Don’t forget that Obama’s from Chicago
John Fund reminds us that nothing about the current scandals roiling DC should be a surprise: it’s just the Chicago Way at the national level.
There are people who’ve been saying that for many years. After all, Obama is a guy who didn’t have to go to Chicago; he chose to go there and thrived there, cutting his political teeth and impressing even hardened old Chicago hands with his ability to be ruthless. Fund writes:
“The 2008 Obama campaign perpetrated a fraud that he was a reformer,” says Chris Robling, a former journalist who has served as a Republican election commissioner. “All of the complaints ”” from the lack of transparency to HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s shaking down corporations to promote Obamacare ”” stem from the culture of the Daley Machine.” For decades, Robling says, Mayor Daley “encouraged” contributions to his favorite charities, with the implicit understanding that the “encourager” controlled the city’s inspectors and regulators. “That sounds an awful lot like what Sebelius was doing to prop up Obamacare,” Robling notes. “Obama’s ideology may come from Saul Alinsky’s acolytes, but his political tactics come straight from the Daley playbook.” Indeed, friends of Bill Daley, Mayor Daley’s brother, say that one reason Bill left his post as Obama’s White House chief of staff after only one year was that even he thought Team Obama was too much “all politics, all of the time” and not enough about governance.
That’s not all that’s wrong with Obama, of course, but it’s part of what’s going on now, in particular the scandals involving the IRS and to a lesser extent the AP/Rosen problem. Both are about the abuse of power, and that’s classic Chicago stuff. It’s not always well-appreciated that not only Obama, but most of Obama’s closest advisors past and present—wife Michelle, the incredibly influential Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, and Rahm Emanuel (not so involved now, but used to be) are all Chicagoans from way back.
that machine set up in Chicago has ruined the place & *they* refuse to see or acknowledge
this’
Unions have enabled a high school grad to get paid $136,000/yr to retrieve cars abandoned on the expressway, he got his brother in as well but he only makes $86,000
But it s like that in all these Dem cities, big bucks for special people & guns, gangs violence & Obama phones for the unconnected
In a sense, he did have to go to Chicago. That’s where Frank Marshall Davis’ connections were awaiting him.
Penny Pritzker is another Chicago crony connection.
Ooooooh–Guilt By Association! Birds of a feather flock together. Ought to be jail birds.
KLSmith makes a good point: most of Obama’s crew go back a generation or two. Obama’s mom worked for Geithner’s dad. Jarrett’s mother, Barbara T Bowman, founded the Erikson Institute, whose board of directors included Tom Ayers (Bill Ayers’ dad). Jarrett’s former father in law, Vernon Jarrett, was friends with Frank Marshall Davis.
It amazes, does it not, that still today, it is lost on so many that Obama is not about governance — being AWOL during Benghazi was not a failure of Obamaism but a feature. Obama continues as organizer, as political impresario, as capo di tutti capi — he passes and approves on ward healers, apparatchiks, and henchmen, and its up to them to make things work and provide plausible deniability in the event it becomes necessary.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0519-20130519,0,1395725.column
John Kass has some experience with this government mafia approach.
Don’t forget that Obama’s from Chicago
I am reminded of a conversation I had a while back with a partisan Democrat friend who had brought up Herman McCain’s alleged sexual transgressions.
I pointed out that he had voted for Bill Clinton, whose sexual transgressions surely trumped those of Herman McCain. I also pointed out that the alleged victim of Herman McCain lived in the same apartment building as David Axelrod, which suggests some scandal-mongering on Axelrod’s part. I said this was very similar to the scandal-mongering used in 2004 to destroy Jack Ryan and Blair Hull, opponents of Obama in his campaign for the US Senate, by unsealing previously sealed divorce records. I added that this also reminded me of Obama’s getting Alice Palmer and others off the ballot, so that he ran unopposed in his initial primary campaign.
BTW, the friend said he was not unaware of all those acts of the Obama campaign. No surprise there.
This is the profile of a Chicago politician who will do anything to destroy a political opponent- principles be damned. Over a year later, I do not find myself surprised at IRS, Benghazi [electoral politics over truth about foreign policy], snooping into AP and Fox phone and e-mail records. The only difference here and the events I had previously referenced is to add- the law be damned.
