My youngest brother was wed in Chicago Tuesday night, so I winged
on up there through the good graces of Southwest Airlines. They
managed to get me all the way although they landed at Midway. My
gate heading out from Fort Lauderdale was B-4 and coming back it
was B-10, which made me think of Obama’s two trips to Chicago,
the victorious one after the election and the sheepish one this
Presidents Day. He too came before and returned beaten.
I had lived in the Windy City twice for two years each,
1979-81 and 1985-87. Still I know my way around a bit less each
time with the seven lean years swallowing the seven fat years,
prosperity giving way to asperity, stores putting a damper on the
pampering, short on shrift and long on thrift. The most fun I had
there was reacquainting myself with local talk radio
personalities. Listening to the news in Chicago is a different
experience than elsewhere, punctuated by an obsession with the
mayor’s office since the days of the elder Daley. That Daley is
no longer with us, so he cannot serve actively as mayor, but he
still has the opportunity to vote for his son, probably more than
once.
This time around all the talk centered on former Governor
Rod Blagojevich, who has pursued his office in typically backward
Illinois fashion, with the actual term first and the trial period
afterward. He is being tried by the very creepy Federal
prosecutor, Mister Fitzgerald, who hounded Scooter Libby and
Conrad Black on very dubious counts. In the case of Blago, while
guilt has yet to be established, he is clearly emerging as a
blackguard. If he did not do the crime, it was not for lack of
trying.
He was being recorded all unknowingly during the period he
was entrusted by the Constitution to find a replacement for
Senator Obama. Rahm Emanuel called to indicate the
President-elect had an interest in a particular individual
attaining the seat. Without verbalizing a name he described
Valerie Jarrett by gender and curriculum vitae. Blago was
unimpressed by the vague offer of Presidential favor, he wanted
some tangible favor. And so we are treated to his ruminations
behind doors he thought closed about doors he hoped to
open.
It is grim fare, to be sure. He pines for ambassadorships,
cabinet posts, or at least a six-figure sinecure. He offers
colorful descriptions of the players, including the image of our
President as hen-pecked. There are plenty of expletives deleted,
even a conversation with wife Patti in which she berates him for
being too fond of salty language and he agrees. This is Nixon II,
but without the consciousness of being taped. The missing part is
the partner; all the negotiating is with himself. No one forgets
being a pro long enough to offer him a quid or even a quotable
quo.
He may not be guilty but he is very far from innocent. The
larger question is whether he reflects Illinois politics or he is
an eccentric aberration. My intuitive sense of things — speaking
as a former Chicagoan — is that he represents an extreme, but
the culture of corruption is real. Chicago reminded me of the
Boss Tweed era in New York, where graft ruled the day but much of
the city was built. The politics of efficient corruption. You pay
your bribe to get the contract but then you fulfill the
contractual obligations without skimping. In fact, when Jane
Byrne was Mayor and the efficiency faltered, the voters escorted
her to the exit and replaced her with the late Harold Washington,
who knew the score. Only his cronies needed apply and the city
prospered just fine. Beautiful edifices built along Lake
Michigan, but with a fishy stink. After Harold died, the younger
Daley took the position back, presumably a lifetime appointment
with symbolic elections quadrennially.
Then again, if the only alternative is Obamaesque idealism,
where bureaucrats intrude on the natural flow of life to
redistribute income and reconfigure society, maybe the cash in a
shoebox approach can be tolerated. The last word goes to Blago
himself when someone suggested his wife could be made head of
Goodwill Industries. He asked: “What is Goodwill?” That says it
all right there.
