“And he got the call from the boss.”
By pm317 on October 1, 2009 at 12:01 PM in Current Affairs
So writes John Kass in his column in the Chicago Tribune.
And just who is this boss?
The president of the United States shouldn’t have to fly halfway around the world to humble himself before a posse of international sports influence peddlers and beg for a track meet.
But that’s exactly what he is doing.
By going to Denmark with all the other City Hall politicos, including those from the White House, President Barack Obama is doing more than asking the International Olympic Committee to allow Chicago to host the 2016 Games.
He’s asking the IOC to make Mayor Richard Daley the king of Chicago for life.
I would like to think that the president of the United States is his own man. But that is not to be. His boss is Daley!
If you think Chicago’s Olympic push is about sports, you’re mistaken. Sports has nothing to do with this. It’s like in the old movie, with Michael Corleone telling truths to his future wife, saying, “Now who’s being naive, Kay?”
Whether you want the games or not, please try muffling out those giddy broadcast news types and their frenetic cheerleading and understand what you’re really watching.
If Chicago gets the games, the contracts and the grease and immense leverage to reshape a city will be used as originally intended. To rebuild the boss, to give a mayor facing deficits and taxpayer revolts and headaches a much-needed shoring up of his political infrastructure.
Surely the Obama White House, run by former Daleyites, knows that a Chicago Olympics will keep the mayor politically secure. That crown was once heavy and uncertain upon Daley’s head, when the feds were raiding City Hall and sending his underlings to prison. Only a few years ago, the mayor ridiculed the Olympic idea. These days, he carries the torch in his teeth.
It must be all about reform. When Obama was campaigning for president, there was that thrilling line about how he would “transcend the politics of the past” — a line probably written by Daley’s mouthpiece David Axelrod. It sent tingles up or down the legs of the fawning punditry, particularly among liberal commentators silently beseeching Obama to exorcise their racial guilt.
But it also had the effect of portraying Obama as some kind of dreamer.
Yet our president is no dreamer. His guys might sell Hopium, but he doesn’t smoke or eat the stuff. He knew he had to go to Copenhagen. The mayor of Chicago and Oprah Winfrey expected him to be there.
Will it at least help the Chicago residents? Dave Zirin puts it all in perspective:
Mayor Daley, rocking a 35 percent approval rating, says that the Games would be “a huge boost to our economy, raising it to a new level. The Games will help us recover sooner from the recession that still grips our nation and enable us to better compete in the global economy.”
There is only one problem with this argument: the history of the Olympic Games almost without exception brands it as a lie.As Sports Illustrated’s Michael Fish has written, “You stage a two-week athletic carnival and, if things go well, pray the local municipality isn’t sent into financial ruin.”
[snip]
It’s also difficult for Chicago residents to see how this will help their pocketbooks, given that Daley pledged to the International Olympic Committee that any cost overruns would be covered by taxpayers.This is why a staggering 84 percent of the city opposes bringing the Games to Chicago if it costs residents a solitary dime.
But we shouldn’t be surprised at this point that Obama is tin-eared to the concerns of Chicago residents. As Paul Krugman wrote Sept. 20 on the banker bonuses, “the administration has suffered more than it seems to realize from the perception that it’s giving taxpayers’ hard-earned money away to Wall Street.
Shoveling taxpayers’ money into the Olympic maw is no better, especially in these tough times.
No Games Chicago organizer Alison McKenna said, “I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because instead of putting money toward what people really need, money will be funneled to real estate developers who will be tearing down Washington Park and other important community resources. I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because the nonprofit child-welfare agency that I work for had to sustain budget cuts and layoffs, while Chicago has spent $48.2 million on the 2016 Olympic bid, as of July 2009.”
It is all about Daley and his cohorts. Obama is their protege put in the Whitehouse to loot and pillage what they can. Let us repeat a line we have said here in the past — Obama is not the lone virgin in the whorehouse that his supporters think he is.
This is how John Kass closes his column:
It is about paying political debts. It is about waltzing with the one that brought him to the dance, not so much Michelle, as dancing with the little guy with the short shanks on the 5th floor of City Hall.
