Da Mayor, Da Prez And Da Press

Ahhhh, the good old days.

I remember when the current Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, son of the late “Da Mayor” Richard J. Daley, was just a young whippersnapper trying to earn fame and fortune in the insurance business. The press got wind that a very lucrative multimillion dollar insurance contract for the city of Chicago was pulled from the long time carrier and given to the company the young Daley represented. During a press conference they asked ”Da Mayor” if he had any influence in the awarding of the insurance contract to his son’s company.

“Da Mayor’s” response was classic Chicago politics. He said “Of course I did. He’s my son. What, a father shouldn’t try to help his own son? What father isn’t going to do what he can to help his son?” The reporters laughed. First because of the complete honesty in the response and second because they couldn’t think of a reason why a father shouldn’t.

Things were a bit more open back then. The press knew better than to cross one of the most influential politicians in the country. A King Maker to whom President John F Kennedy may well have owed his electoral victory in 1960. Everybody in Chicago knew how the game was played. The Democrat machine created by the late Mayor Richard J. Daley and continued by his son Mayor Richard M Daley held every aspect of the city in their grip from fixing $20 traffic tickets to fixing million dollar insurance contracts. But Chicago was and remains the “City That Works” and as long as the garbage was picked up and the streets were plowed nobody dared question how it was getting done. As former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil said “All politics is local”.

Is it any wonder why a savvy community activist from Chicago like Barack Hussein Obama would hire two of the most accomplished bare knuckle Chicago politics heavyweights to help direct his campaign and then become his lead political advisors/hit men? With Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod working behind the scenes is it any wonder that the national press corps would end up even deeper in Obama’s hip pocket then they were during the campaign?

It is more than just their fawning adoration that Obama uses to his advantage. It is more than just having free access to America’s living rooms to sell your proposals like ObamaCare without having to worry about a debate where that pesky truth gets in the way. It's Obama’s complete control of not only what gets covered, but what does not as well.

The press recently gave full coverage to First Lady Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden. Along with pictures and videos of Michelle and some school children tending the garden were giddy reports that some of the seedlings planted were from the ancestral home of President Thomas Jefferson. Big news, huh? While it was not in the initial report I am certain that at some point before it’s over someone will wax poetically of the irony of the first black First Lady harvesting crops from the seeds of a President that supposedly had numerous dalliances with his female black slaves.

What the press will not cover are stories like from way back in 2002 when Michelle Obama was hired by the politically connected University of Chicago Medical Center to run “programs for community relations, neighborhood outreach, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity and minority contracting”. The job paid a healthy salary of $120,000 per year. But in 2005 when her husband became a US Senator Michelle’s salary magically was raised to a whopping $317,000 per year. Coincidence you say? Well is it also coincidence that one of Barack Obama’s first acts as Senator was to garner a $1 million earmark for the UC medical Center?

This $317,000 job went almost completely unreported by the press. It also seems incredible that this $317,000 per year was for a PART TIME JOB! This massive salary was for a 20 hour per week job. A $317,000 per year job so essential and critical to the success of the UC Medical Center that they decided not to fill it once Michelle left for Washington DC. I wonder if the press might have picked up the story if Laura Bush or Lynn Cheney had been the employee.

Chicago politics is alive and well in Chicago and now in the White House as well. ABC and NBC have gleefully jumped on board with both feet. Most of the rest of the Washington press corps is on board as well but have decided to be at least a little less obvious.

Da Mayor Richard J Daley would be so proud. While his sons never made it to the White House his other baby, the Chicago political machine, sure did.