David Seaton's News Links"Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas", is a self-explanatory, Spanish proverb, which teaches that, although we may not even belong to the same species, too much intimate contact with lesser beings can have disagreeable consequences for us.
That saying is, in essence, the national and international significance of the Blagojevich scandal: Chicago politics are as corrupt as it gets and no matter how clean you are -- and I don't think Obama has ever even fixed a friend's traffic ticket -- there is no way you can lie down with those dogs without developing at least a mild rash.I grew up about five blocks from Lake Michigan on Chicago's North Shore; and as someone who as a small child used to stand on a windy street corner in below zero snow storms, with frozen, chocolate colored, sooty, slush, up to my galoshes tops... waiting for a bus to school to appear out of the dark... As someone who lived through that, I have trouble understanding why anyone from a sunny paradise like Hawaii would ever want to live in such a horrible place as the urbs in hortis.
In my opinion the answer to that question is the key to both the strengths and weaknesses of our president-elect.The motto of Chicago is "The City that Works", with its obvious play on the meaning of the word "work", which contains both labor and function: as in "my watch works, but my brother in law doesn't".Chicago works in both senses: there are usually lots of jobs and people work hard and the city clears the snow and picks up the garbage in exemplary fashion. Labor and function. Chicago "works" in every sense.This laborious functionality touches all elements of the city culture down to the most humble individual and even its corruption.It was one of Chicago's most glamorous exports, Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, better known as "Bricktop" a redbone saloon keeper, owner of Paris's legendary Chez Bricktop, mentor of Duke Ellington and Mabel Mercer, close friend of Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway, who expertly described Chicago's peculiar ethic. "In Chicago" she said, "if you pay your two dollars to get laid, you get laid, but in New York you may just end up with a sore head and your wallet stolen": "Chicago the City that Works".This obsession with laborious functionality at the expense of almost any other value even gives Chicago's legendary corruption it's special flavor: “Government in Illinois isn’t about political ideology or helping people,” said Christopher Mooney, who teaches political science at the University of Illinois-Springfield. “It’s about which idiot brother-in-law are you going to get a job on a road crew because he helped you get into office.” Bloomberg
Now it is obvious that Barack Obama didn't go to live in Chicago because he liked the weather, or because, as a Harvard graduate, he had trouble getting a job anywhere in the world. I can only imagine it was the functionality part of the word "work" that, as an aspiring politician, took him there. And I am sure that his aspirations were always political, because he could just as easily have made piles of money as a lawyer in Manhattan.To see what he needed to work for him in Chicago it would be useful to review his obvious weaknesses: a funny name that sounds Muslim, no local, clan, family or ethnic identity anywhere in the world to give him any political context. Half white, raised by whites in a place like Hawaii, where there are practically no African-Americans, educated in white private schools and elite universities. He was an aspiring politician with no identifiable constituency. Aside from his name, Chicago solved all of those things for him and very quickly.Of his own free will he moved to the north's most segregated city, where skin color is a political badge. Chicago is a city of strong ethnic identities and clearly defined neighborhoods. It was the smartest move he ever made in his whole life... like when Elvis left Tupelo Mississippi and moved to Memphis.The segregation of Chicago makes its organization by a political machine much easier. Each area is a well "fortified" barony and the barons are responsible for delivering the peasants vote on election day: a vote from whom all blessings flow. In exchange for their fealty the loyal peasants are rewarded with city jobs for their dimmer relatives, thus all have a stake in the machine's success. This has gone for many decades and power is as entrenched as in any feudal aristocracy.Among the most useful, important and essential "knights" that the barons and their king have to fight their election battles are the "Precinct Captains", here is how Wikipedia describes their role: A precinct captain is the individual who acts as the direct link between a political party's machine and the voters in an election precinct. A precinct captain helps with voter registration, and helps voters get absentee ballots or get to the voting booths on election day.
