OF THE GOVERNMENT, BY THE GOVERNMENT, AND FOR THE GOVERNMENT

9/19/09

Today’s (i.e., Saturday, 9/19’s) Chicago Sun-Times reports that Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has expressed irritation at the leak of news that the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has issued a subpoena for financial records from Mr. Stroger’s office. Mr. Stroger does not blame Commissioner John Daley, who is chairman of both the County Board finance committee and audit committee, who revealed the existence of the subpoena to fellow commissioners in a memo he sent last week. Mr. Stroger says that Mr. Daley was merely doing his job as audit committee chairman. Instead, Mr. Stroger blames unknown commissioners for putting politics ahead of “what’s good for the government.” (Emphasis mine) Mr. Stroger said, in his usual articulate fashion, that “Committee members probably should have some confidentiality and not immediately call the press. But they are what they are.”

Several points are worthy of note:

--Why doesn’t Mr. Stroger blame Mr. Daley, who was the guy who actually revealed the subpoena to commissioners? We have to assume that Mr. Daley, one of Chicago’s more astute politicians, knows that few on the county Board can keep a secret. Is this hesitance to blame the Mayor’s brother really a consequence of Mr. Stroger’s assessment that Mr. Daley is only doing his job? When did someone’s doing one’s job ever stop Mr. Stroger from criticizing anyone in the past? Could Mr. Stroger’s hesitance to blame Mr. Daley be a reflection of who is really in charge of the County Board? Could Mr. Stroger’s obeisance add credence to those who argue that the Stroger family has been an arm of the Daley family, politically, for two generations?

--Why is John Daley head of both the audit and finance committee? I don’t profess to know a great deal about accounting, but I, many years ago, passed the CPA exam and know enough to teach, with some degree of effectiveness, survey accounting courses to MBA (and similar degree) students. It would seem that having the finance committee and the audit committee report to the same person would be an egregious violation of the most elementary auditing principles.

--Note Mr. Stroger’s words: “I just think some of ‘em (the unnamed leaking commissioners) can’t see the forest because of the trees and they don’t always look out for what’s good for the government.” I doubt if Mr. Stroger has the intellectual horsepower to realize the enormity of that statement. “What’s good for the government”? Since when is what’s good for the government the measure of performance for our public officials? How about what’s good for the citizenry? Apparently, that’s not as important to Mr. Stroger, and to a whole list of far more despicable people throughout history, as what’s good for the government. Was that a mere slip of the tongue on Mr. Stroger’s part, or was it a Freudian slip, revelatory of what this second generation career payroller really thinks is the essence of the function of a public official?