Althouse: "Famously vindictive, [Rahm Emanuel] alienated the local press and others, turning those who might have helped him into enemies."

December 16, 2015

"Famously vindictive, [Rahm Emanuel] alienated the local press and others, turning those who might have helped him into enemies."

"He also brought a Washington-style spin-control mindset to Chicago. In Washington, an army of apparatchiks and a compliant media lets politicians like Obama create a reality bubble. In national politics, perception is often reality. But in local government, reality is reality. The West Side isn’t Benghazi. The people who live in Chicago can walk out their front doors and see for themselves what’s going on."

From "The Fall of Rahm Emanuel/Chicago’s bullyboy mayor will never change," by Aaron M. Renn.

24 comments:

Michael K said...: Rahm is getting a hard lesson. Bullshit works better on a larger area since the smell is diluted.; 12/16/15, 11:36 AM
Chuck said...: Well the West Side of Chicago is sort of like Benghazi. People dying, Democrats mismanaging it, blaming the wrong things, then spinning the life out of the bad news.; 12/16/15, 11:37 AM
buwaya said...: "But in local government, reality is reality."

Exceptions here are certainly San Francisco, and very likely the state of California.; 12/16/15, 11:49 AM
mccullough said...: The police department hates him and has a strong union. Rahm's a suburban kid who thinks he's tough. He's not.; 12/16/15, 11:57 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Rahm is corrupt, but he's not the problem in Chicago. The problem is one party Democratic rule. That system breeds corruption.; 12/16/15, 11:59 AM
Rick said...: Emanuel’s leadership style came with fatal flaws. A political streetfighter by inclination, he lacks an operational orientation.

He's so focused on politics he believes performance is secondary - until its failure threatens him politically. It's no wonder Obama loved him.; 12/16/15, 12:16 PM
pst314 said...: "It didn’t have to be this way. Emanuel was elected mayor in 2011 as the handpicked successor to the flagging Richard M. Daley.

"Flagging" is a euphemism for "hopelessly corrupt and incompetent". So much so that too many voters noticed.

"...He entered office like a whirlwind, giving the city a badly needed jolt of energy. Immediately putting his Rolodex to work, Emanuel jawboned major corporate CEOs into committing to add thousands of jobs in Chicago. He announced an innovative financing program called the Chicago Infrastructure Trust with former president Bill Clinton. He made a push for a longer school day in the mayorally controlled CPS. He unveiled a major legacy project in the form of a lavish $100 million Riverwalk."

In other words, more money for cronies, more debt for taxpayers. He had no solutions, only BS rhetoric for the public.

Being a bully is not what has done Emanuel in: Daley and the Chicago Machine were always a gang of bullies--basically a criminal gang. What is killing Emanuel is that the dysfunction has reached levels that can no longer be ignored. Rahm may be a bit less skillful than Daley at "managing" people, but his true misfortune is to be mayor at the moment when the city was beginning to reach the "this can't go on" stage.

"Tiny Dancer" (as Chicago cops call him) won't be able to dance out of this.; 12/16/15, 12:32 PM
Brando said...: Everyone loves the attack dog until it turns on them. Maybe next time take a look at what sort of people you have on your side and consider whether they're just too dangerous.; 12/16/15, 12:39 PM
Gusty Winds said...: Chicago and Rahm Emanuel are both getting from each other, exactly what they deserve.; 12/16/15, 12:47 PM
Richard Dolan said...: All the criticism of Rahm-bo rings true, but it's also beside the point in terms of solving Chicago's problems. Getting rid of him will accomplish nothing but a change of personalities, and it would probably be for the worse in terms of dealing with Chicago's problems. It's a one-party city beholden to the various interest groups that make up the Dem party, and there's no way out of its problems without getting many of those interest groups angry (or worse). Unlike NYC, for instance, it's impossible to imagine a Rep winning the mayoralty in Chicago. WR Mead has been chronicling the problems of the 'blue social model' for some time, and Chicago is the prime example of what's he's talking about. The threatened strike by the Chicago teachers' union is just a further demonstration of the problem.

It's hard to imagine a Dem politician who would be able to get elected and still do something about it. Like NYC in the 1970s, Chicago may need a state-imposed fiscal control board empowered to take charge of the finances. Not likely to happen in Illinois, though, since the state is in at least as bad shape financially as is Chicago. All of which shows why the problem in Chicago is intractable.

