure to make tough decisions.=== “Other than that, Ms. Lincoln, how was the play?” Trying to parse this as somehow McQueary being right on any points makes you a certain kind of apologist; a blind one. - olddog - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:11 am: What I’m praying for is a Times-Picayune … OK, a figurative Times-Picayune, a real newspaper that will run the Trib out of business and make Chicago a two-newspaper town again. - Demoralized - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:12 am: What’s worse than Kristen McQueary’s goofy columns? Somebody pays her to write them. - hisgirlfriday - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:13 am: what happened to her to make her hate fellow human beings this much? to make them so disposable to her political agenda? I used to think she was just a sell-out or useful idiot as a former normal journalist turned tribune edit board hack, just doing what she could to collect a paycheck from the newspaper business in this awful newspaper climate. but this column makes her come across like a sociopath. is she? - Buzzie - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:14 am: She really should take her meds before she writes her columns. - Grandson of Man - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:17 am: “I can only assume it is the same one that the right has been hoping for when they were pushing for downgrades in Illinois’ credit ratings and suggesting plunging Chicago into bankruptcy like Detroit wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” We caught a glimpse of this with the federal shutdown. These types of people wish destruction so they can remake things in their own image. What is most bizarre and sickening to me is that some of the people who wish this, and those who support them, have zero reason to feel the way they do. Many of these people are very rich and make a lot of money in Chicago and Illinois. Chicago and Illinois have done less than nothing to make them seethe with this kind of hate. They are the ultimate pseudo-victims. - chi - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:19 am: =What’s worse than Kristen McQueary’s goofy columns? Somebody pays her to write them.= Right- this wasn’t a deranged letter to the editor. This was a (deranged) column from a member of their Editorial Board. It is a disgrace. - btowntruth - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:19 am: So I am reading this while drinking some iced tea. Hmm,I need more ice.But I’m out….oh,wait… Hey Kristen,reach into your heart and get me some ice. We now know you have plenty there. - The Doc - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:26 am: We’ve become accustomed to the propaganda typically produced by McQueary and her Raunerbot colleagues on the editorial board, but it’s surprising that this dreck made it to print. If I could cancel my non-existent subscription to the Tribune, I’d do it twice. - NewWestSuburbanGOP'er - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:31 am: If there were one ounce of integrity left at Tribune Tower, McQueary would be packing a box right now while security waits to escort her out of the newsroom. As is, she’ll get some corporate rationalization that “she regrettably let her passion for shaking up Springfield get the best of her,” and a pat on the back. She will probably get a gig at FOX NEWS! - Norseman - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:31 am: Hat tip nothing, I bow to your excellent comment Willy. - ZC - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:33 am: So many things to say here. But looking for something not pointed out already: She said one of the great things that happened to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is that it brought Paul Vallas to the New Orleans public schools system and took the restraints off, so he could get to work. If only Chicago could have had a man like Paul Vallas, given renewed and broad authority to reshape the school system! I’m sure all of CPS’s financial problems would have been addressed responsibly. - Annon3 - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:35 am: She really has turned into a sad excuse not only of a journalist but of a person. Her writing only reinforces people not to read her employers paper! - JS Mill - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:36 am: =she is correct about Rahm’s failure to make tough decisions.= I take it you thought the school closings decision was easy? All of the spending cuts were easy? I would hate to hear your standard for tough, is the National Guard involved? - Michelle Flaherty - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:43 am: Was this an audition for a Trump job? - Daniel Plainview - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:44 am: Who are these clowns that wake up every day and think we’re experiencing truly tough time? Illinois has endured war, depression, riots, and somehow still managed to remain a great state that sends its tax dollars all over the country to prop up less wealthy states. Yet the Rauners and Tribbies think we’re in such dire straits, as they sip $200k wine and eat steak at their Montana ranch, that the truly needy need to tighten their belts? #%*! you. - Anonymous - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:47 am: Unmade tough decisions 2011 or since, include: Raising taxes. Stopping TIF games. Limiting CPS expenses to 12 months income, and finding enough revenue for it. Stopping