PI Original Progress Illinois Tuesday February 17th, 2009, 5:34pm

IL-5: Trib Endorses Quigley (UPDATED)

First the Sun-Times, now the Tribune: Democratic voters will have no trouble finding a reliable Democrat—there are several who fit comfortably in the party. We believe they will find one who believes in the party’s principles and has an outstanding ...

First the Sun-Times, now the Tribune:

Democratic voters will have no trouble finding a reliable Democrat—there are several who fit comfortably in the party.

We believe they will find one who believes in the party’s principles and has an outstanding record of independent, reform-minded performance in office. That is Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley, who is endorsed today in the Democratic primary.

Quigley has been a forceful, persistent critic of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. Even better, Quigley has done exhaustive work on how county government could provide better health care and other services to people in far more efficient and cost-effective ways.

The Trib goes on to criticize John Fritchey for "deflect[ing] the hard questioning" of Roland Burris during the January 8 House impeachment hearing:

We like a number of candidates in this race, including Chicago Ald. Patrick O’Connor and state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz. Public interest lawyer Tom Geoghegan and University of Chicago lecturer Charles Wheelan are raising the level of debate here.

Another candidate, state Rep. John Fritchey talks about reform, but voters really ought to take a look at how Fritchey deflected the hard questioning of Sen. Roland Burris during testimony at the now-infamous House impeachment committee hearing. Rep. Fritchey, whose interests were you serving there? Not the public’s.

Ouch.

UPDATE (2/18): The Sun-Times has Fritchey's response:

Fritchey said Tuesday night he was only being "lawyerly" when he objected to Durkin asking Burris about a hypothetical situation.

"In hindsight, my only mistake was perhaps I should have been more political and less like a former prosecutor," said Fritchey Tuesday night. [...]

Fritchey insisted Tuesday night he was not trying to protect Blagojevich or Burris at that hearing -- he was just, as a former assistant attorney general, trying to safeguard the process.

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