Now, Here's A Pair of Aces to Draw to! Simpson of UICC follows Shaw of BGA -"Two Guys Corruption Plumbing" - Open for Bids!
‘Hath there been a time — I would fain know that —
That I have positively said ‘ ‘Tis so’,
When it proved otherwise?’ Polonius - The Master P of Hamlet
Alderman Dick Simpson was 44th Alderman between 1971 and 1979 - the tumultuous fin de siècle of Mayor Richard J. Daley's Rule of Chicago.
Eddie Vrdolyak and Ed Burke were the Young Turks. Billy Singer and later Marty Oberman ran the 43rd Ward. Radical eminence gris Leon Despres, who, along with Marty Oberman were the last lions of genuine integrity claimed by Progressives, continued as the voice of Hyde Park. Ald. Depres was the real deal and genuine gentleman.
Dick Simpson was part of the 44th Ward encompassing Lakeview from Diversy to the Cemetery and the Lake to Clinton - jogging in and out some. It is an affluent, transient land of restaurants, amusements, nightclubs and apartments, so attractive to single, childless and cash-handy professionals, students, activists and boutique capitalists.
The 44th was run at one time by John Merlo who could trace his political lineage back to Al Capone, which Dick Simpson artfully noted in his latest 'study.'
Dick Simpson tossed off the mortal coils of politics in 1979 and paved the way for Bernie Hansen, who begot Tom Tunney at the say so of Mayor Richard M. Daley, in order to don the gown at Cement City - University of Illinois Chicago Campus UICC -in order to articulate his political wisdom to kids needing a Poly Sci credit.
Dick Simpson, whose public record is buried Googlishly somewhere in the cybersphere, or in the dusty but pricey archives of our great metropolitan newspaper, surfaced on occasion to burnish his Progressive Street Cred and take picture s with Billy Ayers. Dick Simpson wrote pieces for the Sun Times under Cheryl Reed's Spanish Civil War Reenactment phase and occasionally trotted out studies of his own, like that dandy one a few years ago trumpeting the new age of Aldermanic Independence in 2006.
For frame of refernce, dear reader, Ald. Joe Moore is Dick Simpson these days, at least until he gets that new gig with the State. See? Okay.
The always accurate Russ Stewart noted Daffy Dick's fatuous 2006 study of Chicago's Fighting Bob LaFollete City Council, after Stewart had noted that the Joe Moore-varietal aldermen were as compliantly perky as the hungry puppies under Daley Père ( 1954-1976):
Dick Simpson, a University of Illinois professor and a former 44th Ward alderman, thinks otherwise. He has released a seriously flawed study that heralds a "newly found" council independence. Citing resolutions on such nongermane matters as the Iraq War, slave reparations and the Patriot Act, the Simpson study mixes the symbolic votes with the substantive. "We're the Chicago City Council, not the Council on Foreign Relations," said Alderman Tom Allen (38th). "It is not our job to make foreign policy."
Wasn't That a Time? A Veritable Golden Age of NPR Goodness! Brought Bush to his knees and added more Vitamin C to our diets!
Now, thunderous Dick, post Daley Le Fils of course and no doubt with the tacit nodding approval of current Mayor Racoon Eyes, proclaims that Chicago is the Most Corrupt City in America! Thunderous Dick trots out the glaringly obvious with his latest Jeremiad bouillon.
Simpson and Jim Nowlan, a senior fellow with the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs, released the report as Mayor Rahm Emanuel's ethics task force prepared to hold its first public hearing Wednesday night.(emphasis my own)
Simpson generally praised Emanuel for early steps on ethics, but said the city's top attorney should release documents he has refused to provide to the city's inspector general on the basis of attorney-client privilege.
The professor also wants the inspector general to be able to investigate aldermen and their staffs. And he would like to see better city ethics training.
"The city's ethics training is a joke," Simpson said during a City Hall news conference. "We need real ethics training because people in this building don't seem to have it."
ETHICS TRAINING???????? Gee, could our Progressive Polonius have a pre-packaged Political Ethics Adjunct Professorship cum Grease and Lube Job behind the curtain . . .'for a fee, always for a fee . . .Pestas! Siempre!'
The news media today operates on collective memory loss and the repetition of memes and themes. We remember Dick Simpson as a camera happy ineffective hack of an alderman. The expensive media archieves should bear that fruit, children, if you care to partake of it.
Grey old gummers like me don't really need such reminders of the fatuous ninny, the Progressive Polonius whose mitts are now out trolling for more public dough - The Dick Simpson Ethics Coalition and Bed and Breakfast Summer Camp.
One Question,, Thundering Dick! Where the . . .where the . . . where the Helen Shiller were you back when the pies were getting cut up and dished up to every jackal with a tongue and teeth?
Shakman killed the Machine, Bub. Corruption is rooted in the Gordian knot created by the Progressive over the last forty years. Corruption . . . adds millions in Federal Housing dollars to lefty lawyers who now snatch up housing project bones and mill more fertilizer for Green Growth Industries, as well as pad sinecures for mopes who run our buses and trains off the rails, buy parking meter slot machines and one-eyed bandit traffic cameras.
Thundering Dick, our Chicago Progressive Polonius! He is a giggle. Unless of course you absolutely are void of any memory, historical and political context, or common sense . . .not to mention a smidgen of Ethics.
http://www.russstewart.com/2-06.htm
