By Steve Rhodes
A new city council was sworn in Monday and Mayor Daley told them to skip the politics. That’s the mayor’s job.
The role of aldermen was explained on Sunday by the Tribune’s Dan Mihalopoulos and Robert Becker: “Before voting on most significant legislation, aldermen generally turn for instruction to Daley’s lobbyists, who hover around every meeting of the council and its committees.”
A Daley Thing
Bob Sirott, now playing a newsman on Channel 5, was granted a few minutes by the mayor. Instead of asking the mayor how it is that he’s helpless to end corruption in his administration after 18 years in office and a grip on the city that Mussolini could only dream of, he asked how corruption made this swearing-in “different.”
And yet, watch how the mayor’s eyes dart around anyway. I’d like to see his body language analyzed by a criminal profiler.
At any rate, Daley once again showed absolutely no concern about corruption; he only drags out his anger every couple of years when it’s politically necessary. Instead, he just shrugged and said “you correct it and move on.”
And on. And on.
The mayor also once again compared his administration’s corruption to that of the private sector – as something inevitable and everywhere. Sirott should have said that last time he looked, NBC5 didn’t have a bunch of extra trucks sitting around unused at taxpayer expense.
Instead, he asked: “Thinking about your dad today?”
And to Maggie, in the human shield role we last saw with little Darren Baker at his dad Dusty’s press conferences: “What part did you play in the discussion whether to run or not?”
“Well, Bob, I told him that if he didn’t clean up the corruption in his administration, I couldn’t support him.”
Well, not exactly.
Back at the anchor desk with Warner and Alison, Sirott informed us that Maggie thinks her husband’s greatest attribute is his sense of humor.
Yes, like when he bullies the City Hall press corps with grade-school taunts and makes fun of their jobs. That’s pretty funny.
Another Thing
I have to say I kinda liked Sirott’s Fox Thing in the Morning, and I didn’t think it was such a bad idea to hire him to conduct Chicago Tonight, though he never looked entirely comfortable in the role. Sirott is a true broadcasting talent with a passion for Chicago. I’ve had the opportunity to chat with him occasionally over the years and it truly is enjoyable.
But there’s a reason he was granted the interview with the mayor and not, say, Steve Warmbir and/or Tim Novak of the Sun-Times. I wonder how Sirott feels about the mayor stiffing the press all the time. I get the feeling he kinda likes it.
One More Thing
A couple Sunday night’s ago on WGN Radio, Sirott and his wife, Marianne Murciano, spoke with Richard Roeper and Rick Kogan in a reprise of the latter’s old Media Creatures show. I didn’t hear it, but a Beachwood listener tells me that they all agreed that blogs are bad and newspapers good. Apparently they didn’t address blogs published by newspapers.
“At one point,” my source says, “Bob sneered that ‘Now, everyone is a “journalist.”‘ Which prompted my wife to say, ‘It would be nice if someone was.”
This from Bob Sirott, Richard Roeper and Rick Kogan, who is also great fun to talk to but just spent an election year writing bouquets to incumbent aldermen. No wonder everyone thinks they can do it just as well.
Last Hurrah
By the way, Michael Chandler lost.
Obamification
“In his column on the Commentary page on Monday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) wrote: ‘To set an example in the in the 2008 presidential election, I am refusing to accept campaign contributions from registered lobbyists, political-action committees, and I won’t take contributions bundled by lobbyists.’ A spokesman for his campaign clarified that the policy of Obama’s campaign is to not accept contributions from registered federal lobbyists. He is accepting contributions from registered state lobbyists.”
– Tribune, May 22
One Last Thing
Might have been nice to ask the mayor why he is more upset about the foie gras ban than police torture.
Anyone Can Do It
A Sun-Times reporter ate a cicada and called it news.
The Media Creatures are right; everyone thinks they’re a “journalist” these days.
Amateur Hour
Speaking of amateurs encroaching on the turf of our esteemed professionals, I’m glad the Reader’s Whet Moser took this on because I didn’t have the stomach to.
Safe Succession
“Retiring Police Supt. Phil Cline on Monday urged Mayor Daley to choose an insider as Chicago’s next top cop,” the Sun-Times reports.
Someone who already knows where the bodies are burned.
The Mom Factor
“If a man’s body isn’t working right, Congress will help fix it. If a woman’s isn’t, check back in 20 years or so.”
– Kristen McQueary, ” Why Congress Needs More Moms.”
That’s Ozzie!
After Ozzie Guillen’s little set-to with Mike North, I sent an e-mail to our very own Natasha Julius. Her reply:
“Oh. My. Gawd. I cannot believe the sheer force with which Ozzie Guillen has sucked the love out of me. He’s awful. I never thought I would say this, but I would suffer the accumulated cigar smoke of a thousand Mike Ditkas before I would sit through one more of his homophobic, asinine temper tantrums. The guy is one pistol whipping away from Ugueth Urbina and no one seems to notice it. By the way, what’d he do today?”
Now, the problem isn’t that we’re shocked by Guillen’s language, as some pundits seem to think. Some of us talk like that, too.
But we don’t call up radio stations and do it live on the air. And baseball managers who do so – especially in response to a debatable lineup decision – are usually on their way out.
As the Sun-Times’s Elliott Harris put it: “To say Sox manager Ozzie Guillen is the same manager today as he was when he first took over is to say life’s lessons are lost on him.”
Candy Man
“North brought some candy into Guillen’s office Friday morning,” the Tribune reported. “Guillen threw it in the garbage after North left.”
Piss Poor Priorities
Schoolbooks vs. urinals.
The Beachwood Tip Line: Copper-plated.
Posted on May 22, 2007