“Chicago, Chicago, it’s a wonderful town…”
No, it’s not. It’s a crap town filled to the top of its tall skyscrapers with corruption and sleaze. What a place – Reverend Wright (the king of reverse racism), Bill Ayers (the pathetic terrorist manqué), Rezko, Blagojevich, Mayor Daley (the old and the young), the theft of 1960 election and on and on. Chicagoans like to think it’s cute, all the corruption, but it’s not. It’s disgusting and immoral and wretched for this country at a moment when billions are being passed out by the government to financial institutions and corporations.
And just when I was starting to like Obama, or at least tolerate him, the stink of Lake Michigan is starting to ooze up through his pores. As the old saying goes, when you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. And Obama lay down with a lot of dogs in his day. They may come back to haunt him, even before he is inaugurated. As Jake Tapper
writes:
But there remain questions about how Blagojevich knew that Mr. Obama was not willing to give him anything in exchange for the Senate seat — with whom was Blagojevich speaking? Did that person report the governor to the authorities?
And, it should be pointed out, Mr. Obama has a relationship with Mr. Blagojevich, having not only endorsed Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006, but having served as a top adviser to the Illinois governor in his first 2002 run for the state house.
That 2002 endorsement came at the same time that Axelrod had such serious concerns about whether Blagojevich was ready for governing he refused to work for his one-time client.
As I said, what a town.
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37 Comments
1. David Thomson:John McCain might think life is not fair. If this scandal had occurred shortly before the election—Barack Obama would have likely been defeated. I also very confused regarding the president-elect’s deceit. Why lie if it is so easy to get caught? It is also difficult to believe his hands are clean. How does anyone remain uncorrupted in Chicago area politics? I earlier suspected that Obama may enter the White House with poll numbers below fifty percent. He may not have much political capital to spend.
Dec 9, 2008 - 3:27 pm 2. Barry Dauphin:Blaojevich: Barack, can’t you talk to Fitz?
Obama: Blag, I think I see another bus coming down the highway.
Dec 9, 2008 - 4:11 pm 3. Lightnin' Hopkins:“This just isn’t the same guy I barely knew or talked to from near my neighborhood that I may have tepidly endorsed a few times in the past….can we go back to talking about how I still smoke? I think it might be because I’m sad. Help me, David Gregory. Help me help myself.”
Four long years of inconvenient-association-eruptions cropping up left and right. This might turn out to be fun after all! Although it’s not exactly the ‘Fitzmas’ the Kos Kiddies were dreaming of, is it?
Dec 9, 2008 - 5:05 pm 4. David Thomson:I also get a kick out the fact that Barack Obama met with Al Gore, Jr. earlier today. When will Americans realize that global warming is something of scam operation to enrich the elite graduates of our best universities? These people lie to themselves because of the money involved in “green technology” stocks. The Blagojevich scandal should make Obama hesitant to push this nonsense. Also, he is less likely to help his buddies in the UAW. The political capital will simply not be there.
Dec 9, 2008 - 5:21 pm 5. stace:Like you, I’ve been trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, especially since he made those sensible appointments, but–ewww. One of the many reasons I voted against him was I didn’t want The Chicago Way in the WhiteHouse.
“Colorful” Dem machines like those of Louisiana, Chicago, and South Texas are kind of funny until someone gets hurt. This ACORNization has to stop, or this country will get to looking a little like Venezuela.
Dec 9, 2008 - 5:27 pm 6. ManosTheHandsOfFate:Paraphrasing Burt Reynolds in Lawman, when he talks to the priest in the town church: “You can tell a lot about a man by knowing where he goes to pray.”
Dec 9, 2008 - 5:32 pm 7. Terrye:Well well well. Wanna bet that this is not the Hot Rod that Obama knew?
Gag me. Add Oprah to the list of things Chicago has brought us. Oprah and Obama, selling America a load of crap.
Dec 9, 2008 - 5:52 pm 8. Paul:It is fitting that Chicago stinks.
“The Menomini called them pikwute sikakushia (skunk plant), and they referred to an area near the southern shore of Lake Michigan, where ramps grew abundantly, as CicagaWuni or shikako (skunk place). The term was later applied to a white settlement now known as Chicago.”
