Thomas Frank criticizes critics of "The Chicago Way." In so doing, he rather quickly becomes one himself.

His problem is that be confuses the understood meaning of "The Chicago Way." It's not, as he says "power-grabbing, government-growing," it's the bare-knuckle fighting and their ham-fisted attempts to marginalize their political enemies. ("He puts one of your's in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue That's the Chicago way!"

As a pundit, Frank is an expert at the practice.

Maybe that's what he really meant when he wrote his best seller, "What's The Matter With Kansas?" His fellow progressives in Jayhawk country hadn't learned "The Chicago Way."