So he will fly halfway around the world when he doesn’t have the time, with so many other items on his agenda, because he has to.
He’s Chicago’s president. And he got the call from the boss.
How many other bosses will he have before his term ends?
(Release: November 13)
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To me you can’t compare Rio to Chicago. Rio is the hub of an upcoming nation, which has pulled itself up by it’s own boot straps. A nation which has become energy independent, a young hard working nation which produces things people actually need and will buy. Chicago has lived on our national dole. Chicago is the antithesis of everything which is good about our nation. Chicago serves as virtual ankle weights on the boots of our nation. No, these cities are nothing alike. The choice wouldn’t even be close. Maybe it depends on the chooser. This may be more of a statement about who the Olympic committee really is than who these cities really are.
Well, I have read IOC is pretty corrupt and there are a good bunch of members from African countries biased favorably toward Obama. Another thing working against Rio perhaps is that they already have got the 2014 World Soccer Cup match. There is unfortunately a very good chance Daley will be King.
Rio needs to build twelve stadiums for the World Cup. I don’t know if they can be recycled into being used for the Olympics. If so, they might use that pitch as well. Recycling is good for the planet after all. The danger for the Olympics is marrying their image to the image of Obama. Having Obama there to campaign for the games, I can’t see that not being the case. As we are seeing the shine is coming off him fairly fast. The Olympics has been around a long time before Obama… will they still exist as they are after him?
Well it doesn’t sound like they are so corrupt Chicago eliminated in the first round!
Also Madrid has a huge backer who was the Olympic president for many years. They are calling Madrid the Dark Horse in the Olympic bid! We watch and wait!!
Guess Michelle taking her gloves off wasn’t impressive to the IOC. Didn’t anyone think the international community would resent being bullied by the Chicago thugs? Copenhagen isn’t the U.S.
Did anyone notice even in Obama’s pitch to the IOC, he brought his teleprompter? And Michelle’s “not a dry eye in the house” promised speech was about her father? Does this couple thing everything in the world revolves around them?
I’m so happy that the IOC knocked Chicago out in the first round! First sign the world does not beckon to the Obamas!
My support is for Madrid! I know they are the dark horse but I hope they pull it out!!
We must remember the Madrid sponser & money man placed most of the OIC in their seats when he was President of the Olympic Committee.
part of Obamas speech
“I urge you to choose Chicago for the same reasons I chose Chicago nearly 25 years ago — the reasons I fell in love with the city I still call home,” Obama told members of the International Olympic Committee, many of whom he later mingled with as some snapped photos of him on their cell phones.
I I I
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/10/02/obama-heads-denmark-lobby-olympics/
remember that loan to the Brazilian oil company that Obama gave for oil drilling in Brazil.
what do you think is the quid pro quo on that loan? Rio might now aggressively pursue their Olympic bid after all.
how much you want to bet that those fund Obama loaned out to Brazil’s largest oil company has strings attached that is good for Chicago’s Olympic bid?
Ooooo. Chicago, that is an excellent “connect the dots” moment. I hadn’t thought of that. Hummmm. Guess, we’ll have to see how this works out [although I doubt Obama would make this "very" public trip with Michelle and Oprah on site, if this bid wasn't already in the bag].
An interesting web of deceit!
Michelle claims she has made this sacrifice for the children — traveling to Copenhagen and pitching for the Olympics. Isn’t our military doing the real sacrificing in Afghanistan? 43 have died while the General has tried to reach the President to beg for more troops.
UGH so true Proud 43 deaths !!! UGH thats awful!
Just heard on the news, Chicago and Tokyo were eliminated from the Olympic venue race. I guess the Obummers and their cronies wasted the taxpayers’ money on the trip to Copenhagen. How embarrassing for them..and how good for us. It looks like Rio may get it after all.
Today’s word is Payback.
To me this is the bigger story than the Olympics. How many others national and international will be gnawing at his being for what corrupt reason? And how is that good for America?
Dear IOC:
Please DO NOT give Chicago the Olympics. Thank you.
