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<p>A Lout with Clout</p>
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<p><strong>Breakfasting with Chicago's sociopathic mayor</strong></p>
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<p class="small"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-user
text-primary"></span> By <a
href="http://washingtonspectator.org/search/%22Rick%20Perlstein%22">Rick
Perlstein</a></p>
<p class="small"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-file
text-primary"></span> Posted on <time class="published"
datetime="2015-12-02T16:53:13+00:00">December 2, 2015</time><a
href="http://washingtonspectator.org/category/rickipedia/"
rel="category tag"></a></p>
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<div class="entry-content"><b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://washingtonspectator.org/a-lout-with-clout/">http://washingtonspectator.org/a-lout-with-clout/</a></small></small></b><br>
<p>Chicago’s sociopathic mayor sat down for a breakfast
interview this Wednesday at a tony club on the 66th floor of the
106-story Willis Tower, hosted by POLITICO Playbook, the website
<em>tout </em>Washington scans every morning to learn what
they’re supposed to talk about that day, indifferent or
oblivious to the fact that <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/11/20/politicos-mike-allen-native-advertising-pioneer/">monied
interests pay to bias coverage therein</a>.</p>
<p>Poor Rahm Emanuel: how could he have guessed that the interview
would fall the morning after he received Police Superintendent
Garry McCarthy’s resignation, following the release of video
evidence of a nearly execution-style shooting of 17-year-old
Laquan McDonald, then the apparent erasure of the evidence of
the crime gathered by security cameras at a nearby Burger
King—this all coming out 400 days after the death and the
erasure occurred. The tape was only released when a judge ruled
against the city on a Freedom of Information Act Request. The
talk here is of cover-up at the highest levels, old-school
Chicago style. “First public remarks about it, right?” says one
man in an expensive suit. “Maybe he’ll leverage it,” says
another.</p>
<p>The event is a kickoff celebration for POLITICO’s new Illinois
edition, and the two interviewers are their new chief
correspondent, Natasha Korecki, late of the Chicago <em>Sun-Times,
</em>and Playbook’s sachem Mike Allen, Washington’s reigning
king of speaking fluff to power. The event also has a cosponsor,
their logo displayed prominently next to POLITICO’s on all the
signage: Bank of America. “Tweet your questions to
#PlaybookBreakfast,” invites the M.C. I oblige, tapping out,
“#PlaybookBreakfast how the hell can you fairly cover politics
when sponsored by a huge political actor like Bank of America?”</p>
<p>Korecki comes out of the box swinging, though—evidence enough
that a perennial favorite of D.C.’s political <em>fashionistas
</em>is on the outs.</p>
<p>“Let’s get right to it . . . why did you not watch the video
before it was released?” Korecki asks. Rahm burbles out the same
mumbo jumbo Chicago media consumers have been hearing for
days—“evidence in an ongoing investigation” (He repeated the
words “Justice Department” and “FBI” frequently; I guess he’s
counting on this crowd not to know that a day earlier the
Justice Department said they’d never asked the city to hold back
the video.) “Protocols,” naturally. “Integrity,” of course. And
then, absurdly: “If I get to watch it, people like you would
say, ‘How come the public doesn’t get to see it?’”</p>
<p>This, remember, is thirteen months after the event. And six
months after the city showered the grieving family with a $5
million “settlement,” which was not really a settlement because
the family hadn’t even filed a lawsuit. (So the city writes out
$5 million checks without the mayor ever reviewing the reason
why? “Rahm is an utter liar,” one of my most
city-government-savvy friends says. “I do not say that lightly,
either.”)</p>
<p>That settlement—a crucial detail to a
what-did-he-know-and-when-did-he-know-it-starved city—came <a
href="http://www.nwherald.com/2015/12/01/timeline-laquan-mcdonald-shooting-fallout-from-video-of-chicago-cop-shooting-teen-being-released/aahuawz/"><em>a
day</em></a> after Rahm’s reelection in a landslide against
a reform candidate.</p>
<p>But Chicago will have to wait for a full accounting of all of
this, and any reform proposals, he keeps on burbling, until the
blue-ribbon commission he just hand-picked comes back with their
report—<em>this year’s </em>blue-ribbon panel, not the one he
empaneled a year ago to study police misconduct.</p>
<p>Korecki asks, “Aren’t you hiding behind a blue-ribbon panel?