Dec 9, 2008 - 5:58 pm 9. ElMondo:“It’s(Chicago) a crap town filled to the top of its tall skyscrapers with corruption and sleaze.”
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to rip the whole city. Chicago is like many Pacific Island or Central/South American nations: Honestly great places, but cursed by hideous, atrocious governments.
I love the hell out of Chicago. I’m still considering living there. But if all their politicians fell into Lake Michigan tomorrow, I wouldn’t mourn; I consider the Chicago political machine a modern day Tammany Hall, just lacking the scruples or class (*rolls eyes*), and they just plain need to go. They’re a blight on the city. But Chicago itself is, thankfully, a much cooler and better city than the class of politicians parasitically infecting it.
Look, I’ll agree with any judgement about Chicago politicians. But the city itself isn’t a cesspool because of them. Rather, think about the city as a really awesome person with cancer. The cancer is the blight, but the person has qualities separate, above and beyond the illness.
Dec 9, 2008 - 6:41 pm 10. Roger L Simon:Well, you get the government you deserve. Here in Los Angeles we should know that – we’ve got the creepy Villaraigosa.
Dec 9, 2008 - 7:57 pm 11. Huan:After Katrina, Louisiana’s voters rejected some of the corrupt bayou politicians. I wonder if this little hurricane into the windy city would do the same.
also makes me really wonder even more about Obama’s character and his ability to judge character of others.
Dec 9, 2008 - 8:19 pm 12. Mike_K:Check the taxes before you move to Chicago. Almost the only good things about California are the weather and Prop 13. I wonder if a state bankruptcy could invalidate Prop 13? We should know by March as I think there is a BK in our future.
Dec 9, 2008 - 8:20 pm 13. buddy larsen:“By the shores of GiveIt ToMee,
By the shining C-Note blotter,
Stood the real estate of Barack,
And the friends who do not matter.
Dark behind them rose the city,
Rose the bases-covered gangsters,
Rose the pols within their pockets;
Bright before them beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining C-Note blotter.”
(excerpt from “Heyiwantit”
Dec 10, 2008 - 12:24 am 14. A. N. Pierson:by Willing Whatsworth Logroller)
Blagojevich seems to be something of an imbecile. How would such a person get elected in our of key states with our third largest city? Worth thinking about.
Dec 10, 2008 - 1:50 am 15. ricpic:Is Chicago anymore corrupt than New York City or San Francisco? I doubt it. But the latter places have veneers of glitter and sophistication acting as a kind of gauze that somewhat obscures the crud.
Chicago actually has vital and livable neighborhoods, is overall a cleaner city than either NYC or San Fran, and, of course, has the Chicago brand of world class architecture.
Dec 10, 2008 - 7:29 am 16. hermie:Obama was the beneficiary of a corrupt Chicago system. He was at the very least, willfully blind to the graft and nepotism there. Note his endorsement of Todd Stroger, the son of the ailing Cook County chairman. Todd was like Obama, an empty suit, but he has his dad’s Dem party connections to propel him to an office he was not qualified for. Obama, the supposed ‘reformer’ and agent of ‘change’, went along with the choice of Stroger, even though there were choices among the Dems who were actually reformers.
Of course, Obama said nothing when Todd got the County Board chairmanship and promptly fired County hospital workers while installng unqualified relatives and family friends at bloated salaries. Then he proceeded to ram through a huge sales tax increase, all before Obama got the nomination.
Obama has tried to distance himself from Blago, but once you claim the mantle of leader and ‘experience’, it’s not possible to distance yourself from a corrupt system and those who you were closely working with for many years.
Dec 10, 2008 - 7:32 am 17. jedrury:The Windy City rot is so deep, it is incapable of fixing. James L. Merriner writes a fact filled book about George Ryan, the last governor who is now serving time and his pardons of death row inmates. I checked out a little of it on Amazon and the online snippets tell the story of the parking sticker fraud where the small company (ADM) which produces the little metallic strip for the window was forced to to pay a go between $ 5,000.00/mo to keep the contract with the state. Magnify this across the landscape of Illinois politics and one easily and readily gets the picture of the cesspool which is the Windy City.
