Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I’m saying is, what are you prepared to do?
Ness: Anything and everything in my power.
Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they’re not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.
Ness: How do you do it then?
Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here’s how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way…
(From “The Untouchables”)
Many of us familiar with Chicago politics have been wondering for months at the apparent disconnect of the media regarding Obama’s relationship to the Chicago political machine. Where did they think this guy came from?
The lack of curiosity by the press about Obama’s connections to one of the most corrupt city governments in the United States should be one of the big media stories of this campaign. While it is true that Obama’s connections to the Machine are not as extensive as many other politicians, I’ve got news for you Obama apologists; try running for any office in Chicago - local, state, or federal - and see how far you get without support from the regular Democrats.
Besides, examining Obama’s first state senate race should have been a tip off to the national press that this fellow can play the game of politics “The Chicago Way” as well as any corrupt Daleycrat:
The day after New Year’s 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city’s South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama’s four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.
Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.
But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.
A close examination of Obama’s first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.
Don’t you think that information like this might be included in any standard media bio of the candidate, MSNBC? Or have you guys at Fox never heard of the internet and Google?
This is politics “The Chicago Way” as John Kass points out in this ground breaking column today:
The Chicago Way.
What is it? Is it easily abused? Is it dangerous in the wrong hands?
This is critical, as the nation’s eyes turn toward Chicago’s federal building, where Barack Obama’s personal real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, stands trial on federal corruption charges.
The phrase must be put in context, something the national media fails to do when they portray Obama as the boy king drawing the sword from the stone, ready to change America’s politics of influence and lobbyists, ignoring the fact that Chicago ain’t Camelot.
With opening statements expected Thursday, the court will be packed with journalists foreign to our idiom. In the past, a few reporters have applied “The Chicago Way” to our pizza, theater and opera, thereby embarrassing themselves beyond redemption.
“Chicago ain’t Camelot” may be the understatement of this political year. Chicago is…well, Chicago. For instance:
Chicago’s mob — we call it the Outfit — was slapped last summer by federal prosecutors in the Operation Family Secrets trial that convicted Outfit bosses, and cops and put political figures in with them. We’ve had our chief of detectives sent to prison for running the Outfit’s jewelry-heist ring. And we’ve had white guys with Outfit connections get $100 million in affirmative action contracts from their drinking buddy, Mayor Richard Daley, who must have seen them pink and white and male at some point.
That’s the Chicago Way.
Are you getting the picture New York Times? Do I have to spell it out for you Washington Post? Wake up and smell the coffee, CNN!
“This country was built on taxes,” said a Democratic machine hack, Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims, as she and other Democrats prepared to slap Chicago with the highest sales tax of any major city in the country….
“There’s not that many political hacks in Cook County,” Sims insisted after the tax hike.
Not that many hacks? The only one reporters need to bother about is also involved at the same federal building: the mayor’s own Duke of Patronage, Robert Sorich.
Sorich has been found guilty by a jury, but the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals above the Rezko courtroom is still deciding whether to redeem the jury or redeem the mayor, who’d much rather have Sorich happy than Obama in the White House.
Sorich was convicted two years ago of running the mayor’s massive and illegal patronage operation, and he’s still not in prison. Thugs, morons, idiots, and convicts were put on the city payroll to work the precincts so that Daley could keep getting elected. Obama’s spokesman, David Axelrod, defended Daley patronage in a Tribune op-ed piece.
As an aside, for a while there it looked like Fitzy might be targeting hizzoner himself, measuring him for prison coveralls. But the Daleys have always been too smart to get caught doing anything really illegal and the Mayor’s luck held.
But seriously LA Times, this is the political culture Barack Obama matured in. Would it do any harm to perhaps, you know, pretend that you’re doing your job and send a reporter down here to look into a few things.
Maybe you folks at ABC News could start by looking into those letters Obama wrote to city and state officials on behalf of his now indicted patron, friend, and fund raiser Tony Rezko to get a $14 million contract to build senior housing - a development located outside of his senate district:
The deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner, Allison S. Davis, Obama’s former boss, according to records from the project, which was four blocks outside Obama’s state Senate district.
