UPDATE: The stories about Obama and Blago are are disappearing from even the cached sites. It’s another memory hole.
I grew up in Chicago and, even as a teenager, was aware that nothing happens in Chicago that isn’t politics. I remember a friend of my father who was ill and needed to be hospitalized. The next step was not to take him to the emergency room; it was to call the alderman’s office to have him admitted to Cook County Hospital. That way, he wouldn’t be bothered with a doctor demanding to examine him, for example.
In David Freddosso’s book, The Case Against Barack Obama, he tells one story of a job applicant appearing at a city office looking for a job. He is asked, “Who sent you?” When he replies that he just showed up hoping to apply for a job, he is told, “We don’t want nobody that nobody sent !” It is all about who sent you.
After the Second World War, my cousins returned from overseas and my parents had parties for them as they returned. Many of their friends came to those parties and marriages resulted in some cases. One of those marriages was between Frank Flanigan, whose father had been chief of detectives in PHiladelphia, and Pat Neary, whose father was an Inspector in the Chicago Police Department. Pat and Frank were very close to my parents as I grew up. Frank was well known as almost the only honest policeman in Chicago. Since policemen’s salaries were kept low to weaken their resistance to bribery, Pat and Frank had some lean years. Frank’s superiors respected his integrity and, to get him away from areas where his honesty would get him into trouble, he was assigned to the “hit and run” section of traffic enforcement. There, he founded one of the first modern crime labs and the conviction rate for hit and run felonies was high enough to result in a feature story in Life Magazine in the early 1950s.
Frank finally was rewarded after a scandal hit the Chicago PD. In 1959, a burglary ring was found within a Chicago police precinct. The scandal finally led to reform of the police department. Orlando W Wilson, a professor of criminology and former police chief, was brought in to take over the force and clean it up. He discovered Frank and made him chief of homicide. Frank served honorably in the position until retirement and then continued a second career as chief investigator for the Coroner’s Office of Cook County.
The point of that little story is to point out how difficult it was to be an honest man in any position in the City of Chicago.
In the years when I was growing up in Chicago, the rest of the state was relatively honest compared to the city but that wasn’t saying much. Generally, “downstate” was run by Republicans and Chicago was run by Democrats. The last Republican Mayor of Chicago was in 1931. The balance of power shifted from time to time between Cook County, the Chicago area, and the rest of the state. The present Mayor is the son of another long-term Mayor. Both men stayed out of legal trouble by avoiding personal greed that would subject them to unwelcome legal attention. They were interested in power and happy to stay in the city. They had no higher ambitions.
This is the atmosphere in which Barack Obama rose in politics. I have previously written about this. More here. A cast of characters. His education background, and his science inclinations.
Now we have the Blagojevich story with all its uncomfortable ramifications for the President-elect. He has already been caught in a lie.
The Blagojevich Timeline: Everything Fits Easily Except Obama’s Monday Denial. Most people have misunderstood the timeline of the Blagojevich Senate scandal. Pretty much everything fits except Barack Obama’s statement yesterday that he knew nothing about it.
If we didn’t have Obama’s denial to contend with, the actions of all the parties, including those purporting to speak for Obama, are consistent with Obama and his staff learning about Blagojevich’s corrupt plans on Monday, Nov. 10.
Obama’s guru has been quoted acknowledging that the transition team had talked to the governor about who would be appointed to take Obama’s Senate seat.
While insisting that the President-elect had not expressed a favorite to replace him, and his inclination was to avoid being a “kingmaker,” Axelrod said, “I know he’s talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them.”
Then, Obama comes out and says something that is not true. Note how he catches himself to avoid another lie.
On Tuesday, Dec. 8, Obama denies personal knowledge of the corrupt proposal.
“I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening.”
This seems to be a man who will lie when the truth would serve as well. Maybe he is worried about this.
Blagojevich’s buddies—the ones he still has left—surely aren’t amused. They must be wondering how long it will take for Blagojevich to crack under the federal weight and start singing about all his friends.
Get ready for four years of “The Chicago Way.” Unless, of course, there is a smoking gun under that rock.