Metra mess lifts veil on what hasn't changed in Illinois politics

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It's been a discouraging few weeks for those of us who'd hoped that the prosecution of Dan Rostenkowski, George Ryan, Rod Blagojevich any number of aldermen might have made a change in Chicago's and Illinois' continuing culture of corruption.

It hasn't made a difference. At least, not enough of a difference.

The mess at Metra and a few other related matters have lifted a grand curtain on how Chicago works, providing a peek at the wheels of government and what oils them. And that peek suggests that, in many, many ways, we're still living somewhere around, say, 1957. Still allowing local and state government to be not a place where the public is served, but a place to set up a family business and profit as much as possible for me and mine. Greg Hinz at Crain's has the rest of the story.