Peter Roskam twists himself pretzel-like to avoid reality

Roskam’s apologies

If he serves another 12 years in Congress, or even 24 more, my congressman Peter Roskam couldn’t offer a more preposterous, nonsensical defense of a racist, sexist, xenophobic, insult-spewing presidential candidate than the one he gave Trump in 2016: “I do think time is Donald Trump’s friend. I think people are saying … ‘All right, I’m ready to hear this guy out, see what he has got to say, with the flash and dash aside.”

Keenly aware of Trump’s mendacity and unfitness for office, Roskam twisted himself pretzel-like to avoid reality: The GOP embraced a reality show con man, bully and Russia-financed real estate mogul for the chance to get back the White House. It worked, but Roskam’s bizarre Trump defense now threatens his re-election bid. So now he’s trumpeting his disagreement.

First up was an easy call, disagreeing with Trump’s separation of innocent children from their parents at our borders. Then last week, Roskam touted how he “pulled Trump aside” to raise “concerns” about his siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their press conference following the Helsinki summit.

What nonsense. Nobody “pulls Trump aside,” except possibly Mrs. Trump. What we’re observing is the “Congressman Roskam Wild-Card Apology Tour.” Roskam had his wild card pick, but the voters hold all the aces.

Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn

Wells Parkway, Wells Street

The city will manage to live with the intersection of Ida B. Wells Parkway and Wells Street very well. After all, we’ve managed to survive the even more confusing intersection of East Hyde Park Boulevard and South Hyde Park Boulevard for generations.

Don Rose, Lincoln Park

Sinclair and WGN

Your July 19 editorial, “Sinclair’s plan to buy WGN is sad news for local news”, shows the liberal bias of media outlets. They are afraid of the competition from a conservative media outlet that would give people a different perspective and start people thinking on their own, not blindly following the liberal left agendas pushed by the existing media outlets.

I, for one, will welcome Sinclair’s purchase of WGN, as there are actually no independent, unbiased media outlets anymore.

John Deal, Dolton

Measure what matters

Barack Obama is no longer president, but his speech at the late Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday celebration struck a chord with Americans facing an uncertain economic future. Policymakers need to rethink the way we measure the success of economic policy. We should stop grounding policies in the growth of the economy and start grounding them in the quality of people’s lives.

In his speech, Obama suggested everything from familiar solutions like job retraining to more radical ideas like universal income. He’s right. We need to explore solutions beyond the ones that have already failed. But first, we need to start measuring what matters most to us — the ability to feed, house, and care for our loved ones and communities — with the same evangelism we bring to GDP.

Erin Weber, Oak Park

Chance the Rapper’s new song

The Sun-Times has printed many stories celebrating Chancelor Bennett (aka Chance the Rapper). He took issue with just one: a March 2017 column by Mary Mitchell calling him a “hero in the ‘hood,” though warning that a then-unresolved child support dispute with the mother of his daughter could cause his “clean-cut image (to) take a big hit.”

The rapper last week released four songs, one of which takes aim at Chicago media with the lyric “I bought the Chicagoist just to run you racist bitches out of business.” The new song singles out the Sun-Times and also Crain’s Chicago Business, which had reported on his purchase of a $3.7 million Streeterville condo. If this is Chance’s gratitude for all the favorable coverage over the past several years, it’s being expressed in a really curious way!

Christine Craven, Evergreen Park