Obama’s letters, written nearly nine years ago, for the first time show the Democratic presidential hopeful did a political favor for Rezko — a longtime friend, campaign fund-raiser and client of the law firm where Obama worked — who was indicted last fall on federal charges that accuse him of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business under Gov. Blagojevich.
The letters appear to contradict a statement last December from Obama, who told the Chicago Tribune that, in all the years he’s known Rezko, “I’ve never done any favors for him.”
And lest there be any doubt CBS News, here’s Obama’s “Chicago Way” response:
On Tuesday, Bill Burton, press secretary for Obama’s presidential campaign, said the letters Obama wrote in support of the development weren’t intended as a favor to Rezko or Davis.
“This wasn’t done as a favor for anyone,” Burton said in a written statement. “It was done in the interests of the people in the community who have benefited from the project.
“I don’t know that anyone specifically asked him to write this letter nine years ago,” the statement said. “There was a consensus in the community about the positive impact the project would make and Obama supported it because it was going to help people in his district. . . .
Um, no Boston Herald, the project was not benefiting people in Obama’s district. It was benefiting his buddy Rezko to the tune of $855,000. But hey! It sure sounds good when you can say that you don’t know “that anyone specifically asked” Obama to write the letters. That’s the key to any “Chicago Way” denial; be as vague as possible so just in case evidence surfaces later that you’re lying through your teeth, you have an out.
The same goes for the shady deal on the house, Philadelphia Inquirer:
Naturally, there are some squares who don’t think taxpayers should pave the Chicago Way to make it easy for Rezko to help purchase the senator’s dream house in a kinky deal exposed by the Tribune and still not fully explained.
“It’s really the Old Chicago Way,” said Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association. “In the old days they would pretty much admit it up front, and now they deny it. It’s essentially about power, access to government jobs, government contracts and taking care of your own.”
“Taking care of your own” was something Obama was very good at. How good we probably won’t know for a while. That’s because it’s not only what Obama did for Rezko and vice versa that should be occupying the press as they write about the potential next President of the United States. It’s what he did for Rezko’s cronies and other contributors that should also be examined. And the candidate himself isn’t volunteering any information. That, too is “The Chicago Way.” Be smart and keep your mouth shut.
Perhaps the Rezko trial, now underway at the Federal building downtown, will change this dynamic. But I guess I shouldn’t be too optimistic. Kass explains:
One secret DaVinci Code-type sign for the Chicago Way is in the back room of the Chicago City Council chambers at City Hall, where a portrait of George Washington looks down at the crookedness below, and extends his own hand, palm up, itchy, needing that special grease.
When even sainted George Washington is on the take, you know that something is really rotten in this town.
DRIP…DRIP…DRIP…
From today’s Sun Times: “Did Rezko find jobs for Obama staffers?”
Among those on the list were two people who appear to have Obama links and a third who’s now an Obama presidential campaign staffer.
But did the names come from Obama? His campaign staff’s short answer: Don’t know — but it’s possible.
“We do not know how decisions were made to fill specific state positions, and we have no records of any individual recommendations we were asked to make or made,” says Obama spokesman Bill Burton “But we do know that Tony Rezko, among others, was helping to gather names for the positions coming open with a new administration, and, if it is established any names came through our office, we would have no reason to doubt it.”
UPDATE II: COMMENT MODERATION OFF
With so many links on this piece - especially Insty and Hot Air - I am removing comment moderation because I am too lazy and besides I don’t want to read what you have to say anyway.
Uh - just kiddin’ about that last one, people. Let’s just say I don’t want to have to be interrpupted every few minutes and batch the comments. This is a serious site here and we do serious work.
Now excuse me while I get back to HotMovies…
UPDATE III
Reliapundit, who has been on the Rezko-Obama story for about 2 years longer than I have, has a long, detailed post on Obama’s rise in Chicago and his connections to the machine.