By Steve Rhodes
As I was thinking about how to write-up today’s column about the latest goofiness from our mayor, my mind drifted back to last night’s episode of Real Housewives of New York City.
Stay with me on this.
The “housewives” finally realized last night that castmate Kelly Bensimon is stone-cold crazy.
Now, I’ve never thought that Richard M. Daley was crazy. Just venal.
And when I first read about his “joke” – or whatever it was – about putting a rifle up Reader reporter Mick Dumke’s butt yesterday and pulling the trigger, well, I just figured it was Daley being Daley. You know, an asshole.
But the rest of the mayor’s comments make less sense than Bensimon thinking her fellow housewives are channeling Satan and trying to kill her.
Consider:
DUMKE: You talked about the gun violence that still has gone on but the gun ban here is still in effect so how effective has it been? People still have guns.
DALEY: It’s been very effective.
Huh?
Now, if Daley wanted to say, “Look, violence in the city would be even worse if you could buy guns just down the corner,” he could try to make that argument. He might be asked to supply some evidence, but still.
Instead, Daley said this: “If I put this up your – heh – your butt – heh, heh – you’ll find out how effective this is. If I put a round up your – heh, heh.”
I understand that Daley was trying to evade the question, but just play along for a second: How in the world would firing a round up Mick Dumke’s ass show how effective Chicago’s gun ban is?
(God, Mick, me and every other reporter in town envies you to the hilt for being the subject of such a question. I gotta start going to these things and get me some of that . . .)
Okay, now let’s give the mayor the benefit of the doubt – a bad joke, let’s say – and move on to the serious portion of his comments.
“This gun saved many lives – it could save your life.”
Isn’t that an argument against you, mayor? If that gun has saved many lives – and could save ours – shouldn’t we be allowed to have it by our side in our own home? Instead, you took the gun off the street!
“We save all these guns that the police department seizes, you know how many lives we’ve saved? You don’t realize it. First of all, they’re taking these guns out of someone’s hands.”
So you’re saying that taking that gun off the street is what’s saved lives.
But then how does this make sense?
“You have to have confidence in the Supreme Court. Maybe they’ll see the light of day. Maybe one of them will have an incident and they’ll change their mind overnight, going to and from work.”
I guess that means that maybe a justice will be shot and they’ll decide to allow cities to ban guns. Or it could mean they’ll wish they had a gun to defend themselves. After all, they say a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.
Or maybe they’ll stick a rifle up Mick Dumke’s ass and fire a round just to see what happens. Maybe Mick is channeling Satan and trying to kill them.
Curiously, neither the Tribune nor the Sun-Times named Dumke in their reports about the incident, nor the possible latent hostility Daley could be feeling toward Dumke and the Reader for blowing the cover off the mayor’s shadow budget and parking lease mayhem.
Later, propaganda minister Jackie Heard made a fool of herself because of her inability to simply admit that her tyrannical boss said a stupid thing.
“Asked about the mayor’s remark later,” the Sun-Times reports, “mayoral press secretary Jacquelyn Heard said Daley was somewhat exasperated because ‘the person asking the question was missing the point that unrestricted guns are a devastating issue’ for Chicago.'”
Huh? So the problem was Dumke’s exasperating failure to understand that the all-knowing mayor’s point of view was unassailable fact that ought not be questioned?
“To illustrate the point,” Heard continued, “he offered what admittedly could be considered a less than ideal example, but it’s one that is a stark reminder of how destructive gun violence has been.”
A stark reminder of how destructive a gun up your butt could be?
The Tribune added this from Heard: “I think he hasn’t thought twice about it. Since the moment he left (the news conference), he has been on to the next thing and the next thing, because that’s how his life is.”
How in what way? Say stupid things and move on?
It’s all very ha-ha until you realize that it’s impossible to have a reasonable discussion with this man. He’s not only banned guns in Chicago, he’s banned democracy. No questions allowed or he’ll pop a cap in your ass. (How does the mayor spend his time while on the job? None of your business.)
“Daley has been a bully his entire life, a child of muscle and privilege, and now he’s terrified at the prospect that his citizens might think he’s lost control of the streets,” John Kass writes today.
“The police despise him. Their department is terribly understaffed and overworked. Taxpayers want more cops. But there’s no money for additional police because Daley wasted it all, hundreds of millions of dollars year after year after year on deals for his cronies.”
What BGA executive director Andy Shaw writes today in the Sun-Times about the upcoming Blagojevich trial is just as apropos about the Daley administration:
“For a ‘culture of corruption’ to survive and thrive, as it has here in Illinois, you need enablers who aid the perpetrators, minions who go along to get along and a cast of inside characters who know that something’s amiss but do nothing about it . . .
“Until more people say ‘enough is enough’ by quitting or blowing the whistle or telling the emperors they have no clothes, the corruption will continue.
“So enjoy the perverse entertainment value of the Blagojevich trial, if you must. It’s hard to resist. But don’t forget the incredibly high stakes: The fragile fabric of a political system that’s been tattered and torn from years of neglect and abuse – a system in desperate need of heroes to join the restoration effort.”
You could say the same thing about The Daley Show. It really isn’t funny.
Lobby Farm
Illinois taxpayers paid lobbyists nearly $6.4 million to influence their own state government last year.
Triple Crown Trough
Blame stupid humans – not the horses – for a 32-year drought.
Roeper’s Games
“For real people who bet enough to expose themselves to both thrill and heartache, gambling is work,” our very own David Rutter writes. “Gambling without real risk is a joke. Hubert and Fats weren’t joking.”
American Craft Beer Week
Featuring the goals and ideals of our country.
Song of the Moment
Heaven and Hell.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Ideal.
Posted on May 21, 2010