sweetheart connected contracts. Hiring more police officers, and realigning districts. I could keep going. (and none of this is to excuse @statehousefail.) - Tournaround Agenda - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:52 am: “All those people didn’t die for nothing. They died to allow charter schools to come in.” - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:52 am: ” - Anonymous - ” Well, thank goodness a tragedy of over 1,800 lost lives, the utter destruction of parts of a city that still remain in ruin, the neighborhoods, culture, the people of NOLA are easily glossed over as you make your list, even parring it down for brevity to make Ms. McQueary seem, rational, comparing a want for Chicago to face those challenges, to highlight Rahm’s failures. But other than that… - Wensicia - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:53 am: McQueary, Fox News returned your call. They can’t use you as you’re too hyperbolic and partisan for their cable network. How about checking with Rush Limbaugh? He might b=e interested in your depraved product. - Juvenal - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 9:57 am: ZC: Well played. Ignoring that the Tribune editorial board - to be fair McQueary wasn’t on it - promised that the GOP school reforms and Pension Ramp of 1995 were gonna solve all of our problems… I think it would help clear the air if the editorial board admitted that it is not infallible, and in fact has been dead wrong on many occasions, up to and including its endorsement of SB 1 and leading the charge to kill all compromises. - walker - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:01 am: I am very proud of Chicago. All in, my favorite city in the World. It’s worth both praising, and fighting for. Why isn’t there more of that attitude at the Trib? - Joe Bidenopolous - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:02 am: Met her nearly 20 years ago. Didn’t much care for her journalism then, certainly don’t care for her editorial chops now. As someone else said, she’s a terrible person. But I saw that in my very first meeting with her way back when. - Jake From Elwood - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:07 am: In the face of popular opinion to the contrary… I have always enjoyed Ms. McQueary and her reporting. She was excellent at the Daily Southtown and I have appreciated some of her editorials at the Tribune. I find her to be witty, clever and somewhat refreshing on most topics even when I did not agree with the politics. Who really cares if an editorial board member goes on Twitter, uses hashtags and combines strong political opinions with lighter fare? This isn’t your father’s editorial board. But…But I just cannot support her on this one. She’s wrong and should have used a different analogy. She can do better. - Don Draper - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:33 am: I read it. She is right. The piece is about government and finances, not wishing catastrophe on anyone. The Democrats have already wrought catastrophe on Chicago and the rest of state government finances. This all a bunch of feigned outrage and indignation by a bunch of free candy snackers who can’t understand why dramatic and transformational change is needed. - siriusly - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:34 am: Wow. That’s one of the worst columns I have read. But in her defense that is excluding Kass because I don’t read him. We have serious problems. But really. New Orleans is recovering. But it’s not better than it was before. With nearly 75000 people killed and permanently displaced, it is not the same city. There is no magic reset button Kristin. Oh BTW most of that rebuilding in New Orleans was paid for with federal dollars too. Are you advocating that the Obama White House fund a Chicago bail out? - A Jack - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:34 am: More extremism from the right: wishing the city was destroyed in the hopes that the Tribune editorial board agenda would be implemented. If anything like Katrina were to hit Chicago, many of its most beautiful buildings, including the Tribune building would be devastated. On the bright side, though, perhaps that ugly Trump building would also be devastated. - Arthur Andersen - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:35 am: I tossed this around on the Twitters last night as it was imploding. (h/t Mr.JM for many updates) Kudos to Barton and OW for their thoughtful analyses. What bothered me as much as anything about this fiasco is that even though it was obvious she was redoing the article, there was no attempt made to explain, let alone apologize. More like, “they’re too stupid or don’t read ‘em, so I’ll be good.” - DTH - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:37 am: Lighten up. You people are overthinking this. She was speaking metaphorically. She was not actually wishing for thousands of deaths. She was only implying her belief that a major disaster might be the only thing that could cause Chicago politicians to actually solve the problems at hand. - Huey Louis - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:38 am: I stopped reading after I saw Mayor Landrieu and reset button. Mayor Landrieu comes from a political dynasty in LA, includes his sister fmr. U. S. Senator Mary Landrieu. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:40 am: - Don Draper -, You forgot “Speaker Madigan and the legislators he controls… ” Ugh. Your value on life and others’ lives is noted. - Norseman -, you have my marker. Thanks - From the 'Dale to HP - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:42 am: A number of people at the Tower need to either be fired or no longer editorial board members. That column is an absolute disgrace. Wishing for death and destruction is positively, utterly horrible and non-defensible. And let’s not forgot, the Board endorsed Rahm in 2011 and 2015. So if they don’t like what’s happening then they are a major part of the problem. What a disgrace. Let’s get an ed board that represents Chicago. Not a few whack jobs in DuPage County. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:44 am: - DTH - ===Lighten up.=== People on roofs, as McQueary wants her vision to be, isn’t funny, or light, but it’s despair, fear, longing and hoping. Defending this very specific article as something other than a massive fail and disconnect, that makes no sense because McQueary, herself, rewrote parts to keep her imagery and vile metaphor intact the best she could. - @MisterJayEm - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:45 am: “I find myself praying for a real storm.” • The piece explicitly demonstrates Kristen McQueary’s world view. She has told us, in no uncertain terms, how much human suffering is acceptable in order to give free rein to the Free Market. • The publication of McQueary’s piece reveals the Tribune’s moral compass. Everyone at Trib Tower who looked at this piece thought it was reasonable and suitable for publication. • The secret changes made to the piece post-publication demonstrates the Tribune’s journalistic ethics. The unacknowledged rewriting of the piece, from headline to closing paragraph, was nothing short of Orwellian. All of this should be kept in mind when considering Chicago Tribune’s recommendations for Chicago and for Illinois. They are praying for a storm. – MrJM - Juice - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:52 am: DTH, use your eyes. ““That’s why I find myself praying for a real storm.” Those ain’t my words. Those are McQueary’s. The only metaphor she used was how she can relate to people pleading for help on their rooftops to find their escape from the rising waters that are risking their lives, she finds herself pleading for help on the roof of the trib tower to find her escape from the rising pension contributions that are are at risk of causing her over-privileged suburban chicken-little self to pay slightly more in taxes. I mean, give me a break. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:54 am: Mister JayEm is right, the secret re-writing after the original posting is unethical. So you can add that to misanthropic, malignant, ignorant and deranged. - Don Draper - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:54 am: Oswego Willy- Your value as Steve Brown’s sock puppet is also noted. Your outrage is fake as is your whole persona here as the only Republican who gets it. Nice try though, ya big candy snacker. - The Death Star - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:56 am: Isn’t this the same editorial board that, last week, suggested that Mike Madigan is not “relevant” and yet editorializes about him on an almost daily basis? - slow down - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:56 am: The depressing thing is the whole let them eat cake quality to the column. The complete lack of self-awareness is stunning. - Wensicia - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:57 am: It’s McQueary’s column, but who approved it for publishing? It’s time for Bruce Dold’s tenure as editorial board editor to come to an end. McQueary wouldn’t have become the loose cannon she is now without his encouragement and approval. BTW, I suspect he had a hand in the follow up editing after the outrage hit the Ivory Tower like a, um, really bad storm. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:57 am: What’s a “candy snacker?” Is that supposed to communicate something intelligent? Given the author, I kind of doubt it. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:58 am: -,Don Draper -, Making it about me doesn’t negate where you are lacking. I’m embarraesed for you, since you are so willing to gloss over death and destruction, even after its pointed out. Your compassion is “compelling” - Willie Stark - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 10:59 am: Don Draper, or is that you Rich Goldberg?, check your head, man. The “real” Don Draper has a lot more wit, style, perspective and sense than any of your scribblings would suggest. So does Oswego Willy. - Tournaround Agenda - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:02 am: Wanted: A Tribune editorial board that isn’t morally bankrupt. Willing to buy gently used columnists. - Don Draper - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:04 am: Back in the day, Madigans secretary kept a big jar of candy on her desk. Favored functionaries and lobbyists would help themselves liberally. It became a symbol of his blessing so the name candy snackers developed. - Arsenal - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:11 am: ==The piece is about government and finances, not wishing catastrophe on anyone.== She literally wishes for a catastrophe. The whole point of the piece is that her preferred fiscal policies are so universally reviled that they could only get adopted in an environment of chaos, tragedy, and heartbreak. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:17 am: (Tips cap to - Willie Stark -) Back to the Post, While the Tribune later self-edited, yet kept the premise of McQueary the driving force, what is being silently said by adjusting and not removing? The metaphor of a tragically destructive and fatal hurricane devistating a city never to be the same is acceptable? The human loses as scoring points is appropriate? - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:18 am: Got ya, Don. So the malignant lunacy of the column in question is because…. Madigan? - Tournaround Agenda - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:19 am: Is Don Draper actually Kristen McQueary? That would explain so much. - Joe M - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:23 am: I wonder where Ms. McQueary got such ideas? “Crisis creates opportunity,” Gov. Bruce Rauner told the Chicago Tribune editorial board in April. “Crisis creates leverage to change . . . and we’ve got to use that leverage of the crisis to force structural change.” - from a June 20, 2015 Rich Miller article in Crains, titled: “Rauner’s crisis management: First, make a crisis” - Georg Sande - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:26 am: You know what’s really “devistating”? Is the “lose” of any semblance of respectable grammar and spelling … even in the day of online spell checkers! As a life-long Democrat, I am stunned that My Party wouldn’t self-police better and punish chronic offenders such as You Know Who. - Wensicia - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:27 am: ==The “storm” was a metaphor, albeit a poor one. She is entitled to her political opinions, however right or wrong.== She’s entitled to the criticism as well. As one who famously dishes it out to Rauner’s “foes”, she can more than handle what she’s received since writing this “poor” metaphor, in a rather rabid fashion wouldn’t you say? - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:31 am: Jake, even with the most generous interpretation of this hysterical rant, she is wishing disaster upon the city and its citizens to further her political agenda. Reasonable conclusions as to her character can be drawn that are hardly gratuitous, but based on her own words. - Grandson of Man - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:40 am: “I can relate, metaphorically, to the residents of New Orleans climbing onto their rooftops and begging for help and waving their arms and lurching toward rescue helicopters.” What utter and complete phoniness–a total lack of credibility. McQueary has been suffering this much in Chicago, like people actually suffering and dying in a natural catastrophe? This is perhaps the most phoniness, the most pseud-victimization, I’ve ever seen. Kristen McQueary: Pseudo-victim of the year. - Joe M - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:43 am: If she was only talking about wanting financial disasters for Illinois, she should have stuck with Ty Fayner’s approach - and called the bond rating agencies to badmouth Illinois and encourage them to further downgrade Illinois’ bond ratings. - Barton Lorimor - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:44 am: OK, everybody. It’s getting a bit too personal in here. Maybe we should try to think more about the column and less about the person. It’s OK to criticize a newspaper, but let’s not become their comment sections - Chicago Cynic - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:52 am: “- Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 11:18 am: Got ya, Don. So the malignant lunacy of the column in question is because…. Madigan?’” Close. It’s because of Madigan and the legislators he controls. Get it straight! - crazybleedingheart - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:00 pm: The similarity McQueary perceives between New Orleans and Chicago is real and palpable: both cities contain hundreds of thousands of African-Americans upon whom she and her paper are willing to unleash any kind of government-created violent disaster in order to advance their ends. FIGURATIVELY! Except, in the end, not. Threadbare agenda, wearing transparent. - Anonin' - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:09 pm: speakin’ of more thoughts check this http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Katrina-Chicago_Tribune.pdf - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:16 pm: From the Twitters; @Trib_ed_board: If you would like to respond to Kristen McQueary’s latest column, email ctc-tribletter@tribpub.com so it is read by the appropriate editors. Translation? “Please stop tweeting or saying how outraged you are, on your own, causing a public backlash. Please, send your outrage to us, so we can tone down the Twitterverse and allow this to blow over. Just email us, and quit making more people aware” Good luck with that. - jknell - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:22 pm: They should really do something about the bats in that tower. - Arthur Andersen - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:26 pm: Good point, OW. “Let’s just keep this in-house, okay?” Even the Trib’s um, unfocused, comment board is hammering away on this outrageous stunt. - Grandson of Man - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:29 pm: “@Trib_ed_board: If you would like to respond to Kristen McQueary’s latest column, email ctc-tribletter@tribpub.com so it is read by the appropriate editors.” I just saw the actual tweet and read the comments. They are relatively mild, milder than I thought they’d be. The Trib Edit Board is pretty thin-skinned, which does not surprise me in the least. - Juvenal - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:31 pm: OW: That is hilarious. “Please respond to our tweets by sending us an email expressing your outrage that will, most likely, never see the light of day.” Just. Say. Sorry. