Every Girl Crazy 'Bout a Sharp-dressed Man! -ZZ Top
The story of Barack Obama is that of a politician who figured out he didn’t have to wait his turn, who didn’t have to pay his dues, who could take on the Machine boys and beat them at their own game — with the help of a shrewd campaign strategist and image-maker to sell him on television. -Mark Brown
President Obama looks fabulous. I have never met a Ward Hack festooned in hand-tailored Hickey-Freeman suits.
Mark Brown wrote a very thoughtful critique of the Hannity Meme Mummers today. The Hannity Meme Mummers are generally GOP or conservative Dems who tag President Obama as a Chicago Ward Hack.
Fox's Hannity reminds all and sundry that he, Sean Hannity, discovered Bill Ayers and Rev. Uncle Crazy Jerry Wright in 2007. Uh, Huh. Obama is about as much as a Alinsky Radical, as he is a die-hard Sox Fan.
More so, Barack H(onolulu). Obama is more of a Sox Fan and Alinsky Radical than he is a Ward Hack.
Mark Brown writes:
Here we go again with this business about Barack Obama bringing “Chicago ward politics” to the White House. . . .But I still can’t sit back while others pretend that Barack Obama is just another ward hack who miraculously rose above his station — or that he’s “Daley’s boy.”
When this emerged as a campaign theme four years ago, here’s what I wrote:
“We have lots of prominent politicians in Illinois who were ‘born of the corrupt Chicago political machine,’ as the new John McCain campaign commercial so ominously puts it.
“Some have the DNA to prove it. Others worked their way up through the patronage ranks.
“Barack Obama isn’t one of them.”
I stand by that.
I stand by that — not having forgotten that Obama’s first two White House chiefs of staff were Rahm Emanuel (who, yes, first got elected to Congress with some help from Don Tomczak’s troops, but hardly owed the election to them) and Bill Daley, brother to former Chicago Mayor Rich Daley (who dismantled the traditional ward political apparatus because it only got in his way.) In the most important election of Obama’s life, the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, the mayor was on the sidelines.
Nor have I forgotten Obama’s strange real estate deal with the now-convicted Tony Rezko, his first big campaign donor. I’m still troubled by their friendship, and still waiting for the day we hear the whole story.
Me Too, Brother Brown. I do not know President Obama, nor would he recognize me if I tossed through the windshield of the Presidential limo. However, I have met with, spoken to and engageed our President on more than a few occasions.
- When he turned down requests for support of Leo High School in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, as Director of the Woods Fund, answering to Wild Bill Ayers.
- When he ran against most unsuccessfully against Congressman Bobby Rush
- When he attended the Falling Leaves Festival in Morgan Park
- When as an Illinois State Senator, he presented trophies along with IL Rep. Kevin McCarthy at the Leo Boxing Night at the Saber Room in Hickory Hills and asked me "where's the gate?" in order to enter the ring
- When I cooked Winston's Irish sausage and bacon before the South Side Irish Parade
They were brief encounters, as are most political cheek-to-jowl gabs, to be sure and I came away from each one warmly underwhelmed. I did not see any there, there. Unlike Ward Hack and Policy Wonk Paul Vallas who campaigned up a storm actually liked the people he asked to vote for him, Barack Obama is like the guy who says, " Hey! Enough me talking;; how much do you really, really, really admire me?"
Paul Vallas was lost to Illinois by the very same 'geniuses" who invented Tod Stroger, Toni Preckwinkle, Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool and of course the old Turkish psy hereself, Jan Schakowsky.
Put it this way, when Barack Obama was pushed to the purple ( US Senate & Presidential Candidate), I was not surprised, but certainly not enthralled. He did not seem to have the gifts of being a Ward Hack. Ward Hacks, and I know legions of them, are singularly thoughtful. generous, energetic and most of all loyal to a fault.
Barack Obama impressed me only as one of the chosen Progressives that some of the powerful guys decided to create: Jan Schakowsky, Deb Mell, Deb Shore, Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool, Rahm Emanuel, Toni Preckwinkle and God forgive me Gov. Pat Quinn.
These folks could not pack a phone booth ( nearly extinct at the time of this posting), let alone a hall full of beefy, enthusiastic, hard-working skilled tradesmen and their wives and kids. Nope, Ward Hacks are trotted out to boost their nimble vaults over the political gradus. They are the Sows Ears Made of out Silk Purses.
The Silk Purses are the hijacked 501 (c) 3s: Woods Fund, MacArthur Foundation, Annenburg Challenge, Joyce Foundation, whose boards are thick with former radicals and leftist academics. Too often these silk purses are orchestrated by Abner Mikva. Political Chiefs like old Tom Hynes, or Mike Madigan, or Richie Daley took short-cuts to opportunity by snuggling up to these silk purses in exchange for legislative policy give-aways and mutually beneficial real estate ventures. Abner might say to Tom Hynes, " This Mike Quigley kid is really a go-getter and he hates every one in the 60643-55 zipcode's collective guts. He's really great; Tom let's do him a solid. How's about we get Rich to get the 19th Ward crew to help Quigley and then he can make nice and really bump Helen Schiller into the cheap seats and then we can get SEIU, La Salle Bank, Personal PAC, Fred Eychaner, the Pritzker girls and even some honest money to dump some dough into any number of races?" Deal? Deal.
That's how Progressives boarded, looted and scuttled the Good Ship Chicago Machine.
Ward Hacks have helped elect every useless, mean-spirited and back-stabbing Progressive in the Illinois pantheon. They did so because they were asked by people whop helped them. I love Hacks and have complete contempt for Progressives. Progressives are not just a one way street, they are fully cul-de-sac'd. Do a Progressive a solid and wait for the blade in the kidneys - you never wait very long.
Nope President Obama is No Ward Hack - he has not the makings. He is a Progressive.