Here we should note that when Barack Obama married Michelle Robinson, he not only married a beautiful, intelligent and highly educated woman, he also married the daughter of a precinct captain, Fraser Robinson III who, naturally, was a municipal employee. Although, Michelle's father died before they got married, with their marriage Obama became "family" of the legendary Daley machine, where membership is often passed charismatically from father to son. Richard M. Daley is the son of Richard J. Daley, who was first elected mayor when I was ten years old. It makes me feel young merely to write the words, "Mayor Daley is".Here might be a good place to underline that no Democrat in Chicago can have a successful career without the blessings of Richard M. Daley. Since no politician in America's history has had such a successful and meteoric career as Barack Obama has with Chicago as its base, it might be safe to surmise that in Obama's case, the fickle finger of fate has taken the small but feisty form of Richard M. Daley.This is not to in any way slight the intelligence, good luck, talent, charisma and temperament of Barack Obama, but for anyone, even as brilliant as Obama is, to rise so fast as he has, influential patrons are essential. As another Spanish proverb has it, "without a godfather you can't get baptized". Bing Crosby once said that, "there is probably a guy singing in saloons in New Orleans that can sing 'Stardust' better than I can, I have been very lucky". America's then most famous bandleader, Paul Whiteman, discovered the young Crosby and made him a star and it is safe to say that Chicago's Mayor Daley is Obama's Whiteman.Here it is important for me to interject that I don't think that Barack Obama has ever taken a bribe or sold influence or ever done anything in the least shady... I don't think Daley would let his prize pupil get spoiled like that. Chicago and its political organization have nurtured and groomed Obama with great care and now have placed two of Mayor Daley's favorite proteges, David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel at his elbow to see that he comes to no harm.The real question has to be.... what will Daley want in exchange for handing Barack Obama a political career? Maybe he'll be satisfied with just a summer Olympics for Chicago or maybe he'll want more and when he asks for it he will ask in a soft voice and if the president of the United States says no, then the mayor of Chicago will hand him his head on a plate, because you can be sure that he has built into all of this the mechanisms to control his creature.I'm still a Chicagoan enough to think that this isn't necessarily all that terrible. Over the last years the rest of America seems to have become hopelessly corrupt too, maybe now it will "work". DS
Obama (on the left) with Chicago's Mayor Daley, son of Chicago's Mayor Daley, pictured in the "Urbs in Horto".
Obama the reformer is backed by Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Daley boys. He is spoken for by Daley's own spokesman, David Axelrod. He was launched into his U.S. Senate by machine power broker and state Senate President Emil Jones. John Kass - Chicago Tribune
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Feeling lonely, I'd love to drink the Kool-Aid with y'all, but every time I try it my gag reflex kicks in. It's time to talk about Obama's most powerful patron, Chicago's "mayor for life", Richard M. Daily.
Pictured with Obama above, is Chicago's Mayor Daley, son of Chicago's Mayor Daley... for over 50 years father and son have run one of America's most powerful and corrupt political machines. I am originally from Chicago and like John Kass, I am amazed at the free pass a Chicago pol like Obama is getting by the besotted American media.
My mother was on the Cook County Council of the League of Women Voters in the 1950s, struggling with political reform; I get my views from those ancient overheard dinner table conversations. Everything I've read or heard over the years I've been away confirms that Chicago is still Chicago, that "toddling town, the town that Billy Sunday couldn't shut down"... AKA "da Chill".
Now, let's do nuances. Richard M. Daley is a very efficient mayor and good administrator as was his father, Richard J, but nobody in what is known as greater "Chicagoland", who calls themselves a "reformer", would want the endorsement of any Dick Daley. The term "Daley-Reformer" is an oxymoron (to distinguish it from ordinary morons).
And amazingly enough for a Chicago machine pol, there are millions of people out there who believe that Barack Obama will bring them "Change We Can Believe In". In fact there is nothing in Obama's record as a law maker that isn't pure "sweet home Chicago". Check this from the Boston Globe:
(Obama) worked with lobbyists as an Illinois legislator and US senator, even as he distances himself from them as a presidential candidate. The Republican National Committee sent out a press release Thursday, noting that a former lobbyist, Antill E. Trotter, held a fund-raiser for Obama that night in Washington. Trotter specialized in telecommunications, transportation, and environmental issues from 2000-2004. The RNC release also contained reminders of an ABC News report that Obama introduced nine bills to make certain chemicals tax-exempt at the request of some corporate lobbyists; and a Boston Globe report about Obama's work with an insurance lobbyist to make healthcare legislation more acceptable to insurance companies. Joan Vennochi - Boston Globe
Another thing that I find curious, as someone who spent his Chicago childhood freezing on windy street corners catching pneumonia (several times), is why anyone born in a certified paradise like Hawaii would want to live in Chicago. The minute I saw the Mediterranean, there was no way you could get me back to Chicago... In all these years, I've only been back to Chicago once... In actual fact, I would be in favor of returning Chicago to the Native-Americans.
Leaving Hawaii, Barack Obama went to college in New York and Boston, as a child in Chicago, those cities seemed as far off and sophisticated as Rome or Paris... Why would anyone in their right mind leave Hawaii, Boston or especially New York and go to Chicago?
My theory: Barack Obama conceived the notion of being President of the United States of America a long time ago and he is very impatient to fulfill what he believes to be his destiny. He is extraordinarily intelligent, crafty too, and a thinker and a planner.
He looked upon his skill set and saw that it was good. Thinking deeply he saw that he had a quality that was both an asset and a liability: he was a white man in a black skin. Why do I say that Obama is "white" when anyone in America with even a drop of African blood is called "black"? To call Obama "black" as if his mother counted for nothing, is racism, pure and simple.
Mothers define our culture and our tribe. We call the language we dream in our "mother tongue", the Halacha considers anyone born of Jewish mother a Jew, no matter who his father was. The examples are endless. Raised by a white mother and grandparents in a white home, attending white schools, Barack Obama is culturally white. Things have changed since Fats Waller wrote, "I'm white inside, But that don't help my case.'Cause I can't hide what is on my face." What once would have been a tragic and crippling liability can now be an asset if properly played.
