The war’s got him down.

In other exciting aviation news, the Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch got his hands on a study soon to be released by Ricondo & Associates which says that Daley’s expanded O’Hare would result in more delays, especially in bad weather.

Why? Because even if you build out the airport, once the number of flights increases to the projected 1.6 million you’re just going to wind up with more delays. Further, one whole new runway would be completely useless in any kind of bad weather, according to the report.

This is exactly what the much-maligned Sen. Peter Fitzgerald has been saying all along about the Daley-Ryan expansion plan, but nobody paid any attention. By sheer luck were we spared this travesty, thanks to Fitzgerald’s opposition in the Senate and the aviation industry’s self-destruction since Sept. 11.

Tribune columnists John Kass (politics) and Blair Kamin (architecture) both had good things to say today about Da Mare’s outrageous, midnight raid on Meigs Field.

Kass, in “Daley’s abuse of power leaves marks on city“:

This is not a complicated story of insider deals, of contracts, connections, of documented paper trails.

Rather, it is simple, with photographs, something TV is interested in watching: the destruction of a valuable resource simply because it was in Daley’s way, and because he knew no one could stop him.

Little Big Man finally revealed himself as the absolute boss ruling Chicago and Cook County with wrought-iron fists.

Kamin, in “Land grabs don’t get any more naked than this“:

Noble ends don’t justify ignoble means.

As much as I believe that Meigs should become a park, the way Daley has gone about it stinks as badly as the nose-wrinkling stench that once wafted out of the Union Stockyards.

If you ever doubted that all the important urban planning decisions in Chicago are made by a democratically elected monarch whose throne is on the fifth floor of City Hall, then what happened Sunday night — when backhoes appeared at 11 p.m. and jabbed giant Xs in Meigs’ runway — should erase your doubts forever.

My friend Chuck endorses a truly terrible idea in Minnesota to force protesters to pay the extra costs associated with their actions — police enforcement, redirecting traffic, etc.

While the libertarian impulse behind such a position is understandable — protesters should have to pay for the costs they impose on others — the problem is that they already have in the form of taxes. Just because they choose to exercise their free-speech rights does not mean they should be liable to pay more on top of that.

By that logic, those who don’t protest or demonstrate in any way should receive a tax discount of some kind. If someone obstructs traffic or does anything unlawful, he should be arrested. That is the punishment. Forcing people to pay for the right to protest would have the express purpose of discouraging speech.

Once in a while in America, we get a small taste of what it would be like to live in a place that wasn’t “America,” with whatever small shred of freedom, due process and limited government we think that’s supposed to entail.

Unfortunately, our tastings of this non-America are fairly regular here in the Windy City, thanks to Richard M. Daley, mayor.

In the middle of the night, Daley sent his goons in — under police escort — to rip up the runways of Meigs Field, a small airport in downtown Chicago. Here’s what it looks like now.

The action left 16 private jets stranded on the taxiway with no way to leave.

No one knew about it. No one was consulted. No announcement was made. Asked whether any of the City Council’s 50 aldermen had been consulted about the move, Daley answered, “No. Not yet.”

It’s no secret that Daley’s wanted for years to make Meigs into a park, but he gave up that dream in order to get a deal with former Gov. Ryan to expand O’Hare (and build another airport in Peotone). Now that the federal legislation to cement that deal appears dead, Daley has reneged.

Surely, any hopes of his supporting a Peotone airport are gone now too. Not that expansion opponnents ever thought otherwise. Daley’s arguments about expanding O’Hare — that it was necessary to increase flight capacity — ring hollow now that he has singlehandedly decided to shut down an airport that handled 30,000-plus flights a year.

Yes, that’s a blip on O’Hare and Midway’s radar, but the principle is the same. Daley wants what he wants, when he wants it. Only occasionally and seemingly accidentally does what he want actually coincide with the public good.

Daley claims he had the legal right to do what he did (for homeland security reasons, he said, because in the time I worked and lived downtown since Sept. 11 all people ever talked about was how petrified they were of the little planes taking departing from and arriving at Meigs Field). And that may be so.

That one man can essentially decide the fate of an airport is in itself a problem. A reporter asked him at his news conference yesterday — where Daley looked more uncomfortable than a recovering alcoholic in a bar on St. Patrick’s Day — whether his storm trooper tactics were necessary to avoid a prolonged legal fight.

“You answered your own question,” he said. “I’m not going to answer that question.”

That’s not the way decisions should be made in America. But this ain’t America, is it? This is Chicago.