By Steve Rhodes
“The white mayor/wet mayor controversy in 1989 should have been a warning to us all,” John Kass writes today.
“Speaking to white voters on the Southwest Side, then-mayoral candidate Daley reportedly said, ‘You want a white mayor that can sit down with anybody.’
“Naturally, Daley blamed the media. His mouthpieces argued that reporters misunderstood what he said.
“He didn’t say ‘white mayor,’ argued the Daley guys. Instead, he said ‘wet mayor,’ as in, ‘You want a wet mayor that can sit down with anybody.’
“What’s troubling is the Daley guys couldn’t explain why he wanted to become moist with voters, or why Chicagoans would ever wish to sit down with a sopping mayor who would invariably leave puddles on the floor.
“A wet mayor. Hmmm. Wet mayor. I still don’t get it.”
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Adds Kass:
“That the ‘wet mayor’ explanation was accepted in this town tells you more about the media and politics in Chicago than you probably want to know.”
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The media decides who they will let get away with making offensive, racist, outrageous, sexist, stupid, ignorant comments. Likewise, they decide who they will attack incessantly. Advancing one’s career depends upon plugging oneself into the “right” way of thinking – which is not to think at all.
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“[A]s someone who, for the past decade and a half, has routinely pointed out that Daley is a charmless, ill-spoken bully, I don’t feel obligated to feign surprise at each new instance of charmlessness, ill-speaking and bullying,” Neil Steinberg writes.
Huh. I don’t remember Steinberg routinely pointing out anything about Daley, though I do remember him ruing on Feb. 28, 2007, that as an expat living in Northbrook he couldn’t cast a ballot for the man. “I would have voted for Daley, warts and all,” Steinberg wrote. “I always did. The corruption doesn’t bother me – what city doesn’t have corruption?”
Then again, Steinberg also argues today that Mick Dumke’s question to the mayor about the effectiveness of the city’s gun ban was “stupid.” Really? A gun ban that doesn’t appear to have banned guns? What a dope, Dumke! You don’t have to make a federal case out of it just because it’s, um, a federal case!
It’s not as if the mayor isn’t thinking about it.
Self-Dealing Division
* “University of Illinois trustees voted Thursday to raise tuition for new students by 9.5 percent and approved a contract that pays the school’s incoming president approximately $620,000 a year – about $170,000 more than the man he’ll replace.”
* “Tribune Co. plans to pay 35 of its top executives $14.9 million in additional 2009 bonuses, a court filing revealed late Monday, despite pointed opposition from several key constituents in the company’s 17-month-old Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.”
People with the power to take care of themselves first will always do so – and ask everyone else to sacrifice for the greater good.
Governor Gumby
“On a handful of occasions, Quinn took a state plane to Springfield during the day, only to fly back to Chicago the same night,” the Tribune reports. “Among these cases were trips to attend a campaign fundraiser and his aunt’s funeral. Quinn defended the funeral round trip as an appropriate use of taxpayer money because he was honoring a woman who was a ‘citizen of Illinois for eight decades.'”
A) And the fundraiser was honoring an Illinois practice at least eight decades old.
B) Quinn also defended using a state plane to go to McDonald’s because it’s an Illinois company.
C) Quinn said he would have stayed overnight if his Super 8 VIP Club card hadn’t expired.
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“Gov. Pat Quinn had been in office only a few hours last year when he vowed to do something his impeached predecessor did not – live in the Executive Mansion in Springfield,” the paper reports.
“But a Tribune analysis of his official travel schedule shows that Quinn stays at the ornate, taxpayer-funded house only sporadically. During his first year in office, Quinn slept there 55 nights, mostly while lawmakers were in session. He didn’t spend more than three consecutive nights in the executive mansion.”
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Says Quinn: “The governor lives in the mansion in my opinion.”
Oh, did Michael Madigan move in?
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“[A]t some appearances in Chicago, Quinn tells the crowd he lives on Chicago’s West Side, ‘the best side.’ When he’s been in Springfield, he has called the capital home.”
When he’s in Wisconsin, he says he lives in Fond du Lac. And when he’s in North Dakota, he lives in Grand Forks. Can’t you see the Super 8 commercial already?
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“On June 29, Quinn met with Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago before flying to Springfield to huddle with Democratic legislative leaders. Quinn was there for just over two hours before flying back to Chicago, where he hosted an evening campaign fundraiser at the downtown Hyatt . . .
“On Oct. 10, Quinn flew from Chicago in the afternoon to host a Springfield reception for his former Northwestern University law classmates, then flew back to Chicago about five hours later. On Dec. 19, Quinn flew to Springfield to host a holiday open house and staff party before returning to Chicago a few hours later.”
Isn’t it illegal to use state property for personal and political business? Has any state ever sent three governors to the pokey in a row?
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Pokable.
Posted on May 26, 2010