Republicans can despise him.
State Fair attendees can boo him till their cows come home.
But no one can deny the Machiavellian cunning and genius of House Speaker Michael Madigan.
At the special session of the Legislature on Friday in Springfield, public employee unions and retirees jammed the Capitol rotunda in loud protest of possible pension cuts. But the Democrats who control this state knew they had to at least look — to voters if not to bond houses — as though they were doing something to staunch the pension bleeding that puts Illinois in last, worst place among states with looming fiscal catastrophes.
Read Carol Marin's entire column in the Chicago Sun-Times.