Dec 10, 2008 - 8:15 am 18. Roger L Simon:“Is Chicago anymore corrupt than New York City or San Francisco? I doubt it.”
I don’t. I lived in both NY and CA for long periods and Chicago style is at different level. Sorry.
Dec 10, 2008 - 8:20 am 19. Promoguy:San Francisco might be a lot of stupid, but certainly corrupt isn’t one of them.
Dec 10, 2008 - 8:27 am 20. Mike G:Honestly, is any town merely the sum of its local government? I hope not. I love Chicago, even as I despair of it often. And “the corruption that works” is better than at least one alternative not unknown in this country or many others….
Dec 10, 2008 - 8:44 am 21. Roger L Simon:“Honestly, is any town merely the sum of its local government?”
Of course it’s not, Mike. But shouldn’t the populace of a city be asking themselves why they have been allowing this kind of behavior to the extent they have for so long. Something’s seriously wrong. And if you don’t admit it, you don’t fix it.
Dec 10, 2008 - 8:47 am 22. tim maguire:“That 2002 endorsement came at the same time that Axelrod had such serious concerns about whether Blagojevich was ready for governing he refused to work for his one-time client.”
Seems to me it would be hypocritical for Obama to refuse to support someone just because they were dangerously unqualified.
As for the rest of it, we elected a Chicago politician. We’re supposed to be surprised that he had ties to corruption? This is just another example of where Obama’s habit of exaggerating his ties when they seem positive and denying his ties when they seem negative hits up against a tie that changes from one to the other–lots of contradiction that his supporters have to explain away.
Dec 10, 2008 - 9:17 am 23. jedrury:This is a wound to the Messiah. Not fatal, a nick, a flesh wound;
Dec 10, 2008 - 9:31 am 24. cfbleachers:unless the drip, drip continues but it surely messes up his message.
Note how the press treds ever so lightly on this.
But is it fatal to the hopes and aspirations of Jesse #2? Does Jesse #2 have the chutzpah still to demand an appointment even tho he seems to be Candidate # 5 and the one who was going to satisfy Hot Rod’s $$ demands – if one accepts the hearsay.
Roger, if you want a full education on Chicago politics….email me.
This city is the best in America (for five months out of the year, the weather can be trying at times)
The political patronage system is alive and well and it is a city that operates on “favors”. Think of “networking” on steroids.
Every city department, every county job…for years, relied in whole or in part on having a “political sponsor”. In return for your job, many, if not most employees would be expected to help ring doorbells and work precincts for the “endorsed” candidate.
It didn’t matter if you were a street cleaner or a Corporation Counsel attorney…you were expected to feel some fealty to the “machine” that produced your paycheck for you.
This was also true in state court where judges were “made”…by being endorsed.
You ask how and why citizens “allowed” that behavior? Precisely to whom would they go? City Hall? The courts? Police stations? Mike Royko?
All of that, and more…were already done. Greylord. Council wars. (Vrdolyak and Burke vs. Harold Washington). Hundreds and hundreds of lawsuits. Daily newspaper articles. Governors, judges and legislators being prosecuted, convicted and sentenced…routinely. (I don’t know of a state that has more governors sent to prison in the last 40 years, I doubt there is one)
You can clearly suggest that they weren’t successful, but you cannot suggest that Chicagoans sat on their hands and did nothing. The gallows humor you mistake for Chicagoans thinking this is “cute”, is misplaced.
This is a great city. Again, the best in America five months out of the year. A spectacular place to live, work and play.
But understand this, there is no two party system in Chicago. Republicans are virtually non-existent in the city. Please take that sentence literally. For people who do not know…Democrats have a stranglehold on politics in Chicago and have for nearly its entire modern existence.
The County has some Republican activity, but the ties to the city are extremely tightly woven. The political battles that take place are not fought on the the dividing line between Democrat and Republican, but rather…the pitched battles are grounded in the in-fighting for the spoils of Democratic absolute rule.
Chicagoans admit it, they fight it, they don’t just sit there and “allow” it…but they have not “fixed” it…because in Chicago…”fixing” has an entirely different meaning.
Dec 10, 2008 - 9:40 am 25. Peter G:That’s one big difference between New York City and Chicago in that Republicans can actually get elected in New York. Chicago may even be taking this a step further than being a one party city, as one family has been in power for the better part of the past 50 years.
