'That's the Chicago way'

By Bruce Thompson

John Kass wrote a priceless column the other day describing how the Daley Machine currently functions by co-opting the likes of Obama ally (and former SDS security chief during the "Days of Rage") Marilyn Katz.

"What that story and many other pro-Obama articles gloss over is that during the violent protests of the 1968 Democratic National Convention here, Katz was the security chief for the radical Students for a Democratic Society. She once advocated throwing studded nails in front of police cars, back in the SDS days when the group was alleged to have thrown cellophane bags full of human excrement at cops and cans of urine and golf balls impaled with nails.

"How things change.

"Under this Daley, her firm, MK Communications, has many city deals, and one involves public relations for the Chicago Police Department's community policing program. From nails to contracts, the Chicago Way. Apparently, irony was not a '60s thing."

Co-opting has been a Daley specialty. His former deputy chief of staff, Valerie Jarrett, was matchmaker for Barack & Michelle, and is neck deep in the "affordable housing" mess as well as his campaign. But the financial whirlwind, a municipal debt of generations of patronage workers now collecting pensions and healthcare benefits threatens to engulf the City of Chicago's budget. Mayor Daley is threatening to lay off "more than 1,000 workers to plug a $469 million deficit".

That news is not a part of Obama's "Hope and Chcange."