“I’m not there as a person who rides Metra every day,’’ Oberman, 68, told the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday. “I’m a bicylist.’’
A Metra rider asked me about Rahm Emanuel's appointment of Marty Oberman to the Metra Board. I said that was an homage to Dr. Quentin Young and his disciple Abner Mikva. The ballet of the bicycle! The photo above pretty much tells it all. That get up in any neigyhborhood but Lincoln Park would spark thousands of calls to 911 from concerned parents.
On Marty it works.
Bicycles were all the rage in Mao's Red China and Progressives want America to return to those thrilling days of yester-year. The Reds how ever went all Adam Smith recently and are happily killing the biosphere with auto-emissions as well as babies.
In the very special world of the Cook County Progressive, Marty Oberman is the cherry on the bullshit sundae. A self- stamped Reformer, Oberman is notable for riding bicycles and having occupied the aldermanic sinecure that is the 43rd Ward. Abner Mikva is the Progressive Wizard of our bankrupt, stooge-stuffed, incompetent and ninnie/nannies of Illinois.
Name a dope in public life:
- JanSchakowsky
- Pat Quinn
- Rep. Mike Quigley
- Toni Preckwinkle
- Rep. Danny Davis
- Dick Simpson
- the late Dawn Clark Netsch
- Barabar Flynn Currie
- Julie Hamos
- Deb Mell
- Deb Shore
- Forrest Claypool
- Valerie Jarrett
- Arne Duncan
- Desiree Rogers
- Joe Moore
- Shelia Simon
Marty Oberman is back! He is going to be Rahm Emanuel's Metra Guy! Like Forrest Claypool, who knows absolutely nothing about buses or train-cars, not linked to a boon-doggle with Bombardier, or Ventra Cards, Marty Oberman don't takle no trains - he bikes.
Biking is the street-cred for Reformers, who snap fingers at waitresses, leave no tip and manage to have Chicago's media purse puppies write glowing accounts of their purported brains and hearts. These memes go unchallenged even after a Toni Preckwinkle manages to collect cadavers for Cook County, or a Jan Schakowsky manages to tune-up a young Asian volunteer at an Alexi Giannoulias meet-and-greet, or a Forrest Claypool trolls for an appointment. That is Reform.
Metra evidently needs to pay Marty Oberman in order to right itself and provide commuters with safe and timely public transportation. Marty Oberman's CV reads like a Wikipedia entry purged of facts.
Lookee H'yar!
As first General Counsel for the Illinois Racing Board in the 1970s, Oberman investigated corrupt racing interests. From 1975 to 1987, he was known as a voice of independence in the City Council and opponent of Machine regulars during Council Wars.
Oberman also served as chairman of the Mayoral Commission on Labor and Management under Mayor Jane Byrne; as chairman of the Shoreline Protection Commission under Mayor Washington, and, more recently, as a member of Emanuel’s Midway Airport Advisory Council.
Rahm knows money and money comes from Progressives. Now, politics and actual government in the bad old Machine Days required that people who actually knew anything about, anything could help make a difference - Mayor Ed Kelly was an civil engineer; Mayor Richard J. Daley was a practiced accountant and budget master with decades of experience in Springfield. The hair-shirts of Progressive Illinois had ties to fortunes and university faculties and the more radical law firms. When money (political action committees/foundations/coalitions supported by real estate and banking) trumped competency Reform ( read Goo-goo) replace Machine. Reform is the flatulent by product of corned beef and cabbage Ward politics and government - it is loud and drifts with the prevailing winds, befouls the atmosphere and chokes the tax-payer.
Marty Oberman is only now breaking wind with his ten-speed.
