It is a pet project of Mayor Richard Daley and former Clinton-Gore crony William Daley.The airport expansion has been fought by Illinois Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald.
The Bush administration had expressed a desire to help Durbin and the Daleys get the funding. But while dining with the Daley brothers in Chicago during St. Patrick’s Day festivities last weekend, Bush told them that Durbin’s refusal to support Pickering may very well doom their sky-high airport plans.
“Durbin wouldn’t even speak to Lott about the Pickering matter,” says a Republican leadership source. “This is personal now, and the Pickering thing is going to have some far reaching effects on pet legislation on the Democratic side.”
Fitzgerald has struggled in the past to keep the airport financing deal off the books, but has been told by Lott that this year’s fight won’t be half as hard. Republicans won’t the let the deal go through. Across the Capitol, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a fellow Land of Lincoln resident, has similarly agreed to keep O’Hare expansion backing off the books to spite Durbin’s and the Daleys’ dreams.
p> JANET’S LOST LABOR br> Former Attorney General
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
H/T to National Review Online