Chicago - A message from the station manager

Tweeting Chicagoland | Episode 6: Building A New Rahm

By Steve Rhodes

In the midst of the most hagiographic treatment yet of our hero mayor, a triumphant Richard M. Daley returns to the scene of his crimes to totally escape even a slightly serious question, instead regaling viewers with bromides about what a great problem-solver he was.
Never mind that the Current Occupant conveniently blames Daley not only for all the problems he inherited, but all the problems he’s created.
In fact, the Chicago that Rahm inherited was so bad – though for two decades Daley was hailed as the greatest mayor the universe had ever produced – that Rahm’s motto, narrator Mark Konkol tells us, could be “Building A New Chicago.”
Could be!
“Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who championed many of the initiatives comprising the plan, is a master of message control and media packaging who attempts to sell his plans as new, even when they’re not,” the Sun-Times reported last June.
“In March, 2012, the mayor unveiled, what he called, ‘Building a New Chicago,’ a $7.3 billion plan to rebuild Chicago’s infrastructure and create 30,000 jobs.
“But it was little more than political packaging by a new administration that had fast become famous for it.
“Most, if not all, of the CTA, water, sewer, parks, schools and City Colleges project had been announced before. So had the $1.7 billion Infrastructure Trust the mayor hoped to use to bankroll some of the projects.”


As I wrote then:
“Rahm can only be a master of message control and media packaging if the media goes along with him. You’re the one he’s controlling!
“The end result is basically writing a story as if it came out of Rahm’s PR shop and then declaring at the end that ‘We’ve been had because he’s really good at this.'”
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Rahm Emanuel approves of this message.
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So I closed their schools.
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Followed by superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett saying that in all hoopla of her week, she had “missed” that. Thanks for bringing that to her attention! (Remember, last week she yada-yada-yada’d the shooting of one of her students.)
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For some reason this wasn’t mentioned while CNN described Rahm’s heroic efforts at solving food deserts.
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Nancy Harty, WBBM Newsradio. (McCarthy’s full response was actually totally on-point; gangbangers have mothers too.)
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Not watching their own show.
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And in the last decade, Chicago has lost 175,000 African Americans – while Hispanics now make up a third of the city’s population. Maybe get up to date, CNN.
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The confusion is really how he won a Pulitzer in the first place.
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You mean he’s cutting the ribbons on Daley’s ill-advised projects out there. Do some friggin’ research, Pulitzer dude.
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Unlike other would-be mayors, who would not be determined but just sit on their ass all day.
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Previously:
* Tweeting Chicagoland | Episode 1: Oh My Lord, I Hate It Already.
* Cracking The Chicagoland Code 1: Docu-Series Or Docu-Wank?
* Tweeting Chicagoland | Episode 2: Brought To You By Allstate, Billy Dec & The Central Office.
* Cracking The Chicagoland Code 2: Fixing The Facts.
* Tweeting Chicagoland | Episode 3: Get Me Rewrite.
* Cracking The Chicagoland Code 3: Our Fact-Challenged Heroes.
* Tweeting Chicagoland | Episode 4: Did We Mention That Rahm Loves (Black) Kids?
* Cracking The Chicagoland Code 4: LollapaRahmza.
* Tweeting Chicagoland | Episode 5: Back To Black.
* Cracking The Chicagoland Code 5: Yada Yada Yada.
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Comments welcome.

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Posted on April 11, 2014