Does State's Attorney Foxx Fear She'll Lose To A ... Republican?

CHICAGO — Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx must be terrified that voters in the bluest of blue counties might abandon her for a Republican candidate, of all people, if she debates him on TV.

That's the only logical reason I can come up with to explain why the county's top prosecutor — a lawyer overseeing an army of litigators — would suddenly announce that she's no longer engaging in public debates because her opponent Patrick O'Brien called her not-so-nice names.

It's true. O'Brien did call her names. If you watch video of the Daily Herald's "feisty" editorial board showdown you will hear O'Brien tag Foxx as a "social worker" and "cheerleader for criminals."

Foxx's spokeswoman told me O'Brien's hyperbole is much like President Trump calling U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" and labeling Hillary Clinton a "nasty woman."

Frankly, that seems like a stretch that doesn't even rise to the low-brow debate rhetoric of former Vice President Joe Biden, who told President Trump to "shut up, man" and called him a "clown," "liar" and Russian President Vladimir "Putin's puppy" on national TV.

But what really bothers me is that Foxx's campaign team argues Cook County voters "deserve better" than being exposed to the rhetoric of opponent who engages in "Trump-like name-calling and fearmongering."

That's a bunch of malarkey. Typical Cook County voters are a lot of things — fiercely loyal to the Democratic Machine, neglected by lying politicians and innocent victims of public corruption – but we're not tender flowers.

We've witnessed the dirty campaign tricks of politicians like Kim Foxx's political patron, Cook County Democratic Party Boss Toni Preckwinkle, who blew a fear-mongering dog whistle on Lori Lightfoot's LGBTQ status during televised debates in a failed mayoral bid.

We've heard the F-bomb dropped at Chicago City Council meetings.

And we've listened-in when a hot microphone caught Mayor Lori Lightfoot call a Chicago police union operative a "clown."

At some point Thursday, Foxx's campaign must have sensed that the name-calling excuse didn't jibe with reality. They came up with a new reason for declining further debates: O'Brien is a liar.

“This is our problem with Mr. O'Brien. He just lies," according to a Foxx campaign statement. "This is profoundly dangerous, when we have misinformation campaigns around the country attempting to drown out democratic voices, norms, and institutions."

With all due respect, if Foxx doesn't want to debate a liar, she should get out of Cook County politics.

Besides, O'Brien could say the same thing about her, and back it up with the summary of a special prosecutor's finding that Foxx lied to her clients — the very voters that she wants to re-elect her — about recusing herself from the non-prosecution of disgraced actor Jussie Smollett on charges of faking a hate crime against himself.

MORE ON PATCH: If Foxx Lied To Public She Represents, Take Away Her Law License

Foxx's reasons for refusing to debating O'Brien don't pass the smell test.

Foxx shouldn't have anything to worry about. She's the incumbent endorsed by the Cook County Democratic Machine in a county where the Republican Party hardly exists.

She's got the mainstream media on her side. The Sun-Times didn't just endorse Foxx, its owners contributed nearly $1 million to her campaign.

MORE ON PATCH: Sun-Times Owners Give $225,000 More To Kim Foxx, $975,000 Total

She is beloved by the likes of Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, and her office (not her campaign) even sent an in-case-you-missed-it email urging reporters to read his weekend tale of the time she did the right thing by not prosecuting an innocent man.

Foxx's worry must be that she knows O'Brien isn't really the Trump Republican she portrays him to be. In 2016, he was elected as a Democratic judge with Irish surname.

O'Brien flopped political parties to run for states attorney for a practical reason: He had no other choice. Preckwinkle, who once employed Foxx as her chief of staff, controls the Democratic Machine.

The Cook County Republican Party didn't endorse O'Brien in the March Primary, and he still won in a landslide.

The only reasonable explanation for Foxx's decision to dropping out of debating O'Brien on TV seems to be she's afraid that people who don't watch blurry editorial board interviews online might see fear in her eyes in high definition.

Cook County voters deserve better than that kind of injustice.

We deserve a chance to watch lying politicians call each other names on TV before casting votes for the liar we like best.

It's the Chicago Way.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots.
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