U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber said he wasn’t feeling well last week, and put off until February the sentencing of the “ComEd Four,” caught up in the investigation of Michael Madigan and convicted of bribery last May.
Reminding me of something I’ve been meaning to do: put in a good word for one of the guilty parties, Jay Doherty. I’ve known Jay for 25 years, since I started attending the Friday lunches at Gene & Georgetti that our ace political columnist, Steve Neal, held in their upstairs room. The meals were well-lubricated, hours-long affairs, with politicians and power brokers. I always tried to sit next to the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Dan Rostenkowski, and listen fascinated to his tales of backroom deals in Congress. He had a way giving your forearm a squeeze — I liked to think of that squeeze as passing from Lyndon B. Johnson to Dan to me.