Who will be the FIRST to say NO! to oblahblah??? Oh~~~ it’s going to be so “thrilling” to see him have a BIGGGGG tantrum! And then the icing on the cake… -> meshiteelle not being proud of her country, one again! Oh!! The world is so full of ‘racists’!!!
ah… we can always ~hope~ !
Crooks nothing but Crooks!! We don’t have the right administration to have the Olympics in Chicago.
And they are going after Blagovich?? Can we say Pay to Play?
Kass has written some very good, critical columns about the Chicago Gang. And this one is equally withering. In fact, his writing reminds me of a columnist we had in Philly years ago who always ended his pieces [which were generally exposes on the criminal activities of local politicians] with the ironic twist:
Philadelphia, the City of Giants!
Nice to see Kass continuing the tradition. This whole thing is going to be a gigantic disaster for the taxpayers at a time when none can afford it. I understand the local news outlets were forbidden to run articles about citizen opposition.
So much for transparency.
What I find remarkable are the progs defending this insanity. In fact, I read a post this morning where Obama’s trip to Copenhagen was described a “noble,” because he’s doing all this to bring jobs to the area.
It’s like jumping into an alternate universe when you read the prog pages.
Good article, pm!
Well apparently, the Obama’s have sacrificed so much for the kids of Chicago.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Michelle-Obama-Its-a-sacrifice-to-travel-to-Europe-to-pitch-for-the-Olympics–For-Oprah-and-the-president-too–But-were-doing-it-for-the-kids-62928957.html
It would be a shame to waste such a noble sacrifice. Is that a close? If it is it has to be the worst one ever.
God, that article made my skin crawl. It is all about her and Barack and their skin color. For God’s sake he didn’t come from some inner city and rise through poverty and neither did she. Why can’t she embrace the whole country at least for once without the brick on her shoulders and be dignified?
I guess flying Air Force 2 and hanging with a billionaire celebrity is a great sacrifice. I still don’t see how it is going to give inner city kids a place to play or ride their bikes. If they want skate parks and bike parks for kids, then they could have done that for less than the fuel it cost to fly the two presidential jets over there. This is getting boring really fast, everything is the same thing now.
Anyone else notice that white people are always accused of racism against black men and not black women?
Isn’t that racist?
Just wondering.
Which kids the ones that killed the innocent bystander with a railroad board? Or is that a code name for their bank accounts?
Well another teenager was badly beaten, according to the article there was blood everywhere.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/10/teen-attacked-in-edgewater.html
They just don’t have enough opportunities. Obama says they don’t like to be labeled, y’know, like calling them street hoods.
Well, they label themselves with a gang name…. that seems to be fine with them…
Wow, she is out of her gourd. And all the readers who commented on that article know it.
I would bet a trip to Copenhagen on Air Force One that she truly doesn’t know the meaning of the word sacrifice. Nor her husband.
Of course the Obamas know the meaning of sacrifice. It is what other people do to enrich Obama’s investors.
Good point. And come to think of it, they seemed satisfied, even proud, to sacrifice democratic principles to “win” the primary, too.
Yep, they are doing us a favor being the president and first lady!
Darn right, Michelle gave up her 300k a year job so that she could spend 1.2 million in jet fuel in a day for the kids sake. Were she not so burdened, she might be POTUS… or better yet she might be the next Oprah. Now, that would be proud. Gosh, we are so darn mean.
They’re “doing it for the kids?!”
What kids? The ones who beat the honor student to death in the street as onlookers–also kids-just stood by and did nothing but gawk at the violence? The honor student is dead; he won’t get to enjoy the “olympics.” And, from what I read in the news about the violence in Chicago, the only “kids” left alive in that city are gang members.
We’re doing it for “the kids.” That’s pathetic Michelle.
it’s such a sacrifice, don’t cha know…
was michelle actually not wearing anymore than that when speaking to the olympic committee? ANYONE WHO THINKS THAT IDIOT KNOWS HOW TO DRESS NEEDS HELP. just because she exercised here upper arms is no excuse to run around the world displaying it all the time. give us a break michelle, you look like a silly board with no common sense or decorum.
