Skewered in the Tribune
For the last word on what reduced Eisendrath to a pathetic mound of jelly, Collins turned to an intimate. It was hubris, said Mary Baim with unimpeachable objectivity. Baim knows Eisendrath better than just about anybody does, having observed him closely in 1991 when she ran against him for alderman. Since his easy reelection in that race doesn’t fit the theory of Eisendrath as a parvenu whose career turned to ashes, Collins properly brushed over it. Just as he brushed over anything Eisendrath accomplished as alderman.
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But not, we think, one it earned in the arguing. Nonetheless Eisendrath probably made a mistake in letting a patch of thin skin show. Another way to react would have been with the impenetrable opacity of the classic apparatchik. Or as Collins put it, “Hubris or not, Eisendrath plows on, all in the name of public service.”
Said Britton’s memo: “The theme of this cartoon . . . is unacceptable in the Chicago Sun-Times. Armed robbery is not funny. Please look at every cartoon and comic before publication and eliminate those that are tasteless or simply not funny.”
Do you think poverty is funny? Eternal damnation? A lot of folks we know think eternal damnation is about as serious a subject as there is. But it’s a big joke at the Sun-Times.
