Edgar and Poshard
ArchPundit
Edgar and Poshard over at the Political State Report
April 2003
What Would He Think Of His City?
Twenty years ago today, Harold Washington became Mayor of the Great City of Chicago. He forever changed the politics of Chicago by fighting and winning against the Machine. An imperfect, but gifted man, Washington set the stage for Chicago’s resurgence. He broke the iron grip of the machine and even with Daley’s operation, it will never be able to silence voices as it once did. To be sure, Daley’s operation sweeps too many problems under the rug and has too much power, but the sheer futility of fighting the Machine before Washington is no comparison.
Strangely, an unknown Republican gadfly running a racist campaign against Washington was Washington’s best commercial. Epton’s campaign theme was "Before it is too late." That campaign slogan sent the message home to black and latino voters that there was hope and Chicago was electric with anticipation.
John Kass recently asked what Washington would think of Chicago today?
Black politics is controlled, the clergy appeased, given vacant lots for a dollar and other development deals. Hispanics are hammered into line with City Hall’s Hispanic Democratic Organization. Whites seek admission for their children into special magnet schools in a two-tiered school system. Business owners are terrified of angering City Hall.Yes, it is efficient. Yes, it is neat.
It is expensive. It is silent.
I wonder what Harold would say.
First, he’d smile and he’d tell the truth. Then he’d tell the Jacksons to kiss his ass.
Exactly 14 years after Washington’s inauguration Mike Royko passed away. Before Washington ever took office, Royko wrote the best summary of Washington’s tenure as Mayor:
Give Washington a break
Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 24,1983
So I told Uncle Chester: Don’t worry, Harold Washington doesn’t want to marry your sister.
That might seem like a strange thing to have to tell somebody about the man who will be the next mayor of Chicago. I never had to tell Uncle Chester that Mayor Daley or Mayor Bilandic wouldn’t marry his sister.
On the other hand, no other mayor, in the long and wild-eyed history of Chicago, has had one attribute of Washington.
He’s black. It appears to be a waste of space to bother pointing that out, since every Chicagoan knows it.
But you can’t write about Harold Washington’s victory without taking note of his skin color.
Yes, he is black. And that fact is going to create a deep psychological depression in many of the white, ethnic, neighborhood people who read this paper in the morning.
Eeek! The next mayor of Chicago is going to be a black man!
Let’s all quiver and quake.
Oh, come on. Let’s all act like sensible, adult human beings.
Let us take note of a few facts about Harold Washington.
First, Washington was born in an era when they still lynched people in some parts of the United States. By “lynched,” I mean they took a black man out of his home, put a rope around his neck and murdered him by hanging. Then they went home to bed knowing they were untouchable because the sheriff helped pull the rope.
Washington suffered through it. God knows how he did that. I think that most of us–white, privileged, the success road wide open to us–might have turned into haters.
Washington didn’t turn into a hater. Instead, he developed a capacity for living with his tormenters and understanding that in the flow of history there are deep valleys and heady peaks.
He fought in World War II. Yes, blacks did that, although you don’t see them in many John Wayne movies. He went to college and got a degree. Then he went to Northwestern University’s law school, at a time when blacks were as common as alligators there.
Had Washington been white, he would have tied in with a good law firm, sat behind his desk, made a good buck and today would be playing golf at a private country club.
But for a black man, even one as bright as Washington, an NU law degree meant that he was just about smart enough to handle divorce cases for impoverished blacks.
Being no dummy, he gravitated toward politics. And the Democratic Party. It may have been pseudo-liberal, but the Democratic Party did offer a black lawyer a chance, meager and piddling as it might be.
And he went somewhere. Come on, admit that, at least, even while you brood about a black man becoming your next mayor.
He became a state legislator. Then a United States congressman.
I’m still enough of an idealist to think that most people who become members of Congress are at least a cut or two above the rest of us.
And even his critics say that as a state legislator and as a U.S. congressman, he was pretty good.
So I ask you: If Jane Byrne is qualified to be mayor of Chicago after holding no higher office than city consumer affairs commissioner, what is the rap on Harold Washington?
And I also ask you: If Richard M. Daley is qualified to be mayor after being a state legislator and state’s attorney of Cook County, what is so unthinkable about a man holding the mayor’s office after being a state legislator and a U.S. congressman?
The fact is, Washington’s credentials for this office exceed those of Byrne, Bilandic, Richard J. Daley, Martin Kennelly, Ed Kelly, Anton Cermak and most of those who have held the office of mayor of Chicago.
Byrne was a minor bureaucrat. Bilandic’s highest office was alderman. Richard J. Daley was the county clerk. Kennelly was a moving company executive. Kelly was a Sanitary District payroller. Cermak was a barely literate but street-smart, hustler.
All became mayor. And nobody was horrified.
But this morning, the majority of Chicagoans–since this city’s majority is white–are gape-jawed at the prospect of Representative Washington becoming mayor.
Relax, please. At least for the moment. There is time to become tense and angry when he fouls up as mayor–as anybody in that miserable job inevitably will do.
Until he fouls up, though, give him a chance. The man is a United States citizen, with roots deeper than most of us have in this country. He is a 60-year-old Chicagoan who has been in politics and government most of his life.
He is a smart, witty, politically savvy old pro. He is far more understanding of the fears and fantasies of Chicago whites than we are of the frustrations of Chicago blacks.
The city isn’t going to slide into the river. The sun will come up today and tomorrow, and your real estate values won’t collapse. History shows that real estate values in a town like Chicago go up and up, over the long haul, no matter who is mayor.
He’ll fire a police superintendent, hire a new one, and the earth won’t shake under us.