You’re the mayor. This video has been out there; this incident
was over a year ago. Why do you have to wait for a blue-ribbon
panel?”</p>
<p>This is an excellent question. Indeed, Chicago didn’t have to
wait for the video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald to know
something was rotten at police headquarters. There was <a
href="http://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/Chicago-Police-Officers-Allegations-of-Corruption-291607971.html">news
of the investigation</a>, last February, of the two police
detectives who reported at least a dozen officers stealing
proceeds from drug dealers. Only two ended up investigated, for
the shakedown of (oops) an undercover operative. The
whistleblowers? “My life, my safety, my freedom was threatened .
. . I was subject to daily harassment.” There’s the officers <a
href="http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/local/33667842-story">allegedly
sex-trafficking a 14-year-old</a>. Not to mention the
astonishing story of Lorenzo Davis, which says a lot about why,
since 2007, there have been 400 shootings of civilians by police
officers and only one was ruled unjustified by the body
laughingly known as the “Independent” Police Review Authority.
Davis, an IPRA investigator, was fired because, he says, he <a
href="http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/07/20/investigator-claims-ipra-fired-him-for-refusal-to-change-findings-in-police-shootings/">refused
to falsify reports</a>. Mayor Emanuel of all people knows
this.</p>
<p>But he, or his consultants, figured out a clever way not to
answer the question. He shot off a one-liner instead: “You are
reflecting the immediacy of cable television.”</p>
<p>In black and white, the words read pretty damningly, don’t
they? They didn’t to this room, full of Chicago elites. You had
to be there. Instead of a collective shudder—“he did <em>not </em>just
blame the fact that evidence is available to the public for
keeping evidence from the public”—he earned appreciative
guffaws. <em>Rahm just got off a zinger! He sure showed her!</em></p>
<p>Mike Allen tries to chime in. It’s pathetic: Mr. Playbook
doesn’t exactly have an instinct for the jugular, and lacks
command of certain details. He asks His Honor why he doesn’t
plan to resign. In response, the bully has some fun flicking
away this obsequious supplicant who’s pathetically trying to
puff out his chest: “Because I was looking forward so much to
this interview.”</p>
<p>Huge laughs. Which Rahm leverages for maximal humiliation—“I
just <em>so</em> enjoyed the chance to say that to you!”—then
turns to the crowd to bathe in their appreciation for the nice
play.</p>
<p>What about the charge you’re obsessed with your image? Rahm
responds that just yesterday he attended a ribbon-cutting at a
playground—would someone obsessed with image do that?</p>
<p>Allen asks him about one of his local critics demanding an
account of the missing Burger King footage. Rahm answers, “He’d
probably appreciate it if you didn’t mispronounce his name.”</p>
<p>Again he gets so many laughs he never has to answer the
question. (A fellow named Connor Kelly—“Freelance Events
Producer – #YoungIrishFC President – Passionate Chicagoan –
Tropical House Fan – Taco Lover,” a picture of himself with the
mayor, and a respectable 695 followers, throws up a tweet:
“@mikeallen drilling Rahm with Q’s, trying to put words in his
mouth. The Mayor is shooting them down, making crowd laugh.” <em>Kick
ass!!!</em>)</p>
<p>Asked why he didn’t go public with his professed outrage over
Laquan McDonald’s shooting during the campaign, he
says—really!—“No one asked me about it.”</p>
<p>He boasted of reducing the Police Review Board backlog by 60
percent. Given the experience of Lorenzo Davis, it’s not hard to
imagine how they managed that.</p>
<p>He bragged about working directly with the ACLU to stop
racially biased cop stops.<a
href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0807/Chicago-police-ACLU-reach-agreement-on-stop-and-frisk-practice">
It wasn’t exactly a gift out of the goodness of his heart</a>:
the ACLU had just come out with a report finding Chicagoans were
stopped four times more often than in New York’s nationally
notorious “stop and frisk” program.</p>
<p>Mike Allen: “You have a fairly heartless image . . . To what do
you attribute that?” He answered, “I always go to a family whose
son or daughter has been a victim of a shooting . . . You want
to call that heartless?”</p>
<p>At that, <em>I </em>laughed. Though for some reason I was the
only one.</p>
<p>Of course he pulled out the Rahm Emanuel Big Lie. Why don’t
people recognize his tender side? Because I’ve “never pulled
back from a tough decision.” Which is objectively absurd.
