Senate President Emil Jones began a meeting of his Democratic members not long ago with a playful announcement that despite what everyone had read and heard, he had no intention of retiring from office.

He was joking, of course, but while the joke may have temporarily relieved a bit of tension in the room, there's still plenty of infighting ahead.

It was the "hug heard 'round Illinois," but did it really mean anything?

Last week's umpteenth special legislative session had a lot more to do with giving the Senate an opportunity to kill off the legislative pay raises than coming up with education-funding-reform ideas or passing a capital-construction plan.

As I write this, Governor Rod Blagojevich is contemplating yet another special legislative session to take up a newly revised $25-billion infrastructure-repair proposal for transportation, schools, and economic development.

Whatever happens, it certainly appears that any special session would be an exercise in futility. House Speaker Michael Madigan is not budging off his opposition to the governor's capital-construction plan, even in its newly revised and scaled-back form.