There are quite a few white former editors of the Harvard Law Review, but Barack Obama is the first black one: being "black" has much to recommend it for a brilliant Harvard Lawyer... to be perfect Obama would have to also be a woman... But like Joe E. Brown says at the end of Billy Wilder's 'Some Like It Hot', "nobody's perfect."
His problem, his asset/liability, would be to fall between two stools, too white for blacks and too black for whites... A clear identity had to be constructed. He had to be black enough for blacks, but not too black for whites. He has done this brilliantly, right down to choosing his wife. Marrying what is probably his greatest asset, the lovely and brilliant Michelle Robinson is the "whitest" thing that Barack Obama has ever done.
Huh?
Michelle Obama is an extraordinarily attractive woman, if she finally makes it to the White House, she will easily be the most attractive First Lady since Jackie Kennedy, but she has darker skin than Obama. Now, I have white, German, French, English and Spanish men friends who have all married beautiful African-African women from Africa: Senegalese, Nigerians, etc who are bluish black. but I cannot recall ever seeing a prosperous African-American man, whose wife's skin wasn't at least a tone lighter than his own.
So why Chicago?
What does Chicago have that so multiplies all of Barack Obama's assets and cancels his liabilities and takes decades off his journey to the pinnacles of power?
The Daley "machine", is what.
In what other city have the the political machine, the African-American community, the business community and (subsidy hungry) cultural community been so deeply entwined and organized for so many years? Think Ceausescu's Romania, then add money and funk it up. A political career can be made or broken with a phone call.
Is Chicago that cynical?
I'm the last person to ask, Chicago is where I got my attitude.
The Clintons will never play this card, no matter how desperate they get, because no Democrat in his right mind would ever want to make an enemy of Dick Daley or any future Daleys, but certainly, when and if Obama is finally the candidate, make no mistake, McCain and the Republican 527s are going to begin to dig into all this rich mother load. DS
John Kass: Obama magically unstained by grime of Chicago Way - Chicago Tribune
Abstract: Will Barack Obama's presidential candidacy serve his state and city by finally drawing national attention to the sleazy and corrupt politics of Illinois and Chicago? It is all about context. The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate's politics were born in Chicago. Yet he is presented to the nation as not truly being of this place, as if he floats just above the political corruption here, uninfected, untouched by the stain of it or by any sin of commission or omission. It is all so very mystical. Perhaps viewing Obama as a Chicago political creature would conflict with the established national media narrative of Obama as a reformer. Actually, there's no "perhaps" about it.(...) Obama the reformer is backed by Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Daley boys. He is spoken for by Daley's own spokesman, David Axelrod. He was launched into his U.S. Senate by machine power broker and state Senate President Emil Jones (D-ComEd). (...) My argument is not with him—but with the national political media pack that refuses to look closely at what Chicago is. They're fixated on what it was, and they think it's clean now. And they've spent years crafting, then cleaving to their eager and trembling Obama narrative, a tale of great yearning, almost mythic and ardently adolescent, a tale in which Obama is portrayed as a reformer, a dynamic change agent about to do away with the old thuggish politics. It's as if Axelrod channeled it, wearing a peaked Merlin hat. Obama is a South Sider and does not hail from Camelot or Mt. Olympus or the lush forests of mythical Narnia. I've joked that reporters feel compelled to hug him, in their copy, as if he were the cuddly faun, the Mr. Tumnus of American politics. But I was only kidding. The real Mr. Tumnus never had Billy Daley or Ted Kennedy carving up Cabinet appointments. READ IT ALL
"Right now, he's a national Rorschach test, with voters reading into him their fondest hopes for what America can do and be."
Mort Kondracke - Roll Call
David Seaton's News LinksThe problem with Obama is that we are not talking about Obama himself very much at all.
The fact is that instead of talking about Barack Obama, we are talking about how good Obama makes us feel about ourselves. We also are talking about how good it would make us look, if he were the next president
We are probably talking more about ourselves than about Obama, because he hasn't really been around that long or done that much and except for what he tells us about himself we know next to nothing about him... so there isn't that much to talk about.
Obama, who has been in the US Senate for barely two years certainly has the thinnest presidential CV I can ever remember, even Dubya had been the governor of one of America's most important states. If Obama were a successful two term governor of Illinois, which is a very complex state with a huge budget, this would be a much more serious conversation. If Obama had ever done anything outstanding in "private life", like most of the other candidates (Hillary excepted) have done, it would give us something solid to hang on to. As far as I can see, he has written a book about his search for who he "is" and given a couple of good speeches and that is about it. The campaign(s) are going to be long and brutal and the question is going to be: will our own self-flattery finally be enough to carry the entire country behind it? DS
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