The first community organizer to become president has managed to anger community groups so much with his planned personal monument, aka a "presidential center," that part of the plan was just scrapped. Lolly Bowean of the Chicago Tribune reports: Bowing to community pressure, the Obama Foundation has scrapped its plan for an above-ground parking garage and will instead build an underground facility below the presidential center in Jackson Park, officials said late Monday. The original plan would have grabbed a treasured part of Chicago's park system, the Midway (site of Chicago's World's Fair), for a two-story garage.  The group Save the Midway sprang up to protect the historic public park land from a private developer (the Obama Foundation) appropriating the land for a private purpose (the Obama Center will not be part of the National Archives System): The embarrassment is palpable: After numerous meetings with the...(Read Full Post)