Emanuel’s operative principle as Barack Obama’s chief of staff
was never to fight any battle that they didn’t know they could
win in advance—to <em>always </em>avoid the tough decision.
That was why he <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/04/nancy-pelosi-s-tireless-obamacare-push-vindicated-by-supreme-court-ruling.html">wanted
the administration to give up on pursuing a comprehensive
health care bill</a>; thankfully, Obama was saved from Rahm’s
cowardice by Nancy Pelosi.</p>
<p>Other lies were smaller—but you be the judge.</p>
<p>He said 2014’s homicide rate was historically low—as if a
blockbuster <em>Chicago </em>magazine investigation had never
<a
href="http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/May-2014/Chicago-crime-rates/">blown
the city’s statistical lies out of the water</a>.</p>
<p>He bragged about record high school graduation rates—as if, um,
a blockbuster Chicago Public Radio investigation hadn’t <a
href="http://www.wbez.org/series/front-center/behind-cps-graduation-rates-system-musical-chairs-111786">blown
the city’s statistical lies out of the water</a>.</p>
<p>He said the city’s “financial situation is better than when I
inherited it.” Allen didn’t know enough to follow up with the
fact that two bond-rating agencies this year have downgraded
Chicago to junk-bond status.</p>
<p>But Allen <em>did</em> know how to pronounce celebrity Chicago
architect Jeanne Gang’s name right—he bragged about that, before
asking about her idea that police stations be built to
complement a community policing strategy.</p>
<p>Rahm: “I fundamentally believe in community policing. . . . You
can either patrol a community or be part of a community.” Why,
at one precinct, he observed, there’s a basketball court in the
parking lot. “We need to get to a point where kids . . . don’t
just see a uniform and a badge but a mentor and a coach.”</p>
<p>Well, yes. Yes, we do.</p>
<p>It was almost time for breakfast to be over. Mike Allen asked
one last question—about his plans to take his family on vacation
to Cuba over Christmas break. Mayor Emanuel went <a
href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rahm-emanuel-mike-alen-politico-breakfast">unexpectedly
ballistic</a>. “Well, first of all thanks for telling
everybody what I’m going to do with my family,” in a frigid tone
that made asses clench. “You just had a private conversation
with me and now you decided to make it public. I really don’t
appreciate that.” As if a pol ever tells a gossip columnist
anything in confidence without setting ground rules first.</p>
<p>It was something to watch Allen immediately abandon all
journalistic self-respect. Obsequiously, he began stammering out
an apology. Smelling weakness, Rahm came back with a Corleone
bark: “It’s not going to work.” He abruptly thanked us for
coming, though several “ers” and “ums” came first. Watch, and <a
href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rahm-emanuel-mike-alen-politico-breakfast">see
Mike Allen twitch</a>, thoughts of his suck-up card’s
revocation plainly dancing through his head.</p>
<p>I grabbed a few of the granola bars Bank of America had so
generously bought for me, and headed out into a different sort
of blustering Chicago wind.</p>
<p><em><a
href="http://washingtonspectator.org/search/%22Rick%20Perlstein%22">Rick
Perlstein</a> is the </em>Washington Spectator<em>’s
national correspondent.</em></p>
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