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Daley Mon Mar 01 2010
Daley In Urbs In Horto
This New Yorker article by Evan Osnos on Mayor Daley (subscription required) is simply a must read. What Osnos does so well here is capture the complexity of Daley's image both in and outside the city. Daley is at once a revered politician that has really improved the city and also the man at the center of Chicago Machine politics. Fair warning though, the first few pages of the piece are rather flattering for Daley. And for good reason. The younger Daley is not his racist and corrupt father and Richard M. has improved the city, bringing in major attractions like Millennium Park and urban accomplishments like the new magnet schools, and a top-notch environmental policy. The city really is a prosperous exception to the exhausted rust-belt it's part of.
At the same time, Osnos also notes that Daley is no saint --which any Chicagoan could have told you. The sales tax remains too high, corruption is still ubiquitous, the city is a recent site of police torture (which, Osnos notes with too much forgiveness, Daley pretty much shrugs off), public service layoffs are here to stay apparently, and the Daley Administration still has an iron grip on any real political positions in the city. What isn't there though is any mention of the Shakman Decree or Daley's corrupt hiring practices. That's a pretty big piece of the reason Daley is corrupt and yet none of it is mentioned in the piece. It's odd.
Still, Osnos truly captures Daley in this passage when he compares Daley's general interest in good governance to sanitary fast food joints:
"But there is conspicuously little outrage -- no sense that he will attack corruption with the same intensity that he displays toward flies at Dunkin' Donuts."
There's also a interesting bit near the end of the piece about Obama's early relationship to Daley. Here's a taste:
They discussed a number of options, including the mayoralty--after Daley retired, of course-- but quickly settled on the U.S. Senate.
...
Obama and Daley shared a basic approach to politics as a constant negotiation of interests and ideals --Chicago's brand of Realpolitik.
J. Morgan / March 2, 2010 12:01 PM
Let's remember the updated and more accurate definition of racist:
RACIST: 1. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive term for a white person. 2: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities, if promoted by white people. 3: a belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race, if promoted by white people.