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:35 pm: If the Tribbies had “appropriate editors,” insane rants like that would not be published. - AlabamaShake - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:40 pm: **If there were one ounce of integrity left at Tribune Tower, McQueary would be packing a box right now while security waits to escort her out of the newsroom.** Its a bit odd for people to call for McQueary’s firing. She didn’t choose to run the editorial. She just chose to write it. Her editorial colleagues, as well as her publishers, chose to run it. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:44 pm: My thinking is that by trying to mute the backlash, they can save face, McQueary, and those who allowed this. The editing and muting of McQueary’s original piece, while not doing an overhaul indicates the premise, even after the first wave of negativity wasn’t going to stop the tone and tenor of the hyperbole. The print version seems to be the original version. It’s Friday. This would be the time for the Trib to react while no one is really watching and seem to be proactive in a response to all mitigating factors. It’s damage control first, then reactionary movements if necessary, like, just saying “Sorry” - crazybleedingheart - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:47 pm: Exactly. Trib mgmt needs to take a breath, apologize, and determine how it is that they could have published something like this in the first place. - crazybleedingheart - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:48 pm: I mean, the answer lies in the mirror. But the self-inquiry is needed. - @MisterJayEm - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:49 pm: I do not want Katrina McQueary to be fired. But I would like all of the members of the Tribune Editorial Board to do a little soul-searching. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that they have the willingness, or even the capacity, to do so. – MrJM - Wensicia - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:51 pm: OW, they should print the explanation and apology in Sunday’s Tribune, if they have any integrity left after this error in judgement. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 12:57 pm: The column is nuts, but it is not out of character for the Tribbie edit board’s dystopian view of the city and state. These are the guys that said pension liability is the greatest crisis in Illinois history. Give that one a think. Wars. Depression. Segregation. Race riots. Labor/Capital violence. Organized crime. Natural disasters. But figuring out pensions is the biggie. With such an outlook, and given their obviously overwhelmed brains, yesterday’s column is a logical “solution.” The funny thing is, the Tribbies are bedrock Chicago and Illinois establishment quo. Always have been. They certainly endorsed Daley and Emanuel every time. For them to play the victim, when they’ve been a major player for decades, is just as crazy as the column. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:00 pm: Like - @MisterJayEm -, it’s not about the aspect of firing, having her lose her job, that’s not learning anything of substance for the paper. - Wensicia - is right. That is the logical damage control move, maybe even an open letter, explaining that better judgement needs to happen, and as a paper, we apologize. That might do what many feel needs to be done. The tweet asking for responses, and trying to quell the backlash with a brazen attempt to stifle the continued growth of more people learning of this, that’s really going to fuel more people to continue the passing on of the original piece. - Bogey Golfer - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:03 pm: 1. Does Bruce Dold have a ‘delete’ button on his PC? 2. Will Kass consider McQueary for Moutza of the Month? - @MisterJayEm - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:15 pm: And still no explanation for why the Tribune allowed the author to secretly alter the piece after publication. And nothing from the Tribune to assure us it won’t happen again. https://twitter.com/MisterJayEm/status/632233270361608192 – MrJM - Let'sMovetoNorthDakota - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:19 pm: Oh come on. She said “a figurative storm”! Stop the faux outrage. It was a metaphor. Many of you ‘outrage police’ get very tiresome. - Elo Kiddies - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:19 pm: @MrJayEm “Katrina McQueary” was that intentional? Because that could stick. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:25 pm: - Let’sMovetoNorthDakota - it’s ibe thing to be tone deaf, it’s another to be blind to reactions to tone deafness. You may want to hit the Google key and see all the faux outrage coming out of NOLA. - ZC - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:30 pm: Man, I hate this column, but in my original-tree version of the Tribune that hit my doorstep this morning, the heading was indeed “Chicago, New Orleans and Rebirth.” If they altered it online, it appears that the original headline for the online column was different (and more offensive) than the one that appeared in print. Then they changed the headline back to the one in the newspapers. The “OK, a figurative storm” insertion isn’t in the original print copy, on the other hand. - Let'sMovetoNorthDakota - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:48 pm: I am saddened that so many people are so unsophisticated that they don’t recognize or appreciate metaphors and satire. This writer is just way over your heads. Illinois does indeed need a figurative earthquake or fire to shake things up - and I am certainly not literally advocating deaths and injury by saying this. But let the thought police and the outrage doctors continue their rants. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 1:51 pm: ===This writer is just way over your heads.=== Again, check out the NOLA response, for starters, report what you find from those who were on roofs. - Soccermom - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:01 pm: I know Kristen, and I like her. I also have had the experience of hitting the “publish” button on pieces that I have come to regret bitterly. So I am not going to pile on. But I will say this: In this city, with our painful racial history, it is crucially important to consider the racial implications of any public statement. Hurricane Katrina was a disaster for everyone in New Orleans, but it was especially devastating for the city’s African-American population. The racial issues that Katrina raised are real, and no commentary on New Orleans post-Katrina is complete without acknowledgement of those issues. I am NOT calling Kristen a racist, by any means. But I am sorry that no one at the Tribune looked at this piece through a lens that included the hurricane’s tragic and permanent impacts on New Orleans’ African-American community. - Let'sMovetoNorthDakota - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:06 pm: I can imagine just what these outrage police would say about English writer Jonathan Swift’s famous editorial on solving the problem of poverty: the poor, he proposed, should just sell their children as food for rich people. It was brilliant political satire . But now everyone would take it literally and be outraged, I suppose. The reaction in New Orleans chamges nothing about the power of metaphors. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:12 pm: ===…he proposed, should just sell their children as food for rich people.=== Maybe it’s you who don’t understand what’s going on with that whole metaphor satire thingy… - @MisterJayEm - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:12 pm: “I am saddened that so many people are so unsophisticated that they don’t recognize or appreciate metaphors and satire.” As has been noted: 1) the analogy is tin-eared and vulgar (at best), 2) the conclusions drawn are completely unsupported by the facts, and 3) the Tribune acknowledged that it f(oul)ed-up by quietly rewriting some of the most egregious parts of the piece. But please, NoDak, continue to insist that people are only upset because they’re not as sophisticated as you are. – MrJM - ZC - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:14 pm: The people in New Orleans reading McQueary’s column today know it was a metaphor. Sheesh. I grew up in NO and know plenty of people still there who survived Katrina. So I’ve been somewhat plugged into their responses today. Here’s an anonymous friend of mine’s insta-response. I got to tour his completely-destroyed home back in 2005. “So, yeah. Clearly spoken by a woman who only sees the empirical results of rebuilding and takes no account of the pain and suffering that preceded it. She also glows a little too brightly about some of our supposed successes. Ask NO Fire Fighters if they feel government is working for them. Our schools are still underperforming and some are still closed 10 years later. I understand her point intellectually but there is a far better way to express a desire for reform than to trivialize the struggle to rebuild emotionally from losing - literally - everything.” - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:15 pm: Let’s Move, again with the funny. This was satire? I think you need to look that one up in a dictionary. Why keep editing it after original publication, if it was “satire?” Has anyone from the Trib claimed satire? - GraduatedCollegeStudent - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:16 pm: North Dakota, you might have a point if not for the fact that the Tribune editorial board wouldn’t know satire or performance art if you slapped them in the face with it. - Wensicia - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:20 pm: One of the better responses from the NOLA tweets: “Envy isn’t a rational response to the upcoming 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.” - Joe M - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:22 pm: I’m not sure that the people of New Orleans are appreciating the metaphor explanation. “Thats like saying WWII was good for the construction business in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” - a commenter about the op ed in the Times-Picayune - Let'sMovetoNorthDakota - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:26 pm: Would love to continue with this adolescent badinage, but ( apparently unlike the rest of you) I have to get back to work at my private sector, tax paying job! - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:29 pm: - Let’sMovetoNorthDakota - We all pay taxes, no matter where any of us work. You’re welcome. - Juvenal - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:33 