"I just answered, like, eight questions."

Back in the late 70s - early 80s, growing up in the Chicago region, we were a Walter (Jacobson) and Bill (Kurtis) family. Back when folks used to sit together and watch the news religiously every evening, it said something about which personalities you chose to spend time with your family. Distinct they were, not the interchangeable good-looking anchor faces of today.

My dad never missed Walter's "Perspective". Didn't always agree with his smarmy style, but like Royko, Walter had his finger on the pulse of Chicago and had no fear in exposing those whose practices set back honest working men and city taxpayers. Bill was okay too -- stable in the face of controversy and crisis, and a good partner for Walter in seeming to balance the team.

Bill left in the early 80s for a national anchor role, and then his documentary projects, and though he later came back to Chicago news, I had grown up and out of the family house and remember them mostly in the context of those earlier times. Walter eventually moved over to WFLD Fox News, which gave the brand some serious news credibility in Chicago.

There were other impressive news teams in Chicago too: while Bill and Walter were on CBS, Carol Marin and Ron Magers were on NBC. Though not our first choice, they too were a smart and classy team. Magers has a brother with a comfortable resemblance, I noticed when I lived in the Twin Cities market.

But this post isn't about Walter, Bill, or Ron, but Carol Marin. Her name came up in this exchange of recent days, and brought back the memories. She too served as a reporter in those days, before journalism changed and the looks and reading ability were deemed more important than your skills in asking a follow-up question and pursuing a story.

It seems Carol is still going strong, resigning from NBC -- followed by Ron soon after -- when her station made the decision to grant Jerry Springer personal news-analysis time, akin to Walter's Perspective segments. She's writing for the Sun-Times now, and it was kind of cute to hear her labeled as an "agitator" in this piece:

Tom Raum of the Associated Press led off with a question about whether an Obama aide had told Canadians not to take seriously the candidate's public rhetoric critical of the NAFTA trade agreement.

"Let me, let me, let me, let me just be absolutely clear what happened," Obama answered, explaining that the meeting was a "courtesy" and involved no "winks and nods."

Then an agitator -- columnist Carol Marin with the Chicago Sun-Times -- broke in. Marin, a visitor to the Obama entourage who accused the regulars of being too "quiet," accused the candidate of concealing details about fundraisers Rezko had for him and a real estate transaction between the two.

"I don't think it's fair to suggest somehow that we've been trying to hide the ball on this," Obama answered. But this only provoked a noisy back-and-forth between Marin, Sun-Times colleague Lynn Sweet and Michael Flannery from Chicago's CBS affiliate. "How many fundraisers? . . . Who was there? . . . Disclosure of the closing documents?"

Obama, while repeating his formulation that it was "a boneheaded move" to do business with Rezko, tried to shut down the requests for more information. "These requests, I think, could just go on forever," he said. "At some point, what we need to try to do is respond to what's pertinent."

Reporters, however, had a different idea of what was pertinent, and the questions about Rezko, NAFTA and other unpleasant subjects continued to come. An aide called out "last question," and Obama made his move for the exit -- only for reporters to shout after him in protest.

"C'mon, guys," he pleaded. "I just answered, like, eight questions."

It only seems fitting that we resurrect the glory days of Chicago newsgathering -- one last hurrah, so to speak -- in helping us figure out who's best to get into office now, and make some sense of what all the Bush/Cheney administration has been up to these past years. Because if you think what's out in the open now disgusts you, imagine what surprises we'll find when a fresh team gets in there. Politics ain't beanball, after all.

Have a great Wednesday, and let's end with these Prince lyrics today, shall we?

I know, I know, I know times are changin'...
We all reach out for somethin' new; that means you too.
You say you want a leader,
but you can't seem to make up your mind.
I think you better close it, and let me guide you...
through the purple rain.

Thanks Carol, for doing your job, and personally, for helping me to remember days gone by.

"I hope for the future. I remember the past. I live in the present."
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Added: Worth checking out too Susan Estrich's column today. She can be considered a journalist, though one with significant legislative and legal knowledge on the Supreme Court and its precedents. Former editor of the Harvard Law Review even...

Blame the Supremes. That's right. The nine of them are responsible for this mess.

If you're shaking your head about how it is that in Texas, Democrats vote not once but twice, and lifelong Republicans who want to jimmy with the process can vote, too; or why it is that in California, independents (or, as we call them, "decline to states") could vote in the Democratic primary but not in the Republican primary — if they knew to fill in both the bubble for their candidate of choice and a separate one saying they were Democrats for the day; or how it came to be that even though Michigan and Florida held primaries on the date ordained by state law, the results don't count (at least as of now) for the Democrats, the short answer is simple: Blame the United States Supreme Court.
...
The issue in 1980 was the Wisconsin open primary. Wisconsin has, and had then, a long tradition of allowing anyone, regardless of party, to cast their vote in whichever primary they wanted. You didn't even have to become a Democrat for the day to do it. But after the 1972 contests — in which there were all kinds of reports of Wallace people voting for McGovern, and various and sundry Republican troublemakers trying to affect the choice of the man who would run against their nominee, President Richard Nixon — the Democrats adopted a rule limiting participation in the primaries and caucuses leading up to the nominating convention to "bona fide Democrats."

Wisconsin sought an exemption from the rule prohibiting so-called "open primaries," but the national party said no. Wisconsin held an open primary anyway. The national party made noise about not seating the Wisconsin delegation. It took until the very late spring of 1980 for the case to reach the point of a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held in the Democratic Party's favor.

The Court reasoned that even though the two parties (or any others for that matter) are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, they enjoy First Amendment rights of freedom of association, which they were exercising in coming up with their rules governing delegate selection. The party's interest, the Court concluded, could not be infringed by any individual state, even if it was trying to effectuate a legitimate and reasonable goal of opening up participation in the process to as many of its residents as possible.

Since then, it has been established law that the parties decide how delegates get picked and nominations get decided, even if it is the states that technically do things like set the dates for primaries and caucuses. Where there's a conflict, the party wins. That's why no one from Florida or Michigan is buying tickets to the Denver convention. Yet.

The problem, of course, is that — as is also true with respect to the Court's decisions on campaign finance reform — the system erected by the Supreme Court makes more sense as a matter of constitutional theory than political reality. The parties aren't small-d democratic: They are collections of insiders, hacks and partisans, quadrennially dominated according to loyalty to the vying presidential candidates. Whether Michigan or Florida should have delegates, and how they should be selected, isn't an abstract question of political science, but a question of whether you're for Obama or Hillary. The primary-caucus system in Texas gives more power to insiders, not a greater voice to the people.

Why the Democratic and Republican Parties should have this kind of power is not a matter of whether it's right, but of the finality of the decisions of the Supreme Court — even when they're wrong. In 1980, the Democrats decided to seat Wisconsin anyway. Ever since, they've gotten an exemption. Oh, well.