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?