So Daley Plaza cleared out fairly quickly after the first-round TKO of the Chicago 2016 bid — all that remained after a couple of hours were roadies, and a fountain filled with orange soda.

And the people who left in a hush had a serious case of sad.  They believed in the bid — truly and completely, and notwithstanding all of the inherent problems of handing off billions of dollars to the Daley machine, when such money can pay for other useful things.  (On this score, the objections to the bid by Chicagocentric Stinquers were well-documented and, on the whole, well-founded.)

But: Rush Limbaugh?  Glenn Beck?  Weekly Standard hacks?   And, also, a guy who dialed into WGN Radio after Chicago got spiked and blamed Black Eagle for badmouthing America overseas — just after he gave America a big, wet, sloppy kiss?  All of whom were elated not so much that Chicago lost, but that America lost?

Look: I didn’t want the Games to come here.  My reasons were out of broader concerns about the well-being of the city I live in.  These guys just wanted Barack Obama to be embarassed.  That’s all they care about.  And this — something that is positively trivial compared to health care, or Afghanistan, or all the other things Barry couldn’t think about while he was in Denmark for four hours — proves where these people are, mentally, beyond any doubt.

Note to Harry Reid and similarly spineless Democrats in charge of things: the guys whose asses you want to kiss are in league with people who were cheering when America lost at something.  These are the bastards you are dealing with.  A thought: why don’t you call ’em out on something like this?  For once?  And not wishy-washy, but in earnest?  For me?  PLEASE??

Well, it looks like we have a wiener:

SEOUL, South Korea – The youngest son of North Korea’s authoritarian leader has been given the title of “Brilliant Comrade,” a newspaper reported Friday, a sign the communist regime is preparing to name him as successor to the ailing Kim Jong Il.

U.S. and South Korean intelligence authorities disclosed during a meeting this week that 26-year-old Kim Jong Un is now being referred to in the secretive regime as “Yongmyong-han Dongji,” which translates roughly as “Brilliant Comrade,” South Korea’s mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported.

News hasn’t reached DPRK populace yet.  Damn DTV switchover.

Haven’t seen this guy over at The Corner yet. Let us see what he has for us, hmm?

Democrats complained endlessly about the supposed “politicization” of the Bush Justice Department. When asked about this at his confirmation hearing, Eric Holder piously pledged that his Justice Department would “serve justice” and “not the fleeting interests of any political party.” America, he intoned, was “in dire need of a less political and more independent Justice Department.”

But an e-mail and flyer recently circulated to Justice Department employees indicate Attorney General Holder has an interesting definition of what it means to be “less political.” The flyer invites all employees to attend a speech in the main Justice building on Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, it notes, all “supervisors are encouraged to grant official time to employees to attend this event.”

And what pillar of the legal profession will be lecturing Justice employees to help them “serve justice” in a “less political” way? Why, none other than Donna Brazile, whose own website biography describes her as a “veteran Democratic political strategist” and a Vice Chairman at the Democratic National Committee. Brazile is marketed by more than one speaker’s bureau at a cost ranging from $10,000 to $20,000. The flyer doesn’t say how many taxpayer dollars are going to pay a Democratic political consultant to speak to career employees at the Justice Department (sounds like a good FOIA request). Good thing the Department is no longer politicized.

So, to sum up: stacking the office with loyal GOP hands, with selections overseen by a graduate of a Tier Twenty-Six law school that, oddly enough, is run by a preacher? These things happen. But a brown-bag lunch with a political operative will totally destroy the image of the DoJ and CANNOT BE TOLERATED.

Yeah. This guy totally should have been on the FEC.

Item: The San Francisco Chronicle is seriously on the ropes. May close within weeks.

Yeah, we all knew that Dead Tree was going the way of the dinosaur. But I don’t know if I’m ready for this . . .

And so the Senate roll call is open on the stimulus package.  As it has been for a few hours now.  59 yes votes so far.  The holdup is due to the fact that Sherrod Brown has to race back from Ohio to D.C.  From his mother’s wake.

Look — I know Rush would have someone over a barrel for this.  But would it have killed a GOP Senator from switching votes, out of some concern for a fellow Senator?  Simple: “You know, I don’t like this bill.  But there are bigger things going on here.  So out of respect to Sen. Brown, I will vote ‘aye,’ even though I believe that this bill is wrong, and officially say so for the record.”

Really.  Dude’s mom died.  Nobody could have sucked it up and given the 60th vote?  They really wanted to force him to fly back?

Oy.