Things will stay that way until the voters finally figure out that the current approach (and the current one-party system) is making everything worse. Whether Rahm stays or goes is beside the point (unless the only point is that Rahm deserves what he is getting).; 12/16/15, 12:49 PM
cubanbob said...: The only thing that will save Chicago is a bankruptcy filing and the appointment of a trustee to run the city with the authority to void the union contracts and having the ability to clean house of unneeded staffing. Actually that is pretty much true of all the major US cities particularly those that have run by Democrats for decades.; 12/16/15, 12:58 PM
mikee said...: Chicago got what it wanted in their Mayor. However, it needed somebody quite different.

Corrupt dictatorships, and Chicago is pretty close to being just that, end badly. I don't expect the next mayor of Chicago to have an easy time doing anything, from filling potholes to running schools to distributing graft - I mean grants - to paying pensions. And that is because Emmanuel and Daley before him ran Chicago to benefit friends and hurt enemies, rather than as a city government.; 12/16/15, 12:58 PM
Birkel said...: Reality is always reality. Some of us knew reality when we saw it in 2008.; 12/16/15, 1:28 PM
Birkel said...: Maybe if they rearrange the deck chairs just so, the Titanic will make port.

Maybe if they elect another Democrat mayor, Chicago won't file for bankruptcy.; 12/16/15, 1:34 PM
gerry said...: If this were a communist national government they could blame Chicago's coming collapse on hoarders and speculators and ship persons with a record revealing conservative opinions off to a concentration camp somewhere.

Elites like Rahm would be able to jet off to Cuba and not have a worry in the world.

Heck, once you are a progressive elitist, you can live high on the hog while others suffer and die and not give it a second thought.; 12/16/15, 2:06 PM
gerry said...: Birkel's comment of reality brought this article to mind.; 12/16/15, 2:08 PM
rehajm said...: In national politics, perception is often reality

People with this perception are the ones having difficulty with the Trump reality.; 12/16/15, 2:28 PM
Big Mike said...: @buwaya, Madison seems to be another exception. Maybe it's something in the brats.; 12/16/15, 3:29 PM
Sam's Hideout said...: Michael Bloomberg changed his party registration from Democrat to Republican in 2001 to get around the Democratic establishment in his first run for mayor of New York City. Could that work in Chicago? For that to work, there would have to be someone who people would elect but are being blocked by the city's political establishment. Can a mayor make that much of a difference?; 12/16/15, 4:35 PM
Rusty said...: Just to get this straight. He didn't piss off the people of Chicago. He pissed off the people who depend on the graft the city generates.; 12/16/15, 4:49 PM
iowan2 said...: The thought proccess on the goings on in Chicago go like this. The people of Chicago know exactly who they voted for, what he represented and who he is, at his core. So? Why are they so surprised the Rahm is being Rahm? Carry that through to the Presidential race. Everyone knows Clinton's wife, how she operates, her lies and disassembly of facts, her raw exercise of power for the sake of power and the rewarding of favors to here acolytes. No one talks about Clintons wife firing civil employees at the White House travel office. Firing working class grunts, doing a days work for a days pay, no glory, not getting rich. Just because Clintons wife could fire them, and, and, she needed to reward her acolytes,
So everyone knows the stuff these dirty slimy pols do on a daily basis, their needs that someone will fill with personal sacrifice and cost.
So knowing all of this, why would you elect them to ever higher levels of power.......to abuse.; 12/16/15, 7:41 PM
Seeing Red said...: If Houston keeps growing, Chicago will drop to the 4th largest city in the country. They know who they vote for. Votes have consequences.; 12/16/15, 9:15 PM
Carnifex said...: Richard Dolan said--Things will stay that way until the voters finally figure out that the current approach (and the current one-party system) is making everything worse.

Do you think that the black population will actually walk itself off the Democrat plantation?

There are successfully run Democratic strongholds, for example, San Francisco, Seattle...Then there are other run Democratic cities. Washington, Detroit... It's all there in black and white for those who can see.; 12/17/15, 2:11 AM
Fiftyville said...: So perhaps Second City will move to New York and retitle itself "First City".; 12/17/15, 11:37 AM