By Steve Rhodes
The view from San Jose:
“It is never pretty, being swept out of a playoff series. And there were broom scars all over the Sharks here Sunday,” Mark Purdy writes for the Mercury News.
“As recently as a week ago, there was legitimate talk of a Stanley Cup finals being played in San Jose for the first time in city and franchise history. But after the Sharks so impressively won eight of their first 11 playoff games and advanced to the Western Conference finals, they never managed another victory.
“Intellectually, of course, the Sharks knew it was possible for the Blackhawks to win four straight. But the prospect had seemed so remote until it actually took place.”
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“Will anyone be able to focus on anything in Sunday’s series clincher against San Jose other than the seven teeth?” our very own Jim Coffman writes.
No.
Grand Theft Daley
A Beachwood reader writes:
“I have an idea for a video game that is free for the taking for any Beachwood readers who are game developers. All I ask is 5 percent of the gross on final sales.
“The game works on two levels. In the part that the game player can’t control, but is played out in the background, thugs with handguns and semi-automatic weapons randomly kill Chicago citizens in a variety of neighborhood settings.
“In the foreground, in the part the player does control, Richie Daley moves across the screen, holding a rifle, chasing after different Chicago reporters. If he catches one, he sticks the gun barrel up the reporters butt and pulls the trigger. This immediately reduces the number of killers killing in the background.
“The trick to the game is to have Daley catch enough reporters to reduce the number of killers to zero.
“Of course, since there are more working thugs with handguns than reporters in the city, the player can never win.”
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Beachwood Special: Daley’s Gunbutt Diplomacy.
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Of course, Daley doesn’t really regret anything, despite this headline. The story tells a different, um, story.
“Asked whether he was sorry about the remark, Daley said, ‘Sure I’ll be sorry, if you want.'”
Translation: If that’s the headline you’re looking for, go for it.
“Pressed on whether he meant it, the mayor said, ‘I’m not gonna sing the song, ‘I’m sorry now.'”
Huh?
“But yeah, you regret it.”
You do?
“The mayor said he was only try to ‘shock’ reporters into shining the light on the havoc caused by gun manufacturers who represent the only industry that is never held accountable.”
Oh, that’s what he was trying to do. Liar.
“I want to shock you, maybe scare you to realize, this is serious.”
Because the media doesn’t yet think gun violence is serious. They barely ever cover it at all.
“Why is it that the media is silent in regards to who the gun manufacturers are?”
It’s part of the conspiracy.
“Asked why he even suggested ‘sticking’ the gun in that part of the reporter’s anatomy, Daley said, ‘It was a gun with a bayonet . . . What is a bayonet used for?’
“Reminded that you don’t normally ‘stick it there,’ the mayor said, ‘You stick it everyplace. It’s a bayonet. Let’s not make trivia about this.'”
Let’s not.
“If you meet a mother who lost her son, that’s a violent way. You should hear what the parents will say to me at their funerals. They’re very upset that the media doesn’t realize how guns are killing their children. That’s what they can’t understand.”
The media doesn’t realize how guns are killing the city’s children.
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Daley’s attacks on the media are so recklessly inaccurate that he ought to be sued for slander. Just two weeks ago, there was this:
“This is how the media does it: ‘Jogger Stabbed in Riverwalk’ . . . ‘Iowa Man Stabbed in Chicago Visiting.’ How ’bout the same headlines? I want the same headlines from you. Why not? Be fair,’ Daley said after Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
“‘I want the same headlines from the Sun-Times and Tribune, from TV and radio. Same thing. Why not? It was a hoax. It was a fake. He lied. He cheated. How ’bout the same headline. I plead with you.’
“When a TV reporter noted that his station led its 10 p.m. news with the alleged hoax, Daley came out from behind the podium to shake that reporter’s hand.
“‘Now the rest of you, would you please do that? This is unfair. This is not right. That’s why we’re suing him . . .We’re gonna sue for all this cost, [all of the] bad p.r. Look what he did to us,’ the mayor said.
“The Sun-Times ran an eight-paragraph article about Hunninghake’s admission that he faked the attack at the top of Page 8 in Wednesday’s editions. The three-paragraph article about the original attack ran on the bottom of Page 8 of the April 25 edition. The headline about the hoax was twice as large as the headline on the earlier story.”
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See also: Daley’s Cop Canard. Our mayor is a liar. No one seems to care.
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Including Greg Hinz.
“[I]f Mr. Daley’s comments after the shooting of Chicago police officer Thomas Wortham IV were over the top, some of the resulting media commentary was even more so,” Hinz writes.
“I understand his anger at the recent crime wave that has hit certain neighborhoods, a crime wave that endangers all this mayor has attempted to do over 20 years to make Chicago safe and welcoming for the middle class.
That doesn’t make him a ‘bully,’ or someone who has ‘spent his life pushing weaker people around.’ That makes him someone whose frustration has boiled over at his inability – and everyone else’s – to bring an end to Chicago street crime.”
If Daley’s odd outburst occurred in a vacuum, that might be true. But it didn’t. Even Daley’s allies think he’s a bully. Don’t embarrass yourself, Greg.
“A little less nasty name-calling, please, as a brave and good cop is buried. How about some more attention to what might solve the problem?”
Yes, the media has practically spent no time at all exploring solutions!
It was only 17 years ago that the Tribune produced its award-winning, year-long “Killing Our Children” series, followed by the year-long “Saving Our Children” series.
The media, blind spots notwithstanding, has barely let up since.
Don’t carry the mayor’s water, Greg; not on this one.
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“One popular columnist termed Mr. Daley ‘a bully,'” Hinz wrote, shielding readers from the fact that the columnist has a name – John Kass. A link to the column under discussion would have been nice, too.
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“I don’t normally come to the defense of Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is quite capable of getting himself into and out of trouble without my help,” Hinz writes at the outset of his post. “But I’m going to do so today.”
Yet, later he describes Daley’s threat to stick a rifle up a reporter’s butt “indefensible.”
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It’s nice that Hinz can construct an answer to the question that set Daley off, but Hinz isn’t the mayor.
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452 comments and counting.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Make our day.
Posted on May 24, 2010