“WE DON’T WANT NOBODY NOBODY SENT”

12/10/08

Even though time is very short this week and I don’t think I have much original to say on the topic, I feel compelled to comment on the self-induced travails of our esteemed governor.

First, a personal note. A long time ago when I regularly appeared on a political talk show on WLS Radio in Chicago, Blagojevich and I were once placed on the same panel. He was a Congressman at the time and, if you believe those in public life who know, or at least work with (One of the consensus opinions is that no one really knows Rod Blagojevich any more…or at least no one will admit to knowing him.) him, he was a different person at the time. At any rate, Blagojevich and I were really going at each other with a considerable degree of fury; at the time I was pretty much a down the line conservative Republican and he was a Democrat who still had something of a liberal ideological underpinning. As soon as the program was over, he looked at me, shook his head in either frustration or exhaustion, and said “You’re a provocative guy, Quinn.” I said “Thanks, Rod. I appreciate that.” So we know that our governor has, or at least had, a firm grasp of the obvious.

Second, “most” is too strong a word, so I will say that “many” of our public servants in Chicago and its environs are on the take. But the real pros ply their trade with a degree of subtlety and skill that keeps them either actually or effectively out of the reach of the federal government. And they all know sign language when they suspect that they may be under federal scrutiny. Mr. Blagojevich, on the other hand, displayed all the subtlety of a frat boy at a keg party which, come to think of it, is a better analogy than I originally intended. It was not so much the magnitude, which itself was stunning to say the least, of his offenses, but the blatantness of those alleged crimes that shocked even the most hardened observers of our local political scene. Even those of us who have no training in psychology can only conclude that our boy governor not only defines the word “popinjay,” but also seems to be suffering from some kind of psychological handicap far beyond simple narcissism. To put it technically, he is out of his (to use one of what we now know are the favorite words in the Blagojevich household) (fornicating) mind. That seems to be the only logical explanation for such wanton and careless behavior.

Third, I am always amazed by the naiveté of those members of the national media who, whenever something like this forces them to focus on the politics of our town, imagine themselves experts on Chicago politics. No one who has not lived Chicago politics can possibly know Chicago politics. The errors of the national press corps consist not so much of dismissing our politics as unmitigatingly corrupt and then expressing either shock or humor, but, rather, in looking at our politics through an ideological prism. At times like these, conservative Republicans love to emphasize that most (but by no means all; witness George Ryan, et. al.) of the perpetrators are Democrats. The word “liberal” is, if not specifically stated, implied. When the perp is a Republican, like George Ryan, liberal quarters of the media will clearly label him as a Republican with the similarly stated or implied adjective “conservative.” When some politician in this town shows himself or herself to be an effective, even visionary leader, as Mayor Daley often does, as did his father before him, conservative members of the punditocracy love to opine that he or she is a “different kind of Democrat,” or “actually a Republican, if truth be told.”

All such characterizations are balderdash. Party labels are largely meaningless and ideology counts for less than nothing in Chicago. At its best to practitioners of our politics, ideology is a tool, best employed by feigning solidarity, for making allies in Washington who can send money Chicago’s way. At worst it is a hindrance to going about the real business of politics, which is, well, business—making money, accumulating power and prestige, and moving up the ladder by gaining the capacity to do favors that must be returned. To paraphrase one of our greatest presidents, who was not from Chicago (Good thing; he probably would have been eaten alive by the Big Bill Thompsons and the Tony Cermaks who held court in Chicago in his era.), the politics of Chicago is business, or the business of Chicago is politics. To paraphrase another corrupt governor from a faraway land in a faraway time: Ideology? What is that?

Chicago politics is not about ideas or philosophy. It is about getting things done. And those “things” are not all evil. Those instant experts on our politics would do well to spend some time here before looking for pat answers, or gazing in feigned or real bemusement, at the corrupt, but in many ways effective and certainly entertaining, politics of our city.