Dec 10, 2008 - 10:36 am 26. buddy larsen:good stuff, cfbleachers. if this was a book or movie, the *only* happy ending would have to be some new star arising from the other party, to connect straight to the voters over the head of the machine. But first the machine would have to screw up really badly. This Governor screwup is a huge loss of face but the machine just won a presidential campaign so, when ya come right down to it, “so what, just get a new governor.”
Dec 10, 2008 - 10:37 am 27. John Galt:Roger,
Liberal Chicagoans used to protest corruption when the original Mayor Daley was in office. When his son took over, they changed their tune and supported him. Basically what little Richie did was spread around the patronage, make other ethnic groups much more visible in his government, and kiss a** with the liberals in the MSM.
The average Joe Chicago isn’t going to protest because one or more of his relatives is employed by the city or Cook County or makes a fortune as a contractor. It’s been that way here for all my (55 year) life.
Dec 10, 2008 - 10:42 am 28. Neo:I wonder exactly what “at no time” means …
Appears Axelrod was right. Even the “gov” has the meeting on his web site.
Dec 10, 2008 - 11:02 am 29. jake:As it begins, so it goes.
Dec 10, 2008 - 11:36 am 30. Anita Hope:Roger, if we cannot make changes in a state like Illinois, why are we spending $$$ trying to change countries, is the big question facing us today. Greed is the determinator along with Religous Hatred. History of the past seems to have taught us little in changes today and for the future, a classic saying is
Dec 10, 2008 - 1:14 pm 31. ManosTheHandsOfFate:” What will be will be “, it would be great if a Peaceful Utopia was a possibility, but unfortunatly this is only possibe by movie makers.
The Chicago border extends into the Northern tip of Indiana as far as Gary, complete Demo politics in full reign.cfbleachers is on the mark. We all can only hope our Pres. elect will take some advice from yesterday’s news and really lives up to what his possition as our leader and his promise of an open
door/window brings honesty from his lips.
Well, well, the link on Drudge to the story where Obama met Blogojevich on November 5, 2008 now takes you to a page that says the story is unavailable. However, I’m sure that many people, like me, made a pdf copy of it. The article was written by Carol Sowers, of connecttristates.com, with the headline: Who will fill Obama’s senate seat?
The key excerpt:
The American people, in all its ignorance, has elected a pathological liar as president. It still remains to be seen if he is an outtright crook as well.
Dec 10, 2008 - 1:49 pm 32. ManosTheHandsOfFate:Regarding my last comment: so now it looks like Carol Sowers ‘misspoke’ as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s gone into hiding.
Dec 10, 2008 - 1:57 pm 33. Perry Stroyka:If you ask me I would say this guy has seriously jeoporadized his chances for a gummit bailout.
Dec 10, 2008 - 2:06 pm 34. ManosTheHandsOfFate:One further thought about the Carol Sowers article (taken down by connecttristates.com) about Obama meeting Blogojevich on November 5 to talk about Obama’s senate replacement. What further evidence is needed to see how corrupt the MSM has become? Here the media source attempts to hide a genuine news story of tremendous interest and importance: the president-elect caught in a boldfaced lie within the larger context of corruption “crime spree” taking place in Chicago. Utterly Despicable.
Dec 10, 2008 - 2:09 pm 35. OmegaPaladin:A note on Chicago:
Chicago actually works as a city, because His Majesty is an excellent monarch. The government is some crazy hybrid of medieval feudalism and bureaucracy, but it is actually run well. Richard II gets a good amount of support, even among Republicans, because he is a pragmatic ruler. The alternatives are horrible ideologues who are off the deep end.
G-Rod is uniformly despised around here. His policies are amazingly bad. The GOP and machine democrats were allied against him. This has been LONG in coming to him.
Dec 10, 2008 - 4:55 pm 36. Alan Kellogg:Prophesy (in the original sense of the word)
The United States will flat out legalize drugs just to get the space to hold all the politicians who will be facing prison time during President Sarah Palin’s first term.
Dec 11, 2008 - 11:15 am 37. Scott:Wonder of wonders….how did none of this come out before November?HA!
Dec 12, 2008 - 10:24 am