Don't take wrecking ball to Cole Hall

Gov. Rod Blagojevich last week proposed that the state spend $40 million to tear down and replace Cole Hall, the Northern Illinois University building where five students were killed Feb. 14.

We believe there are better uses for $40 million, and tearing down the building so soon is a hasty decision that probably won't speed up the healing process after the terrible shootings.

Anyone who's ever been to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn. knows it's at the former Lorraine Motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death in 1968. Much of the museum is filled with artifacts from the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and '60s. But the room where King was staying before he was killed has been preserved as a shrine to one of the last century's most important Americans.

We are not suggesting that Cole Hall at Northern Illinois University be transformed into a shrine to the five NIU students who were killed there Feb. 14. But we strongly disagree with Gov. Rod Blagojevich's proposal to demolish Cole Hall and replace it with a new classroom building. We understand that the building should not be immediately reopened…but there are ways Cole Hall can still be used, even if it takes an overhaul of the building.

Governor in denial

Gov. Rod Blagojevich repeatedly and angrily denies reality until it is forcibly thrust upon him. Take the revelation by a federal judge that Blagojevich is, in fact, the "Public Official A" named in a federal corruption investigation. The governor has repeatedly and vociferously denied that he and Public Official A are one and the same. Now, it is certain.

Throughout his administration, the governor has repeatedly insisted on his version of reality when all signs say differently. For his supporters, that's been a sign of fighting for what he believes, possibly past the point of political wisdom. Now, we wonder whether he convinces himself of his own view, despite the evidence to the contrary. Didn't he know that, sooner or later, he would be named Public Official A? Or was his thinking so short-term that he only wanted to put off the inevitable, not caring about the effect on his tattered credibility? It's a puzzle that will probably never be solved.