Valerie girl’s father funded Barry during his school daze — he established a muslim funded nationally directed scholarship fund.
What a rain maker.
Gringo – Herman McCain?
OlderandWheezier
Gringo — Herman McCain?
Sorry about that. Herman Cain.
This is a good time to revisit the chilling documentary “We Will Not Be Silenced,” by H. Clinton-supporting Democrats who were shell-shocked by the brutal and blatantly illegal thug tactics of the Obama Machine:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/25jhn3t
“This documentary is about the disenfranchising of American citizens by the Democratic Party and the Obama Campaign. We the People have made this film.
“Democrats have sent in their stories from all parts of America. We want to be heard and let the country know how our party has sanctioned the actions of what we feel are Obama Campaign “Chicago Machine” dirty politics.
“We believe this infamous campaign of “change” from Chicago encouraged and created an army to
steal caucus packets,
falsify documents,
change results,
allow unregistered people to vote,
scare and intimidate Hillary supporters,
stalk them,
threaten them,
lock them out of their polling places,
silence their voices, and
stop their right to vote,
which is, of course, all documented in “We Will Not Be Silenced.””
[If any of you have missed this, please go to the link above, which has a hotlink to the video. It’s scary, and it’s something every American citizen needs to see.
Furthermore, since it’s by Democrats, you can send it to “devout” liberals.]
Beverly:
Yes, I’ve thought quite a bit about that during recent weeks. I remember well how those people tried to publicize what had happened, and the MSM and even their fellow-Democrats ignored it. It was still another example of exactly who and what Obama is, and what kind of campaigns he has run.
@ Beverly and Neo: yet I wonder how many of those who complained still voted for him.
BHO is a demagogue, nothing more. He’s too lazy and disinterested to get involved with the details. Jarrett and a handful of others are the schemers who give the actual orders.
As I remarked on another blog shortly after the 2008 election, “We are all Chicagoans now.”
The other McCain obviously. Evil on the Left existed before Obama was born. Evil on the Left existed even before Obama’s father was born.
It runs deeper than might be expected.
:MollyNH:
They see it very well. It was their goal after all.
One cannot have slaves in Chicago if Chicago had a free economy that allowed just anybody to succeed.
Ymarsakar, sadly true….
John Kass wrote a nice Trib piece in 2008 that ended with, I paraphrase, if you want paranoia elect Nixon, if you want sleaze elect Clinton, and if you want corruption elect Obama.
I remember sending it to a good friend who is quite liberal and she got quite upset, she didn’t want to hear it.
Beverly, 4:36 pm — “This is a good time to revisit the chilling documentary ‘We Will Not Be Silenced,’ by H. Clinton-supporting Democrats who were shell-shocked by the brutal and blatantly illegal thug tactics of the Obama Machine:”
—
“WHAT DIFFERENCE, AT THIS POINT, DOES IT MAKE?”
[sarcasm off]
Lois Lerner is another with Chicago/Illinois roots (FEC harassment of Al Salvi, Republican Senate candidate in Illinois).
Both the Leftist Alliance for a Deux ex Machina powered Utopia and an Islamic Peace Under Allah system have certain interesting premises.
1. That the West, meaning us, are too weak to defend ourselves from their advance, so it is time to put us to the wall.
2. That the alliance between the Left and Islam will continue until they have won and get to divide up the spoils (being the slaves, us).
I’m not too certain their assumptions on this strategic level are valid. But at the same time, Americans talking about freedom, are pretty worthless hypocrites when they won’t kill or die for such beliefs. So if the third faction in this war puts action to words, ruthlessness will surpass the meaning the Left and Islam has for it. But if the third faction just gives up and commits suicide, then it’s up to the Left and Islam to fight it out.
And that’s assuming Islam doesn’t just nuke the Left and us while we were fighting each other. That’s always a valid tactic.
For a lot of us the antipathy – OK, downright loathing – towards Obama comes from his radical leftist associations from Alinksy to Ayres to Davis to Rev. Wright. I certainly don’t minimize that but I think in a sense it romanticizes him too much as an idealist even if the ideals are all wrong. At heart he is a bare-knuckles backstabbing Chicago machine pol. Not that the two can’t go together of course.