He might hire some jerks. I haven’t seen a mayor who hasn’t. They don’t learn. Two days before Lady Jane was first elected, I wrote: “How she does will depend on the kind of people she surrounds herself with.”
She surrounded herself with Charlie Swibel and other bums and got what she deserved.
If Washington is smart, which I think he is, he’ll surround himself with the very best talents and minds available. And they’re available. If not, we’ll survive and we’ll throw him out.
Meanwhile, don’t get hysterical. As I wrote four years ago, if we survived Bilandic, we can survive Jane Byrne.
And if we survived Jane, we easily can survive Harold Washington.
Who knows, we might even wind up liking him.
Pseudophedrine is my friend
And not for making meth. I’ll be back Wednesday or Thursday with a lot to catch up on.
While I’m gone–go to Tim Lambert’s. There will be a quiz.
Santorum Hasn’t Denied the Quote Has He?
An interesting tidbit from Agape Press:
Meanwhile, Fox News reports that some Republican sources are raising concerns about the Associated Press reporter who first quoted Santorum and continues to report on the conflict. Her name is Lara Jakes Jordan. Her husband is Jim Jordan, a former official with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee who now heads Democratic Senator John Kerry’s campaign for president.
I haven’t heard any denials of the quotes–did I miss something or is Fox News trying to smear the reporter? It is especially interesting given the reporters comments during the interview:
AP: I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it’s sort of freaking me out.
To me, the reporter stopped him before he went too far. Often, reporters talk about the urge to get a public official to shut up when they venture into stupid land. My sense is the reporter did exactly that above and redirected Santorum away from a huge gaffe so attacking her would be strange to say the least.
Lotta Satire
Reynolds has a new flack for himself–and it is perfect. Truly perfect. Go now, I’ll be here when you get back. It is better than Lileks!
Lotta Correcting
I’m thinking we should nickname Tim Lambert ‘Tenacious T’ for his work exposing the multitude of issues surrounding John Lott and gun stats. (a modification of Ted Barlow’s joke)
Tim Lambert notes in comments below a couple issues:
First, the mission statement has not changed. Kopel and Reynolds just misrepresented it in their original article.
Groan…I try and give Reynolds the benefit of the doubt, but apparently even simple issues are too tough to get right.
Second, the committee is supposed to evaluate the existing research, so it is better if Kleck is not on the committee so that the committee can objectively examine Kleck’s work. (It is hard to be objective about your own work.) They have actually had Kleck talk to them twice.
This is a good point and really it fits well with the idea of what I wrote earlier. Given they are speaking to Kleck (twice), I think that may be the best strategy. Kleck, like most social scientists, tends to view his work in the best light.
Third, I agree that Civiletti should not be on the panel. He actually resigned from the panel without ever it would seem attending a meeting.
ROTFL–well there goes the boogeyman.
One should be skeptical of boards and the such, but the cynical view that Reynolds and Kopel are promoting fundamentally misunderstands how research should be done. I’m not naive enough to believe that the ideal always happens, but ideological balance is a silly mantra in this case. It may well be that the Board does a poor job, but there are many explanations why that might or might not happen–only one of which is ideology.
Check out today’s update over at Tim’s. He comments on Reynolds’ update concerning a gentleman who claims Lott would never be invited. Reynolds should be feeling foolish today given that Lott presented to the panel on January 16th of 2002.
The hint that this guy was a prankster or kook should have come from this comment:
(I should state that the study director was a typical liberal type – goatee, whiny voice, upset at the stolen election – much like most of the people I encountered there (except the goatee…)
And of course, everyone is still waiting for evidence that Steven Levitt is anti-gun–or that everyone besides James Q. Wilson is ‘entirely anti-gun’.
Column Trainwreck
Joyce Morrison jumps in with both feet over at the Illinois Leader.
I’m not even sure where to begin, so go read it and be amused.
Lotta Weighting
And that isn’t a good thing. Instead of trying to explain what has already been done relatively well, check out Tim Lambert’s posts on the problems with Lott’s weighting.
The essence is regardless of how Lott did this, Lott screwed it up. At some point Lott is just chasing his own tail.
Where is the Movement on the Burge Case?
The Special Prosecutor in the John Burge case has not made any visible progress and some are starting to ask questions about it. Burge is a former Chicago Police Commander who allegedly tortured a number of suspects:
Burge’s investigative methods were said to be brutal and sadistic. During the late 1970s and the 1980s dozens of African-Americans detained at Area 2 reported that they were suffocated with plastic bags, forced to engage in "games" of Russian roulette, had electric shocks applied to their ears or their testicles and were held against heated radiators and burned.
While the Burge case is a tough one due to physical evidence being largely non-existent and the passage to time the authors bring up important points:
But what has the special prosecutor accomplished in the year since his appointment? And, in particular, why has that prosecutor (from all appearances) failed to use his grand jury subpoena power to force police witnesses–including Burge and his underlings–to tell what they know about whether Area 2 police officers tortured citizens in their custody and whether they have lied and covered up the torture?If the special prosecutor would aggressively use his grand jury subpoena power, he might succeed in unraveling the questions surrounding Burge. We have no doubt that there are many good police officers who deplore those crimes. With assurance that an aggressive, no-nonsense investigation is underway, some of them may be willing to breach the police "code of silence" and reveal new information about Burge, his alleged practices and how secrets were kept. This investigation will be a failure if Egan does no more than methodically collect documents and ask victims to repeat their accounts of being tortured. The point here is to prosecute the torturers. If that does not happen, Egan will have muffed an important, historic opportunity to do justice.
If they’re good enough to die over there, they’re good enough to
be American citizens. Ed Burke is starting an initiative to grant citizenship to those who serve the United States in the armed forces.