This stunning takedown by Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times (linking to several other recent accounts of the Obama collapse) explains how the Chicago political model has failed the 44th President.
A taste …
It’s always useful for Chicago pols to have
White House connections if, say, they’d like to dispatch someone famous
to fly off to Copenhagen to lobby the International Olympic Committee
for their city’s 2016 summer games bid.But the Chicago Daley machine, which is actually a ruthless
coalition of urban Democratic factions united by the steel reinforcing
rods of self-interest, didn’t much care about this Barack Obama
fellow before, as long as he was quiet, obedient and headed on a track
out of town. How he acquired a reform label coming out of that
one-party place is anyone’s guess.But now that the sun has risen on the 386th day of the Obama White
House, many political observers are coming to see that the ex-state
senator from the South Side is running his federal administration in
Washington much the way they run things back home: with a small claque of clout-laden people from the same school who learned
their political trade back in the nation’s No. 3 city, named for an
Indian word for a smelly wild onion.
Enjoy.