pm: Oswego Willy - It is not, nor should it be, about damage control. An apology is in order, not from the author, but the paper, and MisterJayEm points out why. But I hope it is an apology that acknowledges that maybe their world view is out of whack. Clarence Page’s column today marking the anniversary of Watts is timely, Barton: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/page/ct-watt-riots-race-richardson-perspec-0816-jm-20150814-column.html - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:39 pm: - Juvenal - My apologies; ===It’s damage control first, then reactionary movements if necessary, like, just saying “Sorry”=== I was interpreting the tweet, what the Trib seems to be doing, and their own interpretations and rationales My comments after are coming from my thinking of the Trib’s thinking and their “choices” as interpreted by them. Sorry for not clarifying. - chi - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:39 pm: It shows how bad the column is that its defenders are claiming it was satire. If only. Did Jonathan Swift(!) claim that the selling of children for food really did work wonders in another place? - Rod - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:40 pm: I do not think Ms McQueary wants hundreds of Chicagoans killed and displaced. But she does want the poverty cleaning impact on Chicago that Katrina has had for New Orleans. I think there are a good numbers of conservatives that would share that opinion. I have heard the same thing about the Detroit bankruptcy on how it has helped clear out hopeless poor communities to allow the City to rebuild itself. - chi - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:46 pm: “she does want the poverty cleaning impact on Chicago that Katrina has had for New Orleans.” Wow. So she doesn’t want “hundreds of Chicagoans killed AND displaced”, she just wants thousands to be displaced. Unfortunately, I think your analysis of what she wants is correct. That’s a big part of the problem. - Joe M - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:47 pm: The op ed seems to advocate applying to government - the approach that venture capitalists apply to struggling businesses - first strip them and tear them down to nothing. Does anyone know any current or former prominent venture capitalists in Illinois who would know anything about such an approach? - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 2:56 pm: Some of us are giving her way too much credit for having thought this though. This is far from a thoughtuf piece. It’s a hysterical, ignorant rant that is in keeping with her previous work. Consider her Twitter response. “I would never diminish the tragedy of thousands of lives lost.” The whole premise of the column, the “metaphor” if you want to give her the benefit of the doubt, is a willful, conscious diminishment of those lives in service of a lunatic’s howl at the moon about government finance. This ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer we’re dealing with here. - Willie Stark - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 3:14 pm: Hear, hear, Wordslinger. The column reflects a writer who is quite comfortable with nonsense, working for an ed board that consistently misleads, distorts and ignores relevant facts and history. A wonder that something this inflammatorily ignorant hasn’t been visited upon us before now. - ZC - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 3:29 pm: “They,” meaning Americans who were born into high-concentrated-poverty neighborhoods, are us. They are Americans. (In New Orleans, they were Americans). Any other approach, in the long-run (seeing them as some “other” that we real Americans have to come up with a solution for) is the truly self-defeating one. And I don’t think McQueary in her heart disagrees (she wrote an impassioned piece just the other day about school funding inequalities in IL and how much it hurts low-income communities). But, oh man, did she pick the wrong metaphor today. We’re responsible for how a reasonable reader would fairly interpret the words we put out there. That’s what we all should learn in adolescence. - Walter Mitty - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 3:50 pm: I really can’t judge her as I don’t know her. I tried to re read and see what her thought process was. I am not saying I am better or worse than her because I did not follow. I do wish someone would have stopped the printing and told her to temper the comments and be sure the metaphor part came through… What is just as sad, she may not have someone to tell her the truth… Probably no different than most of our politicians in both parties… Just remind ya where you came from…. - Juvenal - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 3:58 pm: Word: I don’t think it is a question of intelligence. It’s a hyperbolic piece brimming with frustration and anger. Sometimes angry people say things that they wish they could take back. Which is why we have editors. And yes, ZC, we’re responsible for how a reasonable reader would interpret what we write. But again, there was a breakdown in the editing process here. And secondly, I haven’t heard or seen a lot of outrage from Tribune subscribers. While they may or may not take offense at the analogy, I suspect there are a lot of Tribune readers who share her anger and frustration and were mostly nodding their head as they read it. I hope I am wrong about that. - Cable Line Beer Gardener - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:10 pm: Her apology was just published. And Juvenal, there are many of us subscribers who are outraged. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:11 pm: Juvenal, read the column. “Hurricane Katrina gave a great American city a rebirth.” Tortured syntax aside (gave a rebirth?), the ludicrous premise is that New Orleans is better off today due to the death and destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. That’s not hyperbole. That’s the premise. Read the press today out of Lousiana and Mississippi, and that’s what they’re howling about, the ignorance of that statement. And the “figurative” storm came after the first publication. Before that she was “praying for a real storm. ” Words, put together in a certain order, are meant to communicate something, correct? - Arthur Andersen - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:21 pm: If that’s an apology, I’m the King of Spain. She still doesn’t get it. - Jimmy CrackCorn - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:24 pm: That is closer to a double-down than an apology. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:36 pm: There’s no apology. She admits she offended plenty, and doesn’t like the way she’s being received. Other than that, it’s a double-down. New Orleans is better off because of the death and destruction of Katrina. Oh, and when she originally wrote that she was “praying for a real storm” for Chicago? Tnat’s metaphor now. Tnis must have come from the heart, because the brain aint open for business. What was the point of this? - Anonymous - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:36 pm: In her “apology”, she said: “And I am horrified and sickened at how that column was read to mean I would be gunning for actual death and destruction” OK Kristen. You are horried and sickened at the way WE read YOUR words! Isn’t it a writer’s job to effectively communicate ideas? - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:38 pm: McQueary: It’s not me, it’s you. Learn to read. You don’t like it? Tough. #SorryNotSorry - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:43 pm: McQueary is not only doubling down, blames readers, says she “hears”… Not one time… “I’m sorry.” That is so pathetic, elitist, and only inflaming the rhetoric, now being seen fringed point of view as: “Maybe if you were smart enough..” - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:50 pm: Times-Picayune puts the wood to the column at Nola.com. “Absurd and simplistic” are the nice things they have to say about it. Then they get a little rough. Actually, “Absurd and Simplistic” would look perfect on the masthead of the Tribbie edit page. - Wensicia - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 4:57 pm: She still doesn’t get the offense. What she envisions is the actual harm to thousands of people in Illinois after Hurricane Bruce is finished with his “shakeup”, not much different than Katrina. She doesn’t apologize because that’s what she believes is best for this state. “But, the survivors of this storm will be better off, forget about the victims!” I apologize, Kristen, for understanding your true meaning of your ORIGINAL column. Not the excuse you claim is behind the criticism. - Wordslinger - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 5:00 pm: She shouldn’t apologize, her track record is that she really believes all that nonsense. But why is she “sickened and horrified?” Her words are clear enough. She thinks the death and destruction of Katrina was worth it for some political agenda she’s sweet on. And she wishes the same would happen in Chicago. - Enviro - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 5:01 pm: This Tribune column reflects disrespect for middle class public workers and the laws and contracts that protect them from people like McQueary and the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 5:06 pm: Dold and Co. cleared this “statement”. She’s as safe as kittens, unless this stirs up people more, and it’s starting to pick up again… - @MisterJayEm - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 6:23 pm: I am horrified and sickened at how that column was read to mean I would be gunning for actual death and destruction No mistakes on her part. Readers reacted wrong. – MrJM - @MisterJayEm - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 6:24 pm: She didn’t care enough to consider those who have suffered. Or those who would suffer. And she still doesn’t. – MrJM - Anonymous - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 6:37 pm: She needs to do much better than that to make up for one of the meanest-spirited columns I’ve read in a long time. I hope she’s proud of her work, since she will be remembered for this piece for the rest of her career. - A reasonable person... - Friday, Aug 14, 15 @ 6:43 pm: Maybe when the Tribune “updates” this new column from Ms. McQueary…like what happened with the original piece…they can insert the words “I’m sorry.” How do you write a column clearly stating that you “offended the entire city of New Orleans and beyond” and leave off the apology? How about saying, at a bare minimum: “I exercised poor judgment with my analogy and for that I am sorry.” And then she could talk about what was in her heart. Otherwise, I honestly don’t see the point in this follow-up piece which is essentially a re-tread of the initial one. At the end of the day, it’s called taking responsibility. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.