HillBuzz boyz are looking for help to keep the Olympics from coming to their city of Chicago:
http://hillbuzz.org/2009/10/01/thursday-open-thread-october-1-2009/
http://hillbuzz.org/2009/09/30/help-us-save-real-actual-jobs-while-the-city-of-chicago-focuses-only-on-olympics-nonsense/
Ginger, great site with names and email addresses of members of the IOC. Now that’s what you call an email blast.
http://hillbuzz.org/2009/10/01/thursday-open-thread-october-1-2009/
According to my sources, Daley is a mere figurehead. He is a bit of a dummy. His father had no confidence in him. If he had then Jr. would have been groomed to be his successor whereas he was not. And it took him 13 years (1976-1989) to acquire the office, despite his name. My point is Daley is not the boss. The elites behind Daley, including the Goose Lake Group which includes the heiress to the Hyatt function, the corrupt banker and a consortium of international interests are the real players from Chicago that pull his strings. Not for nothing is a non coastal city like that, traditionally a blue collar domain known for its stock yards and steel factories now known as an international city. Corruption by any other name is still corruption.
There are many reasons why the International Olympic Committee should NOT hold the 2016 Games in Chicago. But surely, no reason is more compelling that this one:
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=619842
Wow. Detroit and Chicago –the results of decades of Democrat leadership.
What a ridiculous article. So it’s now some moral crime to advocate for a huge infusion of cash into the American economy during a time of economic turmoil? You people do know the Olympics is a huge cash cow, right? Absolutely anything Obama does is some great evil for the kool-aid drinkers here.
Huge cash cow for whom? Do some research before you open your ignorant mouth or read the damn post.
“You people do know the Olympics is a huge cash cow, right?”
Trickle down economics? Ding-bot.
Ding-bot,
Now why didn’t I think of that?
Oh, it’s a cash cow all right. Daley will, no doubt, throw some coins to the peons–you know, the working class who can tell you all about “green shoots” and where you can put them. Daley’s approval rate is sitting in the 35% range, so he’ll grease a few palms and buy a little affection before the next election.
But the really big money? That’ll go to all the wrong people.
And the beat goes on!
To that word of the day “Payback:” Should we be adding “Bribes” to make it two words of the day?
I wonder if Obama & Co. will try to play the race card? If anyone of the IOC members does not fall faint at the charms of Oprah, Michelle and now, The Chosen One, and pick Chicago, well, by gosh, it just might be RACISM!!!
Someone said that prior to the O, the reason no presidents had ever been elcted from Chicgo, was that by the time of the election, they were always under indictment.
Wonder what Blago is thinking.
Let’s hear for Kass and pm317! There are some bona fide journalists out there!
This posted in the wrong place.
Anyone else notice that white people are always accused of racism against black men and not black women?
Isn’t that racist?
Just wondering.
The president his own man? Oh, please. And Daley no doubt has to line up behind all Obama’s other bosses, Dick Durbin, et. al.
Hey, I just realized we now have another Tricky Dick!
HEY! NOW what’d I say to get locked up?
Tess, we don’t know why you end up in spam so much. It is not personal. I have retrieved your comments now.
I am absolutely abject in my gratitude…slavering and grateful.
It has always looked to me that, while I am in spanarama and saying !@#$%, that I have been in pretty good (as we say in Keillorland) company.
Grats.
When the President of Chicago arrives back home with Oprah let’s hope he stays off TV.
At a time like this when he needs “a few more weeks” to figure out Afghanistan, and screwing the public with the Baucus [or other] Healthcare Bill, he is playing sports ambassador for Chicago and how it will grease the coffers for his re-election.
I am beginning to go off the deep end just thinking about this wuss of a pressident.
When the President of Chicago arrives back home with Oprah let’s hope he stays off TV.
At a time like this when he needs “a few more weeks” to figure out Afghanistan, and screwing the public with the Baucus [or other] Healthcare Bill, he is playing sports ambassador for Chicago and how it will grease the coffers for his re-election.
I am beginning to go off the deep end just thinking about this wuss of a president.
News this a.m. – Chicago has been eliminated in the first round of voting in Copenhagen.