?Volume 8, No. 36 Sunday, July 26, 2009 Price $1.00 Former state Sen. Vincent Fumo is greeted by reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in Philadelphia on Feb. 9. ? HIROKO TANAKA/TRIBUNE STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Barking back at a watchdog

Committee of Seventy questioned following no comment on Fumo

Terry Johnson Tribune Correspondent In reality, the battle over health-care reform is being fought at hospital bedsides where children watch a parent die because an insurance company refused to pay for the care of a loved one because of a pre-existing condition. But in the world of power, profit and politics, the outcome of this historical battle over health-care reform in American might depend on unseen campaign contribu- Editorials Business Food Comics Sports Linn Washington Jr. Tribune Correspondent The recent wrist-slap sentences gifted to former powerhouse state Sen. Vincent Fumo and his long-time aide Ruth Arnao following their convictions in a multimilliondollar corruption scandal produced an unusual outpouring of public criticism. Public criticism from regular citizens to ranking officials scorned U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Buckwalter for sentencing Fumo to less than five years in prison. Similar criticism erupted when Buckwalter later gave a one-year-plus-oneday sentence to Arnao, who did not receive the same level of leniency requests as Fumo. However, one local government watchdog organization very vocal in the past few years on the topic of public corruption was virtually silent on Fumo?s lenient sentence. This silence from the venerable Committee of Seventy (Seventy) is sparking criticism that the organization plays favorites. Critics point to the committee regularly bashing John Street for corruption scandals during his tenure as Philadelphia?s mayor but being less vocal on Fumo who had an influential character witness in Gov. Ed Rendell. Rendell, former Philadelphia district attorney and mayor, testified as a character witness for Fumo during the trial where a jury convicted millionaire Fumo of myriad instances of misusing public funds for per- Seventy ? Page 3A

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4-A 6-A 1-B 3-B 1-C Caribbean Across America Classifieds Obituaries Leisure 3-C 4-C 5-C 6-C 1-D tions, private investments and hidden agendas. Last week, President Barack Obama turned up the heat on almost every front. He held news conferences, he traveled to Ohio and he met in his office with reluctant Blue Dog Democrats who have expressed concern about whether the reform packages moving through the U.S. House and Senate will cost too much. By week?s end, House and Senate Democratic leaders said they would abandon Eagles name McDermott defensive coordinator Johnson?s return to team uncertain. 1C

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Arresting comments

Obama plays defense, invites professor, officer to White House

Nancy Benac WASHINGTON ? Trying to tamp down an uproar in the U.S. over race, President Barack Obama acknowledged Friday he had used unfortunate words in declaring that police ?acted stupidly? in arresting Black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. ?I could?ve calibrated those words differently,? he said. He stopped short of a public apology. But the president telephoned both Gates and the white officer who had arrested him, hoping to end the rancorous back-and-forth over what had transpired and what Obama had said about it. Trying to lighten the situation, he said he had invited the Harvard professor and police St. James Crowley for ?a beer here in the White House.? Hours earlier, a multiracial group of police officers had stood with Crowley in Cambridge, Mass., and said the president should apologize. It was a measure of the nation?s keen sensitivities on matters of race that the fallout from a disorderly conduct charge in Massachusetts ? and the remarks of America?s first Black president about it ? had mushroomed to such an extent that he felt com- their August deadline for a vote on health-care reform. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., dropped her position that the public wants lawmakers to work into the August recess to finish the bill, saying: ?I?m not afraid of August. It?s a month.? On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pinned the delay on the GOP, saying, ?The Republicans have asked for more time, and I don?t think it?s unrea- SPORTS RELIGION LEISURE Chideya talks about book ?Kiss The Sky.? It was Essence magazine?s Book of the Month for May. 3D President Barack Obama speaks about Cambridge Massachusetts Police Sgt. James Crowley and Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Friday at the White House in Washington. ? AP PHOTO/HARAZ N. GHAN

Gates drawn back into the limelight

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. ? AP PHOTO/JOSH REYNOLDS Health care ? Page 4B pelled to make a special appearance at the White House to try to put the matter to rest. The blowup had knocked Obama off stride just as he was trying to marshal public pressure to get Congress to push through health-care overhaul legislation ? and as polls showed growing doubts about his perform- Hillel Italie Decades ago ? long before Harvard, long before his books and documentaries ? Henry Louis Gates Jr. and some friends nearly set off a brawl trying to integrate a West Virginia club. Gates and the others were circled by a white mob. The owner screamed at the Black students to leave, slamming one of them against the wall. The club was shut down, but Gates had been marked: West Virginia police, he would write in his memoir, placed him on a list of those who might be detained should race riots break out during election time. ?Someone in authority had decided I was dangerous?? he wrote. ?I mean, I liked to think so.? Gates rarely has been considered a dangerous man. Gregarious, outgoing, media savvy ? yes. But in the years after the incident in Keyser, W.Va., Mount Hebron Missionary Baptist gets honor Named Tribune Church of the Week. 6D ance. ?This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up,? Obama said of the racial controversy. ?I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge

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COMING TUESDAY

E. LYNN HARRIS,

PIONEER AUTHOR, DIES AT

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his unrelenting focus on Black life in America was intellectual. He has written essays, compiled reference works, searched for slave narratives, produced documentaries, assembled a mighty team of colleagues at Harvard. ?He?s unquestionably one of the great public intellectuals. He puts people together, he makes a million speeches. He?s on airplanes a lot. I think he has 50 honorary degrees by now,? says David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, for which Gates has been a contributor. Now a dispute with police has brought Gates down into the arena once again. Reached Thursday by telephone, Gates told The Associated Press he had no further comments to make about the incident, in which he was suspected of breaking into a house ? his own ? and then Where do local minority businesses get help now? Police Department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could?ve calibrated those words differently.? The president did not back down from his contention that police had overreacted by arresting Gates, a Harvard University professor, for disorderly conduct after coming to Obama ? Page 4B Gates ? Page 6B

Public option is ground zero in health-care debate

Rep. Mike Ross, D- Ark., second from left, speaks to the media, as Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., listen after a Blue Dog Democrats meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House on Tuesday. ? AP PHOTO/ALEX BRANDON The Philadelphia Tribune, a reflection of you. The Philadelphia Tribune

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